Not everything can be counted: how awe enhances perceptions of immeasurability

Awe arises in reaction to events or objects that exceed our expectancies, such as vast landscapes, breathtaking sunsets, or mind-blowing ideas (Gocłowska, M. A., Elliot, A. J., van Elk, M., Bulska, D., Thorstenson, C. A., & Baas, M. (2023). Awe arises in reaction to exceeded rather than disconfirmed expectancies. Emotion, 23(1), 15-29.; Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297-314.Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2), 297-314.). Little psychological research has investigated how experiencing awe influences people's epistemic beliefs (e.g. beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the process of knowing). To achieve this, we tested how awe affects people's subjective sense of immeasurability, defined as a perception that conventional measures, such as words or numbers, are inadequate to describe aspects of the world around us (e.g. the beauty of nature). Across one correlational study and three experiments (N = 596, collected between 2024 and 2025), we investigated the relationship between awe and immeasurability. We found that manipulated awe increased people's sense of immeasurability of the beauty of nature. In the final experiment, this effect was explained by the extent to which the awe experience was seen as exceeding (but not disconfirming) expectancies. These findings provide new insights into how awe affects people's epistemic beliefs.