There's an emotion that reduces inflammation in the body, makes the afternoon feel longer, and makes us measurably more generous toward strangers. Researchers call it awe, and one of its eight most reliable sources is neither a mountaintop nor a cathedral, but something as everyday as visual design. In other words, the art on your wall. A large poster featuring a vast horizon, a starry sky, or a dizzying abstract design can evoke roughly the same response in the nervous system as a view over a mountain valley. This article explores what awe actually does to us, why psychology has taken it increasingly seriously in recent years, and how to choose designs that evoke it—without turning the wall above your sofa into an astronomy lecture.
Quick facts: In his book Awe (2023), psychologist Dacher Keltner defines awe as "the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world." In a study involving participants from 26 countries, he identified eight recurring sources of awe—and visual design is one of them. The average person experiences awe as often as two to three times a week.
Awe and the "small self"—what researchers actually measure
Awe isn't the same as thinking something is beautiful. It's a distinct emotion with two characteristics that psychology has learned to measure: a sense of vastness, and a feeling that the self shrinks in its presence. Researchers call this second phenomenon the "small self." When we encounter something greater than our everyday frame of reference, the constant inner monologue about deadlines, unread emails, and what to make for dinner falls silent for a moment.
The most frequently cited study in this field was led by psychologist Paul Piff and published by the American Psychological Association in 2015. Across five sub-studies involving a total of 2,078 participants, the researchers showed that induced awe made people feel smaller—and that this, in turn, increased generosity, ethical decision-making, and the desire to help others. The point is that awe doesn't just feel pleasant. It shifts attention away from our own worries and frees it up for something greater.
This is where art comes in. A poster can't actually give you the view from a mountaintop, but it can give your brain enough of the right signals—scale, depth, a horizon that stretches beyond the edge—to trigger a milder version of the same response. Awe is the only one of our positive emotions that is specifically about something greater than ourselves.
From inflammation to a longer afternoon: what awe does to the body and our sense of time
Research in recent years has moved awe from the realm of philosophy to that of physiology. In a review article titled Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health (2023), Maria Monroy and Dacher Keltner summarize how the feeling affects us on several levels at once: it increases vagal tone—the activity of the nerve that regulates heart rate and calm—and is linked to lower levels of inflammatory markers in the blood. Earlier studies have linked awe to lower levels of the cytokine interleukin-6, one of the body’s signaling molecules for inflammation.
Even more surprising is what awe does to our sense of time. In a classic study published in Psychological Science in 2012, Melanie Rudd, Kathleen Vohs, and Jennifer Aaker showed that participants who had just experienced awe felt they had more time available, were less impatient, preferred experiences over possessions, and reported greater life satisfaction. According to the researchers’ analysis, the explanation was that awe anchors us in the present. When our attention gets caught up in something vast, we stop chasing the next thing for a moment—and fifteen minutes suddenly feels like half an hour.
“Awe is the only one of our positive emotions that isn’t about us—it’s about everything that is greater than we are.”
There are even practical experiments. A 2021 study from the University of California, San Francisco, had a group of older adults go on “awe walks”—weekly fifteen-minute walks during which they deliberately turned their attention toward the grandeur around them. After eight weeks, the group reported more positive emotions and less sadness than a control group that walked just as much but without that mindset. What’s interesting is that it wasn’t the walk itself that made the difference, but where they looked. And that way of looking can be practiced—not least with the help of what you choose to hang on the wall.
For an ordinary home, this is the most useful insight. We can’t travel to a mountain range every morning, but we pass the same walls dozens of times a day. A scene that reliably draws the eye outward and upward therefore becomes a small recurring pause in everyday life, not a one-off experience. Research suggests that repetition is what matters: over time, the sum of many brief moments of awe, rather than one overwhelming experience, seems to contribute to calm, generosity, and a sense that life holds more than the nearest to-do list.
"Visual design" - why art counts as one of the eight sources
When Keltner and his colleagues asked people from 26 countries to describe their most powerful experiences of awe, eight themes came up again and again. Nature was of course among them, along with music, spirituality, and what he calls moral beauty - witnessing the courage or kindness of others. But the list also included visual design: art, architecture, and forms created by human hands. This is an important discovery for anyone living in an apartment rather than by a fjord. Awe doesn't require a trip to the Grand Canyon. It can be inspired by a surface measuring fifty by seventy centimeters, provided the motif has the right qualities.
So what are the right qualities? Research points to three things. The first is scale and depth - a motif that suggests something vast and invites the eye to wander into it. The second is the unexpected, something that can't be immediately categorized and makes the brain reach for an explanation. The third is a sense of order within the overwhelming: a starry sky is boundless, yet still follows a structure. Awe resides in the tension between the infinite and the comprehensible.
If you'd like to explore the psychology of how landscapes affect us, we've written more in our article on landscape preference and the evolved gaze, and about how nature motifs reduce stress in our review of 2025 research on nature motifs. Awe is related to both, but not identical - it's less about calm and more about grandeur.
Which motifs inspire awe - and how to hang them
Four families of motifs possess the qualities highlighted by research. Vast landscapes are the most direct: a horizon over open sea, a misty valley, a mountain ridge fading into the haze. Here, our nature motifs do much of the work, especially those with a clear sense of depth and a small human or architectural detail that provides a sense of scale.
The second category is the cosmos and the celestial - starry skies, lunar phases, nebulae. No other type of motif conveys vastness as immediately, and space is making a comeback as an interior design trend right now. The third is grand architecture and distant places: cathedral vaults, empty colonnaded halls, a city seen from above. Posters featuring famous places work well here, because buildings still transcend human scale. The fourth category is the sublime and abstract - large fields of color, deep mists, motifs such as Mark Rothko’s famous dark rectangles, which leave room for the wordless precisely because they depict nothing concrete. Explore abstract posters if that appeals to you.
Tip: Scale is not a detail - it is the mechanism itself. An awe-inspiring motif in a small format loses much of its impact. Instead, choose 70x100 cm or larger and hang it so that the bottom edge starts just above eye level, forcing the gaze upward. If you need help with large formats, we’ve gathered our advice in the buying guide to XXL posters.
Placement matters too. Awe benefits from a little breathing room around it - a large, solitary motif above the bed or sofa has more impact than the same motif squeezed into a dense collection. Let the wall breathe. And consider the lighting: a landscape or starry sky with depth benefits from dim, warm lighting that lets the eye wander into the motif rather than sharply illuminating the paper’s surface. Seen from this perspective, an awe-inspiring motif is not just another decoration, but a small window onto something greater in a room that is otherwise mostly about the near and practical.
Frequently asked questions about awe and art in the home
Choosing art that inspires awe is one of the most rewarding ways to decorate, precisely because its effect doesn’t wear off the way a passing trend does. An image that makes you feel small in a good way will keep doing so year after year. You might start with photographic art with depth and a horizon, or let your eyes wander among nature scenes and abstract expanses until something makes you stop—that’s often where awe is already waiting.
If you’d like to read more of the research, explore Monroy and Keltner’s review of awe and health and Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker’s study on awe and time in Psychological Science.