Experiencing awe, a feeling of wonder or admiration, increases the odds of a person believing in mystical elements.
Piecarlo Valdesolo of Claremont McKenna College and his colleague Jesse Graham of the University of South California found that awe-inspiring moments like the sight of the Grand Canyon in Arizona or the Aurora Borealis might increase people's tendency to believe in God or the supernatural.
"Many historical accounts of religious epiphanies and revelations seem to involve the experience of being awe-struck by the beauty, strength or size of a divine being, and these experiences change the way people understand and think about the world," psychological scientist Valdesolo said in a statement. "We wanted to test the exact opposite prediction: It's not that the presence of the supernatural elicits awe, it's that awe elicits the perception of the presence of the supernatural."
Researchers tested the prediction by having participants watch scenes from BBC's "Planet Earth" documentary series or video clips from a news interview. Afterwards, the participants were asked how much awe they experienced while watching the video and whether they believed worldly events unfold according to some god's or other non-human entity's plan.
The study showed that participants who saw the documentary, which was selected by the researchers because of its awe-inspiring potential, tended to believe in supernatural control and were more likely to believe in God when compared to the news-watching group.
In a second experiment in the same study, participants who watched awe-inspiring clips became increasingly intolerant of uncertainty. This particular mindset -- a discomfort with uncertainty -- may explain why feelings of awe produce a greater belief in the supernatural.
"The irony in this is that gazing upon things that we know to be formed by natural causes, such as the jaw-dropping expanse of the Grand Canyon, pushes us to explain them as the product of supernatural causes," Valdesolo said.
The findings could shed light on why certain individuals seek to explain the world through secular and scientific means. Valdesolo said the experience of awe may motivate people to search for explanations, no matter what kinds of explanations they are.
