AWE

: exploring its role in work satisfaction, task performance and pro-environmental behavior intentions

Abstract

Awe arises in the presence of vastness and challenges people’s current frame of reference, resulting in the need for accommodation. Awe is a powerful and complex emotion that significantly affects numerous outcomes related to well-being, cognition, and behavior. Despite increasing popularity in psychology, awe has largely been overlooked in the organizational domain. Even so, positive emotions predict organizational outcomes like job satisfaction and performance. There are suggestions on the elicitors and outcomes of awe in the workplace, but little is known about its effectiveness towards work satisfaction and task performance. Awe is also associated with pro-environmental behavior, but inconsistency in the current literature regarding causal factors of sustainable behavior merits further investigation. In the organizational context, it is suggested that work satisfaction is a predictor of employees’ sustainable behavior. Pro-environmental behavior contributes to individual and organizational performance and, ultimately, to human society. The present work aims to investigate the role of awe in the workplace. A comparison with amusement is drawn, offering insight into the potential of awe toward well-being and efficacy. An experimental design involving the presentation of emotion-evoking video stimuli is followed, requiring the validation of awe evoking video stimuli, which is done in Study 1. Study 2 explores the effects of awe on work satisfaction, task performance, and pro-environmental behavior intentions. The relationship between domain satisfaction and intentions towards pro-environmental behavior is also assessed. While no significant relationship was found between awe and work satisfaction, task performance and pro-environmental behavior intentions, a positive trend in the data could be observed, which has implications and supports further investigation. Domain satisfaction was found to be positively related to pro-environmental behavior intentions. FFindings offer insight into the potential role of awe and highlight the role of awe towards individuals, organizations, and society.

Date of Award	10 Jan 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Augusta Gaspar (Supervisor)