Musical Awe: Appraisal Models and Complex Emotional Experiences

Background

A proposed model for the emotion of awe suggests that musical awe may be experienced through an encounter with music that is perceived as vast (significantly larger than oneself where one feels small in comparison) and requires a need for a change in existing mental schemas—known as accommodation (Keltner & Haidt, 2003). Ancillary appraisals, namely those of beauty, ability, and threat are thought to shape the hedonic tone of the emotion and account for the variety found in experiences of musically-induced awe. Awe has also been proposed as a reaction to the sublime, comprised of joy and fear (Konečni, 2005). Within this understanding, musical awe is part of an Aesthetic Trinity that is accompanied by feelings of chills/thrills as well as being moved. Currently there is a lack of empirical research into musical awe to support these proposed models.

Aims

The aims of this study were to gather experiences of musical awe to empirically test proposed appraisal models, evaluate commonalities in experiences, and derive a better characterization and understanding of musical awe.

Method

Online questionnaires used a modified version of the Geneva Appraisal Questionnaire (Scherer, 2001) and were collected from the general public (N = 70). Participants were asked if they have experienced awe (defined as ‘a combination of appreciation of beauty surprise and possibly fear’) in response to music and to describe their experience in their own words. Based on their accounts of awe, participants rated the music for vastness and ancillary appraisals through psychometric scales.

Results

Participants identified previous powerful experiences of music as inducing awe, with 96 percent reporting to have experienced awe from music. Participants’ vivid recollections described highly intense yet pleasurable experiences with beautiful and virtuosic music. These recollections detailed diverse musical genres and settings. Music that produced awe was perceived as large, supporting proposed appraisal models of awe and promotes further empirical investigations into music’s relation to perceptions of size. Participants also reported an increase in their enjoyment and engagement with the music due to their emotional state. Few participants described their experience as fearful, however chills were reported during most experiences of awe.

Conclusions

Musical awe was found to be a complex emotional experience that is not perceived as fearsome but has retained its sense of power from its perception of vastness. These positive associations suggest that musical awe may be a particular reaction to the sublime that is formed through music’s vastness, beauty, and virtuosity and is closely related to states of being moved. Vastness will be the specific target of future investigations as it will be examined in relation to the production and perception of musical size.

References

Keltner, D. & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 17(2), 297-314. doi:10.1080/02699930302297

Konečni, V. J. (2005). The aesthetic trinity: Awe, being moved, thrills. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 5(2), 27-44.

Scherer, K. R. (2001). Appraisal considered as a process of multi-level sequential checking. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research (pp. 92-120). Oxford: OUP.

Keywords: awe, emotion, music psychology