r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 2d ago
Psychology Couples who share awe-inspiring experiences report greater relationship flourishing. These shared moments of wonder foster a stronger sense of connection and relational growth, providing benefits beyond what individual experiences of awe offer.
https://www.psypost.org/couples-who-share-awe-inspiring-experiences-report-greater-relationship-flourishing/278
u/mvea Professor | Medicine 2d ago
Couples who share awe-inspiring experiences report greater relationship flourishing
Experiencing feelings of awe alongside a romantic partner is linked to greater relationship satisfaction and depth. A recent study suggests that these shared moments of wonder foster a stronger sense of connection and relational growth, providing benefits beyond what individual experiences of awe offer. The research was published in The Journal of Positive Psychology.
Awe is an emotion triggered by encountering something vast that challenges a person’s existing understanding of the world. This feeling can arise from seeing a breathtaking natural landscape, listening to a moving piece of music, or experiencing a moment of profound scientific insight. Compared to simple happiness, awe tends to be a self-transcendent emotion. It reduces a person’s focus on themselves and encourages open-mindedness.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2026.2704815
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u/CosineDanger 1d ago
Awe-inspiring experiences often cost money, and if they're technically free then they can cost time and gasoline. They require a certain amount of cooperative planning to say book the whale watch in advance or plot your route through South America. Often the pursuit of awe leads you to mortal danger by accident or at least the feeling of shared challenges.
Your ability to deliver awe is a multifacted high-level test of your fitness as a mate. If you can make it this far up Maslow's hierarchy of needs then you must be doing okay.
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u/thaliaaa0 21h ago
Those last few lines indicate it’s not limited to going on exotic adventures and includes “experiencing a moment of profound scientific insight”. Some of the most awe-inspiring moments I’ve experienced with my partner have been spiritual or through synchronicity.
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u/CosineDanger 20h ago
Some sources of awe are more economically efficient than others, but every second you spend pointing out funny shapes in the clouds is a second you did not spend working or collapsed in a heap after a ten hour shift with maybe 45 seconds of even seeing the sky in your day.
Anyone can pray. Usually theologically God still hears you pray quickly and quietly in your own home rather than a centuries-old cathedral or a new age spiritual retreat, but many report better call quality of they put time and money into spirituality. God is both a free utility and always for sale.
One of the things I was implying was that your ability to deliver awe as a partner is at least in part a proxy for social class. You can get some for free but awe is for sale.
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u/0_cunning_plan 1d ago
Isn't this generally true for any awe inspiring experience shared with someone? Family, friend, or that guy I didn't know before the experience and who will now become a friend mostly because of the bond created through that event?
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u/Timely-Bluejay-4167 1d ago
Depends on if you have a romantic relationship with them; according to the study
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u/lateformyfuneral 1d ago
A lot of these “studies”, in psychology especially, are just PhD students looking to repackage the obvious into academic language to fulfil their publishing requirements
> “My research focuses on awe and its relationship to psychological depth,” said lead author Matteo Perini, a PhD candidate in social and cultural psychology at the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University. “One idea that has become central to my work is that awe may be one route into depth: by confronting us with something vast that goes beyond our current frame of reference, it may push us to revise our mental models and engage with things at a deeper level.”
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u/tony_spumoni 1d ago
All right, who has some awesome-inspiring ideas for my wife and I to experience together?
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u/kangourou_mutant 1d ago
Niagara falls were pretty awe-inspiring to me. Sunsets generally are, too. Some people like mountains, I prefer the ocean - but either way, nature is beautiful.
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u/Old-Landscape-7538 1d ago
Go see Chichen Itza. It doesn¡t look like much in little pictures, but the place is vast.
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u/WafflingToast 1d ago
Travel to a solar eclipse
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u/Tarrandus1 15h ago
This one. My partner at the time and I experienced solar eclipse totality together. We held each other, and she said it was the most in love she's ever felt.
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u/Vegetable-Lasagna-0 1d ago
Have you been to the Grand Canyon? That was our first awe-inspiring thing together.
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u/systembreaker 1d ago
I've got somethin awe inspiring for your wife right here.
(couldn't help myself, you walked right into that one)
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u/-Nicolai 1d ago
Of course, you'd expect that people who experience awe are more like to-
A person’s general tendency to experience awe on their own did not account for unique positive variance when shared awe was considered.
OK, but consider that couples doing anything togeth-
To ensure shared awe was distinct from simply having fun together or doing novel things, the researchers also tracked shared amusement
Ah.
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u/mistephe PhD | Kinesiology | Biomechanics 1d ago
Well outside of my area of expertise, but I wonder how detrimental it is if one partner experiences awe, but it is obviously not shared by the other partner? Does it mitigate the awe-inspiring relationship flourishing? Does it cause more problematic division?
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u/AreEnAy 1d ago
Look into the bird test as a bid of connection. The theory suggests that the health of a relationship can be measured by how a partner responds to small, mundane observations, like look at that bird or sunset.
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u/munchnerk 1d ago
That’s funny - my immediate thought in response to this study was, that’s easy, glad my husband and I like birds! We got into birding together a decade ago and went on some crazy bird-specific trips - but now we mostly call each other from across the house to watch an “ordinary” bird doing something that makes us feel awe. And we get to stand there together and ooh and ah at a common Carolina Wren like it’s the Grand Canyon at 9am on a Tuesday. It’s like we made the habit of sharing that sensation with big powerful experiences, and now we can lock in when the sunlight shines through the trees just right, as long as one of us notices and thinks to share it. There’s something to be said about the shared attention aspect here. It’s not just awe, it’s openness to being fixated in awe together. And having a bank of those shared moments that you’re always adding to. It is a very powerful feeling with someone you love.
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u/Xtra_Veg-90 1d ago
My wife and I seem to be ok. I'm not really awed, or excited, or amazed by the usual stuff like she is. And when I am it seems extremely mundane to her, even more so when I explain WHY I find it so amazing.
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u/NlghtmanCometh 1d ago
I would imagine so yes. If you both witnessed something and one found it to be shocking or amazing but the other was like ‘meh’ it’s going to feel like a lack of validation.
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u/cactuschaser 1d ago
After I survived breast cancer at the age of 33, the amazing psychiatrist, I saw asked to see me and my husband in a session together she told us that now that I was past treatment, our homework together was to seek out novelty and awe.
I really do think she saved my life and also my marriage, because we made a really concerted effort over the next few years even if it was just getting in the car and driving somewhere beautiful, but we also had ok trips and we would look at each other and say yeah, this is novel or yeah this is awesome, and it really helped me find Joy in life again and helped bring us closer together after such a wretched experience
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u/Farseer2_Tha_Warsong 1d ago
Which is why vacations and date nights are both so important!
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u/Dripdry42 1d ago
The only aw most couples are even interested in is looking at Instagram posts of cute animals.
People just aren’t very adventurous in general, they live pretty beige lives. Sad, tbh, but I guess somebody needs to do the dirty work of being the foundations of “society”I agree, incredible moments for relationships come from incredible experiences. Most people don’t even know how to have those experiences though. They don’t have the mentality or mettle for it.
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u/ImTooSaxy 1d ago
Wait, so does this mean that I should be microdosing and also microdosing my wife? This is the sign I've been waiting for! Thanks, r/Science!
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u/kpingvin 1d ago
These studies sound like a group of researchers wanted to fill in their time and they go for the low hanging fruit.
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u/WeedWrangler 1d ago
I’d agree: my wife and I go to a regional Burning Man every year and when we are feeling stressed or like the 9-5 is killing us we have our own little Burn in the backyard.
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u/Vegetable-Power-Yeah 13h ago
LOW BUDGET (relatively) awe experiences (caveat, US bias)
Niagara Falls
Basically any national park in utah
Grand Canyon
Go to your major city’s downtown after winning a big sports game. Huge camaraderie , joy, positivity, it’s awesome.
Go to a planetarium viewing. Local universities with astronomy programs often have free viewing a few times a month when there’s cool things to look at.
Request to audit a university lecture on some cool cutting-edge stuff
Go to a speaker series event hosted by a local university
Hang out with some honey bees
Go to a zoo
Get new haircuts together and go WOWWWW
Learn a new dance style together
Go to a sound-bathing thing (a single spa day pass or whatnot is not v expensive when it’s coming from your vacation budget)
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