敬畏情緒量表的編製發展與驗證之研究

Development and Validation of the General Awe Scale

余民寧(Min-Ning Yu) ； 熊師瑤(Shih-Yao Hsiung) ； 許雅涵(Ya-Han Hsu) ； 翁雅芸(Ya-Yun Weng)

《教育心理學報》 53卷3期 (2022/03) Pp. 643-664

https://doi.org/10.6251/BEP.202203_53(3).0006

摘要

敬畏情緒為正向情緒之一，且過往認為敬畏情緒能提升個體的正向行為、幸福感與生活滿意度、增進心理資本、提升學生的學習成效與自我效能，惟尚未有國人研究探討敬畏情緒的結構內涵。本研究旨在編製「敬畏情緒量表（General Awe Scale，簡稱GAS）」並評估自編量表之品質，本研究採用網路問卷調查法，在預試研究方面，初編50題目，邀請384名大學生進行網路線上填答，經探索性因素分析後，得出「敬畏情緒量表」為二階五因子之結構。正式研究則邀請720名在學學生進行量表填答，所蒐集之資料進行驗證性因素分析與信度、效標關聯效度分析。研究發現：1.敬畏情緒量表為「好奇探索」、「讚嘆自然」、「欣賞藝術」、「感覺渺小」與「連結感」等五個因素所組成的二階因素結構。2.敬畏情緒量表具有良好的信度與效度。3.本研究以「主觀幸福感」、「利社會行為」、「靈性幸福感」與「感恩」作為外在效標，發現敬畏情緒與上述變項間具有顯著的正相關，顯示本量表具備不錯的外在關聯效度。4.本研究參與者普遍具有中高程度之敬畏情緒，而在近一年內曾有出國經驗者、學習滿意度高者、壓力主觀感受程度較低者，其敬畏情緒較高，且有顯著差異性。最後，本研究提出相關建議以供未來研究參考。

關鍵字

敬畏情緒 ； 自我超越的情緒 ； 量表編製與發展 ； 正向心理學

並列摘要

Awe is one of the eight positive emotions proposed by Vaillant (2008a, 2008b). McDougall (1910) first described the concept of awe, which includes admiration imbued with senses of power and wonder as well as the meaning of a peak experience. Ekman (1992) and Valdesolo and Graham (2014) suggested that awe is a special, complex, and unique emotion. Stellar et al. (2017) suggested that awe is a self-transcendent emotion that involves admiration, inspiration, and elevation. By contrast, Keltner and Haidt (2003) considered awe's core dimensions to be senses of vastness and accommodation. Vastness refers to stimuli that strain one's perception in terms of personal frames of reference such as physical size (i.e., volume, area, quantity), social scale (i.e., fame), and symbolic markers of vast size (i.e., a lavish office). The congeniality indicates that such a vastness triggers a cognitive discordance that might induce an imbalance between one's perception and behavior. Therefore, one must accommodate the present situation and balance cognitive reference frames, experiencing one's smallness, powerlessness, and confusion. Once such an accommodation takes effect, feelings pertaining to enlightenment and rebirth may arise. If not, fear and a feeling of being threatened may ensue. Therefore, feelings of awe may be identified when a powerful situation accompanied by an inclination to submit occurs, or when a difficult-to-explain situation accompanied by a feeling of amazement, surprise, or confusion occurs. Such feelings of awe can be categorized as positive affect or emotions that promote happiness (Shiota et al., 2007). Regarding causation, a given object or event is necessary to elicit a feeling of awe. This cause usually lies in a rich, attractive source, such as art, technology, or landscapes. Awe cannot be elicited without a cause (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Shiota et al., 2007), but it can be induced by objects such as landscapes (Shiota et al., 2007), outer space (Bonner & Friedman, 2011), human achievement (Keltner & Haidt, 2003; Thomson & Siegel, 2017), artworks, music, powerful leaders (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), natural disaster, and epidemic disease (Piff et al., 2015). Furthermore, the mechanism underlying awe is different among cultures (Nakayama et al., 2020). Awe is considered a positive emotion in Western culture but is considered a complex mixture of positive and negative emotions in Eastern culture. In East Asia, people usually view the negative aspect of awe in a positive light, and vice versa. This represents an example of dialectical thinking (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Theory and research have supported the notion that awe can strengthen not only the positive behavior, well-being, and psychological capital but also student learning outcomes and self-effectiveness (McCullough et al., 2002; Saroglou et al., 2008; Van Cappellen & Saroglou, 2012; Weinstein et al., 2009). Therefore, awe can be considered a self-transcendent emotion (Stellar et al., 2017) that helps enhance perceptions of well-being. However, to date, few studies have explored the mechanisms underlying the emotion of awe. To fill this literature gap, this study focused on the development of measurement properties for the General Awe Scale (GAS). On the basis of a literature review, we developed the first draft of the GAS, which comprises 50 items pertaining to the following 5 dimensions: (1) curiosity and exploration, (2) a feeling of wonderment regarding nature, (3) appreciation of artwork, (4) a feeling of smallness, and (5) social connection. The development of the GAS was divided into the following two stages. In the first stage, 384 college students were recruited for the pilot study, and the collected data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and internal consistency analysis to develop the final 27-item scale. In the second stage, 720 college students were recruited and surveyed; the statistical analysis methods used were confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), alpha reliability, and criterion-related validity. In this study, data were collected using an online survey that was distributed on relevant social media platforms used at several Taiwanese universities. The research data including demographic variables as well as travel frequency, religious activity participation, meditation frequency, stress levels, and learning satisfaction were collected using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Fang, 2012), Prosocial Scale, Taiwan Subjective Well-Being Scale (Short-Form; Yu et al., 2017), Gratitude Scale (Lin, 2012), and Spirituality Well-Being Scale (Chung et al., 2013). The results are summarized as follows: 1. The CFA results supported the notion that the GAS was composed of five latent factors, namely (1) curiosity and exploration, (2) a feeling of wonderment regarding nature, (3) appreciation of artwork, (4) a feeling of smallness, and (5) social connection. 2. The results revealed that the GAS satisfied the validity and reliability criteria. 3. In this study, we adopted the notions of subjective well-being, prosocial behavior, spiritual-well-being, and gratitude as external criteria for validity confirmation. The results demonstrated that the GAS had significant positive relationships with these external criteria. The criterion-related validity of the GAS was thus verified. 4. The majority of the survey respondents were ranked on the middle-to-high level of the GAS. Specifically, our data revealed that the students who had gone abroad in the past year had higher learning satisfaction and lower stress levels, reporting significantly higher GAS scores. In this study, we developed the structure of the GAS comprising 27 items that pertained to the aforementioned five dimensions. Similar to the findings of most Western studies, this study indicated that specific factors such as nature and artwork (Fingerhut & Prinz, 2018; Keltner & Haidt, 2003) can elicit the emotion of awe. Keltner and Haidt (2003) contended that awe consists of three types, namely awe regarding nature, god, and cognitive knowledge. These are consistent with the feeling of wonderment regarding nature and appreciation of artwork categories developed in this study. We discovered that awe can not only can enhance curiosity and desire for exploration but also make one feel small and powerless when connecting with society. These concepts are associated with the remaining three factors of the GAS, namely curiosity and exploration, a feeling of smallness, and social connection. Although some cultures believe that awe involves a complex fusion of positive and negative emotions. The results of this study suggested that awe was principally a positive emotion rather than a negative one; this viewpoint is more consistent with the conclusions of previous studies on the mechanism of the awe emotion. Moreover, awe was significantly correlated with the frequency of going abroad; hence, students who had been abroad recently registered higher GAS scores than those who had not, especially in the curiosity and exploration and social connection categories. These findings are consistent with those of a Chinese study (Tian et al., 2015) that suggested a significant positive association between travel experience and awe. A tourism-related study also demonstrated that personal involvement and experience was the most effective means of evoking awe (Bloemer & de Ruyter, 1999). For example, travelers can feel awe when becoming immersed in experiences of the world's greatest buildings or historical temples (Keltner & Haidt, 2003), passing through grassland wilderness (Hall & Cole, 2012), or participating in music performances (Cotter et al., 2018). Compared with students who were under greater pressure, students with low stress levels recorded higher GAS scores. This result is also consistent with previous study findings indicating that when under pressure, people are less likely to behave and think positively (Darley & Batson, 1973). In addition, awe had a significant positive correlation with learning satisfaction, which suggests that students who felt they had good learning outcomes also had greater senses of awe. Gottlieb et al. (2018) also reported consistent results indicating that awe may be correlated with scientific learning, and Anderson et al. (2019) suggested that those with greater senses of awe can more easily evoke learning curiosity and improve learning outcomes. In summary, this study demonstrated that awe enhances prosocial behavior, gratitude, subjective well-being, and spiritual well-being in Taiwanese individuals. Future studies should continue to study the impact, determinants, and causal processes underlying the emotion of awe to not only expand its application and understanding in positive human behaviors but also promote the development of a harmonious and peaceful society. Future studies can focus on tourism, ecological conservation, or adventure education. In the case of adventure education, using virtual reality technology allows users to experience dangerous situations (e.g., bungee jumping, rock climbing, and outer space) as though they were right at the scene. Thus, viewing such vast and magnificent scenery that completely differs from one's everyday experience can compensate for the decreased travel opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic and enhance individuals' sense of awe and awe-induced experience, reinforcing positive behaviors and learning outcomes.

並列關鍵字

awe ； self-transcendent emotion ； scale construction and development ； positive psychology

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