Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Julie Hicks Patrick

Committee Co-Chair

Amy Gentzler

Committee Member

Amy Gentzler

Committee Member

Kevin Larkin

Abstract

Fredrickson’s (1998, 2013) broaden and build theory states that positive emotions can expand our social and cognitive awareness and provide health benefits. Some positive emotions, such as awe, may operate differently. We sought to understand how subjective reports of awe, induced through videos, correlate with HR. We know that HR tends to decrease with age (Umetani et al., 1998), individuals have less physiological reactivity as they age (Blanchard-Fields, 2007), and older adults report more positive emotions than negative emotions (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998). Given these findings, we were interested in understanding whether there were age differences in self-reported awe and HR during an awe induction. Our sample consisted of 20 women in two age groups: early mid-life (M age = 43.1) and later mid-life adults (M age = 61.9). Participants watched both a neutral and an awe-inducing video while we assessed continuous HR. Participants provided self-reported awe at multiple points throughout the protocol. There was a significant correlation between HR during the awe video and self-reported awe immediately following the awe video (r = -.447, p = .024), supporting our first hypothesis. We did not find support for our second hypothesis in that we did not find age differences in self-reported awe following the awe video (U = 63.95, p = .295) or HR during (U = 27.00, p = .095) or after (U = 31.00, p =.175) the awe video. Our findings suggest that higher levels of awe might be associated with lower HR. Future studies with increased sample sizes should disentangle the effects of video order and emotion induction. Additional indices of HR and increased diversity in sample characteristics will also be informative.

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