Awe

Basic, evolved needs: Baumeister, Roy, and Mark Leary. “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation.” Psychological Bulletin 117 (1995): 497–529. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497.

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our biological need to belong: Julianne Holt-Lunstad has carried out groundbreaking reviews of vast literatures, finding that healthy social relationships with friends, families, and colleagues contribute as robustly to our physical health as any risk factor that would concern your MD. This is in part why awe leads to health benefits, for we so often experience it with people we consider community. Holt-Lunstad, Julianne, Timothy B. Smith, Mark Baker, Tyler Harris, and David Stephenson. “Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-analytic Review.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 10, no. 2 (2015): 227–37. Holt-Lunstad, Julianne, Timothy B. Smith, and J. B. Layton. “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review.” In PLoS Medicine 7, no. 7 (2010): e1000316. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316.

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Our remarkably long childhood

: Gopnik, Alison. The Gardener and the Carpenter. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2016.

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the neurophysiology of wild awe: Kuo, Ming. “How Might Contact with Nature Promote Human Health? Promising Mechanisms and a Possible Central Pathway.” Frontiers in Psychology 6 (2016): 1093. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01093.

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our need for wild awe: The evidence for this hypothesis runs throughout Florence Williams’s The Nature Fix, which synthesizes all the ways in which being in nature is good for your mind and body. Williams, Florence. The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. New York: W. W. Norton, 2017.

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When we satisfy our need: Berman, Marc G., John Jonides, and Stephen Kaplan. “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature.” Psychological Science 19 (2008): 1207. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x.

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Frances Kuo, a pioneer: Kuo, Frances E., and Taylor A. Faber. “A Potential Natural Treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence from a National Study.” American Journal of Public Health 94, no. 9 (2004): 1580–86.

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Getting outdoors in nature: James, William. The Principles of Psychology. Vol. 1. New York: H. Holt, 1890, 424.

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beautiful green spaces: Green, Kristophe, and Dacher Keltner. “What Happens When We Reconnect with Nature.” Greater Good, March 1, 2017.

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finding awe outdoors: Frumkin, Howard, et al. “Nature Contact and Human Health: A Research Agenda.” Environmental Health Perspectives 125, no. 7 (2017): 075001. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP1663.

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Moved by this idea: One of my favorite books on wild awe is this one rich with personal narrative, cultural history, naturalistic description, and the science of mountaineering: Macfarlane, Robert. Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit

. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.

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a study of wild awe: Anderson, Craig L., Maria Monroy, and Dacher Keltner. “Emotion in the Wilds of Nature: The Coherence and Contagion of Fear during Threatening Group-Based Outdoors Experiences.” Emotion 18, no. 3 (2017): 355–68. Anderson, Craig L., Maria Monroy, and Dacher Keltner. “Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence from Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students.” Emotion 18, no. 8 (2018): 1195–202.

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Growing up in poverty: I review this science in chapter 5 of The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence. New York: Penguin Press, 2017.

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“In the woods, we return”: Emerson, Ralph W. “Nature.” In Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Essays. New York: Penguin, 1982, 39.