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Assessing The Experience Of Awe: Validating The Situational Awe Scale, William L. Krenzer

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Awe is an overwhelming feeling of admiration sometimes mixed with wonder or fear. Inspired by a cross-disciplinary review of perspectives on awe, we constructed a new measure that would reflect all of these perspectives. In this dissertation, I introduce the Situational Awe Scale (SAS) and report a set of studies designed to validate the measure. An exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 suggested a four-factor structure (i.e., liberation/connection, oppression/isolation, chills, and small-self/vast-world); the study also provided initial evidence of the measure’s convergent and criterion validity. Study 2 provided evidence for the structural validity of the SAS, by confirming the factor …