On Wisdom

Episode 20: The Science of Awe (with Dacher Keltner)



August 20th, 2019  •  58 mins 8 secs  •  Download (26.6 MB)  •  Link with Timestamp

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What exactly is ‘awe’ and does it bring us, as individuals or as a society, any benefit? Dacher Keltner joins Igor and Charles to discuss why Canadians feel differently about awe than the Chinese, how to take an ‘awe walk’, why emotions vary across historical time, and the importance of experiencing diverse emotions and how to balance them, while the 'Dacher-Guesses-Emotions' game reveals the alarmingly fine line between disgust and desire. Igor digs into controversies over different theories of emotion, Dacher talks of inequality and elation as the new frontiers of social psychology, and Charles learns that awe may play a key role in the very process of scientific discovery itself. Welcome to Episode 20.