How Awe Influences Sustainable Behavior and Well-Being   

Transcript generated by an AI tool and lightly edited for clarity. 
 

Hi everyone and welcome to Breakthroughs A Knowledge at HEC Podcast. This is the second of our monthly podcast, this academic year. I'm Daniel Brown, the school's head of Research Communication. This month we invite one of HEC newest academics to talk about a growing phenomenon. He's been studying for quite a few years.  
 

All my name is Craig l Anderson, and I'm an assistant professor of marketing at Asay Paris. A WE three letters, which when you put them together, create a word with long roots into old English and Scandinavian Norse according to which cultural background you're from. All can provoke, veneration and wonder, or it can stimulate feelings of dread, even terror.  
 

So I think a lot. About the contrast between banality and wonder, between disengagement and radiant ecstasy. Darwin said Attention if sudden and close graduates in surprise and this and into astonishing and this into stupefied amazement. That's what rapture is. That's what illumination is. That's what that sort of infinite comprehending awe that human beings.  
 

Love so much in the past decades, it's also been at the heart of scientific and marketing studies, which explore ways of using it to understand customers or heal people. The eyes widen, the eyebrows rise and the mouth opens what is, and you can't go back and change it. It's about seeing things that are bigger than you.  
 

An extract of a National Geographic documentary called Arctic Cure. This film soon to arrive in France is on using all to help heal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. This is often experienced by war veterans, the world over. It was partly inspired by the research of our guests this month, Craig Anderson, whom you heard earlier.  
 

We'll come back to the documentary later. Awe can have a great number of cognitive, social, and physiological benefits, which have been fascinating. Craig, for over 10 years. The marketing professor recently co-signed an important research paper titled Culture and Awe. Understanding Awe is a Mixed Emotion.  
 

We caught up with the American academic in his HEC campus office to better understand his approach, HEC breakthroughs. My expertise is in affective of science. I'm really interested in the emotions that people feel and how they regulate their emotions and how that impacts things like. Their social relationships, their wellbeing, and the decisions that they make.  
 

And so there's a lot of overlap between the emotions that we feel and how we behave as consumers. That's the space that I operate in as a researcher. So that's where it links to the marketing departments, because you just mentioned the word consumers. And so these emotions play an important role in terms of marketing, strategy, vision, approach.  
 

That's right. How consumers make decisions about, avoiding risk, doing things that they like and that they feel fulfilling. And on the other side of that, how can brands and firms do things in ways that kind of bolster consumer wellbeing? 'cause we like doing that too. Now you indicate that the study of oil is important in the context of CSR issues like greenhouse gas emissions water conservation donations, waste reduction.  
 

I could go on, I think. But before deep diving into the research paper that you brought out recently that I talked about earlier, could you tell us why is it that all is important in the context of CSR issues? Sure. So awe is an example of what we call a self transcendent emotions. Now that's in contrast with emotions maybe like anxiety or feeling sorry for ourself where we focus on ourselves and our problems.  
 

With self transcendent emotions, our attention turns away from ourselves and our. E egotistical concerns and we pay attention more to the others around us and what their needs are. So there's evidence that awe promotes. Pro-social behavior. So when people feel awe, they're more likely to help others.  
 

And now the current state of the literature is we're extending that out to the environment. Examining how awe might make people be more likely to do things that helps the environment. And that brings me naturally to my next question, which is this link that you bring to analogy and that might be difficult for listeners to grasp.  
 

But here's an example linked to sustainability. The Newie Genes company that saved over 4,000 meters of used denims from a landfill. And the analogy that's used is that they could have covered an entire American football field with those denims. Describe how analogy. Comes into your research?  
 

Yeah. That's a great question because analogies at first glance don't seem like a super emotional context. The thing about the challenges we face in with climate in the environment is that they're on a vast scale, and we're going to need big solutions to make traction on those problems. But the problem as I see it, is the way that we see.  
 

These solutions presented to consumers. It's on scales and has numbers that people don't easily understand. So 4,000 tons of denim, 27,000 acres of forest right at face value that feels. Good. It feels impressive, but I argue that people can't really understand that without giving them more context.  
 

Another way to say that is consumers don't understand how vast these. Corporate social responsibility initiatives are, and vastness is something that predicts awe. So the idea behind this work is that by presenting this information with a way that helps consumers understand the scope and understand that vastness helps them wrap their mind around it more fully, find it more awe inspiring, and then that will in turn.  
 

Promote some of those pro-environmental behaviors, being more willing to pay for sustainable products, for example. But we need to get over that real fast because all is well awesome. An extract of a 2018 D news report. But why? Why did we ever evolve this feeling maybe to help other people, so say some research.  
 

So what happens when we experience awe? For one, it might make us healthier. One study published in the Journal of Motion researchers found that awe reduces the levels of pro-inflammatory proteins called cytokines. These proteins tell the immune system to work harder, which can cause prolonged inflammation, which can cause all sorts of issues like heart damage, diabetes, Alzheimer's, and even depression, which of course, depression might lead people to be less likely to explore and seek out awe.  
 

So the researchers aren't sure which came first. The low cytokines or the positive emotion. Craig Anderson. Let's turn now to your research, especially one dimension that you entitled Culture and Awe. In a recent paper, this was published by Effective Science and it was subtitled. Understanding awe as a mixed emotion and mixed is very important I think in this subtitle.  
 

Effective Science is an American publication on emotion in general as a science that brings together different disciplines. Biological behavioral methodologies, human animal models, and both healthy and patient populations. In this paper, your research suggests that all can evoke both positive and negative feelings with its exact nature shaped by cultural backgrounds.  
 

And you and your six colleagues explore this duality. Focusing on how all is experienced in the United States and China. I hope I've summed it up more or less correctly. Craig why choose those two cultural entities, China and the United States? Yeah. In cultural, psychological work, Western versus Eastern is.  
 

Kind of the easiest comparison. It's the first comparison that comes to researchers' minds. 'Cause there's lots of interesting ways that societies are structured differently in how individuals think about their place in society that are different. North American versus Chinese is a very common comparison.  
 

One of the reasons is what's called dialectical thinking. So Chinese people tend to be able to hold. Things that are opposites more readily in their mind together at their same time. So instead of black or white, maybe shades of gray. And I, as an American myself, I think it's fair to say that Americans are more black or white.  
 

So they're less likely to be comfortable holding two opposite thoughts in their mind at the same time. And this sort of idea is reflected in our findings. So when we showed participants the exact same. Awe inspiring stimulus. So an impressive video of vast mountain peaks. Americans had almost an exclusively positive awe reaction to that.  
 

The Chinese participants reported more of a negative or mixed emotion. So in addition to saying yes, that's awe inspiring. They also reported. A little bit of fear to go along with that. The study's premise is rooted in the evolution of a, as a mixed emotion one that contains both feelings of admiration and fear.  
 

And as you said, Americans increasingly view a, as a positive life affirming emotion, and black and white in some ways tied to beauty, art, and nature. As a researcher in marketing, in the marketing department, how do you link this all with the marketing of products linked to beauty, for example? Sure. I think it's fair to say that the way that we've studied awe to this point in the scientific literature has taken a mostly, let's say, western sort of bias.  
 

So thinking about Oz. An exclusively positive experience. So I see this paper as a positive step towards understanding how the experience of awe is different around the world, how different cultures have different lenses to, to understand these emotions, and it follows that if. Researchers maybe who are looking to do CSR initiatives, want to leverage the emotion of awe.  
 

I think it's going to be important to be mindful of how cultures experience it differently. And of course they're probably mindful of the fact that there are a lot more than just two of cultures apart from these two economic superpowers. Our first piece of evidence that awe is universally.  
 

Experience actually comes from language. Jennifer Stellar, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, so we can find many different words for awe. I've shown you a snippet here from Chinese, German, Russian, Hindi, Hebrew, but this is just a small sample of the many languages that incorporate or include a word for awe.  
 

In addition, we also have new work coming outta Facebook, thanks to Dacker collaboration from 122 different countries. And in this we find that people use pictorial representations of all, which I've shown you at the top of the screen, to communicate with their friends, with their family, even with strangers.  
 

The point I wanna show you here is that it is being used. Across many different nations. So there's this idea that we have some form of communicating all, whether it's language, whether it's these cute pictures here across many different cultures. Craig, how much do they know about each other's approach towards awe?  
 

Again, I'm, this is a hypothetical thought of mind that the Chinese are perhaps more aware of the American approach towards awe and its expressions through marketing or CSR than the other way round. I think that's probably true. A lot of the culture, our pop music, for example, tends to.  
 

To flow more one way than the other. I think it's also true, and this has become apparent to me having moved to Europe that people view Americans as very enthusiastic and very positive. People assume that they feel and express more positive emotions than other cultures. And I also think it's true that Americans maybe appreciate less.  
 

How an experience like, like awe might be different in other cultures. So the words they use to express the emotion translates to fearful respect. And we don't have a word for that. We just simply don't have a word for that in English in American English. So I think there's a lot of work to be done on helping people be fluent in other people's emotions.  
 

A knowledge at. In general, it seems that all for the past 15 years has been recognized as something that can improve wellbeing and foster greater connection to others and reducing stress at least in the United States context encouraging prosocial behavior as you said earlier. So why does it remain relatively new and relatively unknown still to this day?  
 

So affective science, the study of emotions has been around for a long time and kind of the earliest versions of that studied what's thought of as the basic emotions, right? The big obvious ones like disgust, fear, anger. Joy is a positive one, and the reason that understanding awe lagged behind is not because people weren't interested in awesome experiences.  
 

It was just approached in a different way. So the idea of the sublime we've had that in the philosophical. Literature for centuries, even the study of awe inspiring leaders in social movements. But I think the reason why the science of awe has made so much progress in the last 15 and 20 years is the decision to situate it in this emotion literature.  
 

Now you have this rich constellation of other emotionals. States that you can compare a to in a very principled way so that you have really focused findings. So if you want to see if a promotes prosociality, you can compare it to other positive emotions like joy and amusement or compassion. And if awe does promote prosociality.  
 

Above and beyond those other positive states, then you have a really compelling story about what AWE does differently from these other distinct emotional states. And so situating awe in the emotion literature, I think is the reason we've seen this big uptick in scientific empirical work on. Craig Anderson, you've been researching all for 13 of the 21 years, more or less that it's existed in its current fashion.  
 

It really began in Berkeley where you did your doctorate, your PhD, and I even found a clip of an exchange called How Scientists Measure Awe in the Wild That goes back to 2016. Let's listen to a little extract. Okay. To give you a quick sampling of these findings. The subject of my dissertation was how genes are related to emotion expression.  
 

And we indeed found that dopamine receptor gene predicted the awe that people reported and also different narratives that emerged from their diaries. With the veterans that we looked at, we saw almost a 30% decrease in PTSD, which is a huge effect. I suspect that will get a little smaller as we gather more.  
 

But still this is a compelling pattern that we want to explore. And finally, in both of the samples across the board, we saw people reporting less stress one week after they went on a whitewater rafting trip. Craig, how has your approach evolved since that exchange that you did nine years ago?  
 

At uc, Berkeley I think the most striking change is the advances that technology have made. So back then in Berkeley, I was talking about research that I did on people who went whitewater rafting. So youth from underserved communities and military veterans. Two populations that we know are very highly at risk and don't have enough access to mental and physical healthcare.  
 

I wanted to see if and how awe that they felt on these white water rafting trips was related to alleviations of their symptoms like PTSD and stress. So just like we talked before, if you're interested in knowing if somebody is feeling an emotion, there are different ways you can measure that. So of course I would ask them, Hey, how much awe did you feel on the raft?  
 

I also collected. Physiological measures. So I collected saliva and measured things like cortisol before and after the trip, and I also managed to set up GoPro cameras with suction cups. They were on the front of the raft. Looking back aimed back at the people in that raft, me and a team of research assistants, we coded over 1300 expressions of emotion in the face, in the voice.  
 

From that footage, and we only looked at. Just a small percentage of it, a new technology. What would it have brought you in 2024 if you had to do it all over again? More recently we have this operation Arctic Cure, right? We're gonna come onto that in a moment. In a moment, right? Where I take this same approach, right?  
 

We ask people about their emotions. We have physiology and we have emotion expressions in the face and the voice. Now when I did that work, first of all, I used automatic facial coding software. So instead of coding 1300 expressions by hand, I could feed the videos into a. A program and it does it for me.  
 

Wearable physiology didn't exist when I did this whitewater rafting work. In the documentary you'll see, I was able to look at the quality of sleep, heart rate variability. So those technologies have made it even easier to do this type of work. I wouldn't say it's easy work. But using these sort of physiological measures.  
 

Is getting easier by the day, but the basic theoretical approaches are pretty much identical between what you did in 2016 and nowadays That's right. The theory is the same. So the relationship between awe and wellbeing, those hypotheses are the same. How we know people express on the face and the voice, that's all the same, but the technology is giving us ways to.  
 

Look at these questions or approach it in new contexts and in new exciting ways. Let's turn to this much more recent experience where you were looking at the healing effect of the emotion of our on US veterans post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD and this resulted in your involvement in the National Geographic documentary Operation Arctic Cure.  
 

This covered a project by a journalist called Bob Woodruff, who accompanied a group of veterans on a voyage to the Arctic in pretty terrible conditions. To test all as a possible cure for PTSD is an extract. I look at blue sky. There's blue sky. What? Everything's changing. What a day, man, this has been incredible.  
 

With awe. You have these oceanic feelings of being connected to humanity or all of earth. So it's that piece of being small but connected.  
 

Craig Anderson, how did you get involved in this film? I think it's really thanks to the whitewater rafting work that I did, so many years ago. Bob Woodruff has really dedicated a lot of his time and his resources to helping veterans who experience a lot of the. The traumatic brain injuries that he was dealing with.  
 

But he got hit himself by a meile. That's right. He suffered a terrible brain injury and it took him many years to regain his functionality. But even to this day, and he talks about this, he still experiences difficulties. So that was the impetus for this project was he wanted to get other military veterans out into the outdoors.  
 

Really one of the most amazing trips you can think of, going to the highest peak in North America in these hostile conditions and seeing the Northern Lights. So he was interested in whether this could help veterans. They became aware of my work and said, Hey, let's bring the science in and see if we can quantify.  
 

The effect that this experience has in the symptoms that veterans are experiencing and what's going on in their bodies when they're doing things like seeing the Northern Lights. Okay. Science is always proven to be very slow process, but can you already have an idea of the conclusions? Did it help? Yeah, so I've looked at all of the data and it was five people right on a trip, so we're not going to get a lot of.  
 

Statistically significant differences, right? In science these days, we know it's very important to have big sample sizes. So I was, I went into this project tempering my expectations, but nevertheless, I was really. Blown away by some of the some of the patterns that I found. First of all, with just this limited number of people, we did see statistically significant differences in some of the symptoms they were reporting, and then more descriptively just seeing people's physiology improve.  
 

So they're. Cortisol profile improved from before. The trip to after was just really impressive to me. It really reaffirmed the importance of having these big awe inspiring experiences for people and what a big an effect it can have on their lives, their ability to function. Now that's, look at that one.  
 

That one's like now the bands. Yeah. We did three different tests to do, we took these little tubes and spit in 'em. Uhhuh collected this for cortisol. It's the stress hormones, so you can track what's happening during the day. Does it go up? Does it go you? You're relaxing, you're still stressed out.  
 

So that's one thing we can measure. The other one is we had the chance to really just take diaries and then give our thoughts to the lens in our tents, and that really shows what the. You know what your facial expressions are, and they indicate also your feelings of awe, also the impact on your mind, the snow capped mountains.  
 

The eyes widen, the eyebrows rise and the mouth opens. And then we also have, were around our chest here to measure our heart rate, to see what that meant too when you're going through this. Can you take some of this experience and integrate it into your own research? Or it's just confirming things that you were suspecting, or did it open up new avenues?  
 

It got me excited in some of the measurement possibilities, right? So many of us are wearing, wearable physiology monitors these days, right? So the possibility to better understand the things we do. In our lives, not just awe inspiring things and the effects that it has on our bodies I think is a relatively untapped source of really cool data.  
 

Now, one thing that I always keep in mind is that awe is something that's not just. For whitewater rafting. It's not just for going to Mount Thor and seeing the Northern Lights. So a lot of my work now is looking to see how we can bring awe and how it impacts our day-to-day lives when we're given information about sustainability, for example, because it's that day to day life, right?  
 

That's. When a lot of really important things happen, that's where most of our life happens. So that's where I'm interested in now HEC Breakthroughs and Knowledge at HEC Podcast United States and for our year. European friends, if you don't know a lot about Craig Anderson, you organized an OR workshop in September of this year, which brought together practitioners and marketing and academics also in cognitive sciences.  
 

And these participants shared their investigations on consumer psychology and behavior. How did it go for you? It went amazing. It was something that had been looking forward to for a long time. So not only doing something really unique in visiting San Chappelle before it opened to the public, but then afterward being able to talk about my favorite thing in a room full of some of the smartest people that I know.  
 

I told everyone, it was like Christmas for me and just like my kids. I was up at five in the morning, just ready to go, ready to get it all. Started. Yeah. You mentioned that you began by organizing a private visit to this church called Santa Chappelle at the heart of Paris. It was King Louis the ninth private church in the 13th century.  
 

You were going way back and it's famous for these upper walls that were made of over a. Thousand stained glass windows. So I hope our listeners are as much in awe as you were by looking at them. What was the point in kick starting the workshop with this visit? Yeah. One of the joys of studying something like awe is you get to do.  
 

On awesome things like going whitewater rafting, like going to San Chappelle, and I think it's important to mix things like that into the science so that we don't lose sight, of the phenomenon that we're actually interested in. If you just sit behind the computer and look at numbers, it's easy to lose that qualitative piece, that phenomenological piece of the emotion that's so powerful and interesting.  
 

So I wanted to get everybody on the same page before we talked about the science. Our HEC reporters, Celine, has joined us here in your office. Craig Celine, you actually went along with the group of researchers and you recco you recorded a couple of reactions. Celine, as an outsider looking in.  
 

What impact did this physical experience of awe have on you? What I could feel was beauty. So I don't know if beauty was all, I cannot say I felt self-transcendence or any spiritual. Experience because maybe because I visited plenty of churches in France in Europe. But maybe I feel more all in front of work or artworks that are that make me uncomfortable.  
 

Because this challenge my perspective of the world and I feel more, oh, and I can connect dots in front of a documentary or something else, but it was beautiful. Any reaction to Celine's reaction? I would be interested in studying how the French experience of awe differs from the American experience.  
 

I think there's this cultural issue of the depth of history. Which perhaps articulates itself around the church that maybe North Americans will find a lot more new than Europeans. Certainly. And of course, the King's and the church play kind of a mixed role in French history.  
 

I personally found it. Awe inspiring. First from just the kind of the way that we entered the chapel. So we ascended through this very narrow winding stone staircase, and I'm a tall man, so I was hunched over slowly going up and it just opens into this. Beautiful cathedral with soaring, stained glass.  
 

So I think that experience of being very confined and then suddenly opening up that's a physical vastness that I think really contributed to my own awe. And how did the experience of starting a conference, a workshop like that actually have consequences on what went on after, where you sat down around a table and all of a sudden plunged into a much more theoretical exchange and discussion about awe?  
 

Yeah I think the energy was really good. Probably the majority were North Americans that had just flown in and they're all jet lagged. Everybody paid attention. Everybody was really engaged and excited. Connections were made. So I think it had its intended effect. It got everybody on the same page and it was a really nice workshop Afterwards, one of the guests was Francine Peterson of the University of Lausanne.  
 

She puts a, in the context of luxury brands in her research. She also detects cultural differences between Asian and American people and suggests this should be taken into account in. Adverts on luxury goods. How much does this echo your own conclusions? How did you respond to her research?  
 

When I tell people I'm interested in awe in marketing context, often they'll think of luxury first. So luxury brands, high luxury products of course definitely relevant to awe. So I was really excited when. Moved to Europe to connect with people like Francine to better understand how that works.  
 

I don't think that there is a wrong context to study Awe, and I think all of it, both the good effects and the bad effects or the unintended effects, all contributes to our understanding of this emotion. That has shaped how we understand ourselves and our place in the world. I think the more we understand it, the better and luxury brands is one way that we can do that.  
 

HEC breakthroughs prepared to be amazed by some outstanding dives in breathtaking super slow motion experience the artistry of these elite divers. As they showcase their flawless technique in captivating detail. Another of the guests, let's get right at this workshop was representing Stuy from Tilburg University.  
 

And she presented something called The Pace of Awesome, how fast and slow motion makes the ordinary awe inspiring and this kind of rhythm and pace is something that she works a lot on. She published a paper called The Arts of Slowness also quite recently. What contribution did you retain in her presentation?  
 

Yeah, so I think one of the limitations of the existing work on awe. We talk about vastness, right? And so far researchers have only looked at things that are physically vast. So these obvious things like nature or outer space. But if you look closely at that ketner and height paper, when they talk about vastness, it means just getting out of the frame of reference [00:33:00] that we're used to.  
 

That can be physical, but it can also be other dimensions like. Time, or it can be motion, or maybe even social power. These are all different kinds of vastness that can lead to awe. So the interesting thing about the work I'm doing with Annika is that is this idea that fast and slow motion can reveal movements that previously we were unable to detect movements that are too fast to fully perceive in real time.  
 

Slow motion helps us see that, and that makes us feel awe. So you can think of an athlete doing a complex movement, slowing that down helps us, again, fully wrap our minds around it, and we find that awe inspiring. And the cool thing about this paper is the polar opposite of slow motion, fast motion. Does the same thing when it reveals processes that are usually too slow for us to seal and see in real time.  
 

So the leaves changing or plants growing fast. Motion helps us see it. It reveals that to us and that helps us feel awe. Celine, let me turn back to you. You've covered several conferences and workshops here at HCC Paris. When I exchange with Craig, it all seems quite clear and not too much in the ivory tower of theoretical approaches that.  
 

I think you and I have felt in the past in these conferences at times. First of all, how clear was it having spent the day at the workshop what they were talking about and what kind of impact could you imagine this approach on emotions through awe could have in the society? Yes, I totally agree with you that it was very clear.  
 

Craig is very good at explaining his research and also the other researchers present. Were also very clear because one purpose of this workshop and that I think everyone had in mind is to  bridge a gap or to make connections between researchers. And practitioners in the field of marketing.  
 

So what I find also fascinating with that topic is that in general the feeling of o is impacting everyone because you can use or feeling to heal, to foster curiosity, and hence learning to foster altruism to foster maybe a sustainable consumption one day, maybe soon. So that was also fascinating. And so the topic is good.  
 

The workshop was a good bridge between. Practitioners and academics and I Oh yes. And nobody impact through these connections. Like Jenny said, Jenny has a 20 years experience in marketing. She say that. Be careful be ethical in marketing. Be careful about how you use the emotion of all. Wait, Craig, remind us who Joanie is.  
 

So Jeanie deem is a friend who has two decades worth of experience in marketing. So consulting with some of the biggest brands that there are. Coming back to you, Celine. Yeah. So Jenny, she explained that it is very common for marketers to not be aware of research. And she was honest about it. So maybe we know it, but she said it out loud and she put the finger of the importance of marketers to be more aware of researchers and to be more, more in contact with them and also for researchers to be to.  
 

To be more in contact with the practitioners and about the importance herself, these kind of events and podcast. Great. Do you think she retained some of the interesting lessons? Do you share some of those insights? I think she's right on and the point Jeanie makes is also well taken.  
 

There's always concern that when you do. Marketing research on awe. Our firms that maybe don't have. The best interest of their consumers in mind, might they use that to then manipulate people. And that's a valid concern. Of course, the field of marketing doesn't have the best track record when it comes to those sorts of things.  
 

But I think that the point Jeanie was making is that the things that make people feel awe often are things that are sacred to them. In their lives. It can be nature for me, for example, it can be religion it can be children and family coming together as groups. So companies that try to manipulate or use those levers in an antisocial way.  
 

Are perhaps in for a rude surprise. I think people are sensitive to that and I think that the backlash would be severe. Putting on this conference was a way for me to help generate interest and get other. Marketing researchers and academics on board with this topic. So that is phase one of my plan and phase two and [00:38:00] kind of the final thought that I left the group with was because it was a room full of people that not only are good researchers, but I believe that's dedicated to using research for the greater good to the extent that oz and emotion that we associate with some of the most important.  
 

And sacred things in our lives. I think it can be an important agent for change as we strive against challenges like climate change and social inequality. So I remain optimistic that, this work like this can help us move towards those goals. Craig Anderson, we're coming to the end of this podcast exchange.  
 

What are your current research directions or papers that you're working on? A lot of what I'm doing right now in this moment are broadening our research ideas of what ah is and how we experience it. So I mentioned already a lot of the literature before has this bias of. Associating it only with positive things and a lot of it was just nature.  
 

That's our American sort of bias is nature is awesome. So the work I'm doing now is looking at how other dimensions of vastness can make us feel a too, so broadening our idea of all the different ways we can experience awe. Once we have a better idea of that, then. We can use that information to use awe as a lever to shape consumer behavior, whether it's being more likely to support, sustainability and buying sustainable products, right?  
 

Getting people to act in a more self transcendent way or maybe supporting a healthier and more sustainable society that is less. Unequal. So that's my hope for this literature in this vein of research as we move forward. And you arrived here at HCC Paris a little over a year now from Washington University in St.  
 

Louis, Missouri. How does research in your research approach compare in these two continents? It's been a great pleasure. Coming to Europe, first of all, being able to connect with people like Francine who study luxury brands, and of course Annika as well. It was just this amazing group of researchers that weren't on my map, to be frank, when I was in St.  
 

Louis, Missouri. It's also been enlightening. Personally, when I talk about awe in the United States, people generally understand it, but coming to a place where. It doesn't translate as easily has made me think very carefully about, how I explain it to others and that there are other perspectives and experiences of awe.  
 

That's what that paper was about to begin with. So I think it's been really good to broaden my perspective on the issue. Thank you very much. Alright. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you. HEC Assistant Professor Craig Anderson, and I'm sure he'll be able to enjoy some of the outstanding White River rafting that France and Europe can offer maybe to further enrich his research on awe.  
 

I'm thinking of places like the Verdo or Italy's, ADI River, for example. That's it for this month's Breakthroughs, our regular knowledge at HEC podcasts. My thanks to Celine Bunten for her contribution to the program. Next month we talk to professors Daniel Martinez and Keith Robson. They share their respective research on the politics of language in accounting.  
 
Until then, goodbye.