Awe is vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0078, within the Emotion family. The core principle: vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly. 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
Vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly.
Plain-English Definition
Vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly.
Feynman Explanation
Awe is humility delivered as goosebumps.
Core Principle
Vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly.
Mechanisms
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Awe is humility delivered as goosebumps.
Examples
- Standing under a redwood resets what 'big' means.
- Cathedral-scale missions retain talent better than cash equivalents.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it operates in the Cognition dimension — how do we think?. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: awe is humility delivered as goosebumps. Every element in the Cognition 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, demos that produce awe accelerate adoption past rational evaluation. It is amplified whenever cathedral-scale missions retain talent better than cash equivalents. Inside organizations that shows up as cathedral-scale missions retain talent better than cash equivalents. 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 audit decisions made in the 24 hours after an awe event. Design against it the way you would design against a known failure mode — assume it will appear, and price the exploit before someone finds it.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Audit decisions made in the 24 hours after an awe event.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
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The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Audit decisions made in the 24 hours after an awe event.
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.
Anticipated harm narrows attention and accelerates action.
Positive self-evaluation tied to recognized achievement.
Painful self-evaluation against a social standard.
Clear ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.
Asymmetric information attracts the worst counterparties.
We defer to perceived expertise, rank, or uniform.
Negative feedback returns a system toward a target.
Membership in a group is a baseline human need.
Individually rational choices that produce a collectively bad outcome.
We seek tasks where we feel effective and improving.
Competing loyalties that compromise judgment.
Value is judged against whatever sits next to it.
Where Awe is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Awe
- What is Awe?
- Awe is vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0078, within the Emotion family. The core principle: vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly. 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?
- Cathedral-scale missions retain talent better than cash equivalents. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0078).
- How is Awe exploited?
- Demos that produce awe accelerate adoption past rational evaluation.
- How do you design around Awe?
- Audit decisions made in the 24 hours after an awe event.
- Which behavioral dimension does Awe belong to?
- Awe is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Emotion", class "Concept". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0078 and its evidence grade is C.