Awe (Keltner) is dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality. It sits in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-EMO-0002, within the Social family. The core principle: dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality.
Plain-English Definition
Dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality.
Feynman Explanation
Smaller self, bigger world.
Core Principle
Dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Smaller self, bigger world.
Examples
- Keltner's lab studies on nature, music, and 'collective effervescence.'
- Culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: smaller self, bigger world. Every element in the Emotion dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams. It is amplified whenever culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams. Inside organizations that shows up as culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to build awe walks (15 min, looking up and out) into the executive routine. The leverage is not in explaining the behavior to people. It is in changing what the behavior earns.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Build awe walks (15 min, looking up and out) into the executive routine.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Build awe walks (15 min, looking up and out) into the executive routine.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Predicting how we will feel in the future, usually inaccurately.
The drive to explore and understand for its own sake.
Emotional states distort cognition and decision-making.
When the limbic system overrides higher cognition and behavior follows ancient circuits, not chosen values.
The capacity to recognize, understand, and manage emotions — your own and others'.
Negative emotions fade faster than positive ones.
A strategy to influence behavior by amplifying fear and uncertainty.
Effects of an intervention spread to other areas beyond the intended target.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Where Awe (Keltner) is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayWe Change to Avoid Pain
The affective engine behind most organizational change.
- ReferenceThe Lab's philosophy
Filter, anchor, condition safety.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Awe (Keltner)
- What is Awe (Keltner)?
- Awe (Keltner) is dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality. It sits in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-EMO-0002, within the Social family. The core principle: dacher Keltner's research: the emotion of encountering vastness reliably reduces self-focus and inflammation, and increases prosociality. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Awe (Keltner)?
- Culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-EMO-0002).
- How is Awe (Keltner) exploited?
- Culture rituals; reducing ego-driven friction in leadership teams.
- How do you design around Awe (Keltner)?
- Build awe walks (15 min, looking up and out) into the executive routine.
- Which behavioral dimension does Awe (Keltner) belong to?
- Awe (Keltner) is classified in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Social", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-EMO-0002 and its evidence grade is B.