<\/p>\n
Awe is a natural response to \u2018larger than life\u2019 events. Two things characterise an experience of awe: a perception of the world\u2019s \u00a0vastness and an inability to assimilate new information.<\/p>\n
In the experiment, 91 four- and five-year-olds were shown one of three animal videos. The first was an \u201cawe\u201d video \u2013 clips from the BBC\u2019s Planet Earth<\/em>. The second was a \u201chappy\u201d video \u2013 clips of animals doing funny things from the BBC\u2019s A Walk on the Wildside<\/em>. The third was a \u201ccalm\u201d video \u2013 small animals living normally in nature.<\/p>\n After watching one of these videos, the children were asked to complete a \u2018smallness of self\u2019 task that involved selecting from a series of differently sized circles in response to the question, \u201cLet\u2019s think about the video we just watched. Could you take this pointer and show me which circle best shows how big or small you feel right now?\u201d<\/p>\n Next the children were presented with an early learning task. An adult demonstrated and then gave them a toy that makes a noise. The child\u2019s interaction with the toy was observed and measured.<\/p>\n Children who had watched the \u201cawe\u201d video were likely to explore the toy with more variability than were children who watched the other videos, though only by a small margin. Meanwhile, children who selected smaller circles (who felt smaller and were more awestruck) explored the toy with more variability by a larger margin.<\/p>\n Earlier research has shown that experiences of uncertainty stimulate learning in young children \u2013 when they are surprised by something or encounter a counterintuitive cause-and-effect incident. Meanwhile, awestruck adults have been shown to have greater awareness of their own ignorance, a stronger interest in the world around them and a stronger motivation to learn. Being awestruck has also been found to be associated with a variety of different perspectives \u2013 more interest in volunteering to help others, more patience, more open-mindedness, less certainty about decisions and more ability to shift awareness from day-to-day concerns to wider matters.<\/p>\n The researchers conclude, \u201cWhile play may be awesome, we believe awe can also be playful.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0Colantonio JA & Bonawitz E (2018), Awesome play: Awe increases preschooler\u2019s exploration and discovery<\/a>. In Kalish C, Rau M, Zhu J & Rogers TT (Eds.), Proceedings of the 40th<\/sup> Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers recommend further work to understand whether awe can help improve early learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":9502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435,5780],"tags":[32,400],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9469"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17956,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9469\/revisions\/17956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/childandfamilyblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}References<\/h4>\n