Build a Sustainable Culture through Magic of Awe | Megan Powell Cuzzolino
📑 Chapters
00:00 - Introduction and Megan introducing herself
02:00 - Why focus on awe?
04:50 - Our brain when we experience awe
06:52 - Megan’s research findings
10:31 - Awe & motivation in other industries
16:34 - Is it nature or nurture?
20:10 - Separating gratitude & the sense of awe
25:05 - Awe in children and adults
33:30 - Influence of technologies on sense of awe
37:11 - Jiani’s recap of the episode
38:59 - Megan at 11 years old
41:13 - Challenges that Megan had to overcome
44:15 - Megan’s magic
Watch the full episode here.
💕 Story Overview
Welcome to S5E6 of the @MAGICademy Podcast! Our guest today is Megan Powell Cuzzolino, who is a prominent educational researcher and a project director at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She studies the role of awe in learning and development, and how emotional experiences can enhance workplace life in different fields, particularly in science education. We had a very interesting conversation about awe as a talent in different fields and how is essential for every type of talent to feel a certain level of awe when serving in a company or organization.
One thing we know for certain is that money or benefits alone don’t make people happy at work, some sense of belonging or motivation is needed. And that’s where awe and fulfillment come in. Megan shares some insights on childlike wonder and adult wonder; we deep dive into the concepts of gratitude and awe; we go over the role of cultural and individual differences in organizations when trying to boost awe; and much more!
Awe and Motivation: For scientists, awe is deeply and inextricably linked to learning and discovery. It comes from our interaction with the universe, as we unlock knowledge that was previously unknown. But for entrepreneurs in different fields, it’s linked to impact and wonder, and building an organizational system for the future. People need to feel their work has an impact and is seen or felt by others, or they need to feel stimulated by their colleagues and to feel that they’re part of an ecosystem, something bigger than them. When a talent has this, a sense of belonging exists and they’re able to feel and process emotions, such as awe, in the workplace.
Relation and Differences Between Gratitude and Awe: These concepts are related but tend to be mistaken as the same. When the organization provides the proper conditions for talents to feel good and in a place where they can feel awe, it’s normal to feel gratitude towards it. Another case could be a person moving up in the organization and feeling gratitude but feeling less and less awe every time since it’s no longer involved in the actual impact process. Talents need to find a balance between all the stimuli at work, to be the most balanced version of themselves, and be able to perform optimally while still finding passion in what they do.
Awe in Kids Vs. In Adults: Children are in an ever-present state of awe because everything is new to them. It’s easier to feel awe when you’re amazed by everything that happens near you. For adults, it’s different because we already have life experiences, so awe is more of a comparative/relational thing that we do when we do different or unique things, breaking with our routines. There is a developmental trajectory to awe that needs to be explored more deeply.
How to Build and Boost Awe: Instead of assuming that certain things cause awe in people, organizations need to reinvent the ways they can boost it in the workforce. Tools like prompt emails, where they ask talents how their week was, what things made them feel awe, and giving space for them to identify their own moments of wonder is a great way to break cultural or individual barriers and promote awe without assuming things.
What Happens When We Experience Awe: There are physical and psychological effects that can be seen in a person when they experience awe. But what actually triggers the experience in our bodies is a sense of deep connection to the moment. Feeling this deep, immersive presence is what allows us to be open to feel awe. It’s very related to surprise, but awe tends to linger for a longer period of time.
⭐ What’s Megan’s Magic?
She enjoys listening to and telling stories, that’s the thing that causes awe in her and what drove her to become a researcher, a person who listens to people talk about their lives and then synthesizes them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have examined the significant connections between awe, motivation, and the workplace. Awe is more than a fleeting emotion; it acts as a powerful catalyst for learning and discovery in both scientific contexts and everyday work environments. When individuals feel that their contributions are valued and recognized, it fosters a sense of belonging that enhances their capacity to experience awe. We also explored the relationship between gratitude and awe, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a balance that allows talents to appreciate their roles while also recognizing the impact they can create.
Furthermore, we discussed developmental differences in experiencing awe, noting that while children naturally inhabit a world of wonder, adults often need to seek unique experiences to rekindle that feeling. To cultivate an environment rich in awe, organizations can implement actionable strategies such as encouraging open dialogue about moments of wonder and creating opportunities for employees to share their experiences. By nurturing the dynamics of awe in the workplace, companies can unlock deeper engagement, creativity, and motivation among their employees, inspiring awe as a vital component of professional life.
If you would like to stay tuned with our future guests and their magical stories. Welcome to join us.
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Cuzzolino, M. P. (2019). Experiences of Transformative Awe and the" Small Self" in Scientific Learning and Discovery (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University).
Cuzzolino, M. P. (2019). Scientists’ experiences of awe and its relation to learning and discovery. Presentation at the American Educational Research Association.
Jiang, T., Hicks, J. A., Yuan, W., Yin, Y., Needy, L., & Vess, M. (2024). The unique nature and psychosocial implications of awe. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-14.
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Megan Powell Cuzzolino is an educational researcher and project director at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she focuses on the role of awe in learning and development, studying how emotional experiences can enhance educational outcomes, particularly in science education.
In addition to her research, Megan is a project manager at the Next Level Lab, a group dedicated to advancing educational practices through innovative research. Her interests encompass cognition, development, and integrating emotional experiences into educational frameworks.
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Jiani (00:02.606)
Welcome to Magic Academy podcast. Today we're gonna see it's Meaghan and she has been conducting research and focusing on awe and what circumstances actually activate a sense of awe in scientists and people in the workspace. And she currently works at Harvard and digging into the future of learning across different technologies and space and focus on the workspace and work culture and talent development.
So welcome, Megan, to Magic Academy podcast. It's such a great honor to have you with us today.
Megan Cuzzolino (00:37.858)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here.
Jiani (00:41.614)
So I'm so happy that we get to talk about all. And so I would, before we dive deeper into the conversation, we have like an official kind of open to the public version of like introduction of Megan. And if you were to introduce yourself in an interesting way, for example, to an alien, how would you introduce yourself?
Megan Cuzzolino (01:07.554)
goodness to an alien. Let's see, I am Megan Casalino and I am a researcher and a teacher and a learner and a mother and a tap dancer. That's the oddball one. I could keep going maybe but that's probably enough.
Jiani (01:09.422)
Alien? Yeah.
Jiani (01:29.806)
answer. Love it!
Love it, love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. That reminds me, I like to dance as well, but tap dancing is something that's interesting. It's very on the rhythm, you have to improvise, it's a lot of agility, and that's beautiful.
Megan Cuzzolino (01:54.114)
I used to do it a lot, now I just sort of do it like, you know, when I'm alone in an elevator. But it's hard, you know, once a tap dancer, always a tap dancer.
Jiani (02:01.55)
Yeah, it kind of boosts your morale, like gets you into the zone and bring happiness and presents into our daily life, something that we enjoy doing. Beautiful. So why all? Like out of everything, the world is so big. I see like the world of research kind of like a big ocean. It's like, and why all? Like why that piqued your interest and dedication.
Megan Cuzzolino (02:27.682)
Sure, so I mean I could probably spend a whole hour just telling that story, but I think the short -ish version is I've always been interested in the relationship between emotions and learning and how we engage with our whole selves in the learning process or don't sometimes, right, and why that's a problem when we don't.
are able to bring our whole selves and our emotional being to a learning experience. And before I started my doctoral work, I was a science teacher. And so I was in elementary and middle school. And I just noticed the ways that these young students really brought their whole selves to the learning and the ways that they engaged in thinking about science through this sense of wonder. And...
As I got into research literature and encountered the research on awe, one of the things that really struck me about it was that experiences of awe occur when you are confronted with something that's novel and surprising and maybe challenges your expectations. So when you experience awe, it's not something that you experience every day. It brings you outside of yourself. Well, I've never.
experiences before, or I've never thought this way before. And that's what you are trying to do with a lot of science education, which was my background. We think about, you know, being open to new evidence and that process of changing your mind. Individuals kind of update their understanding based on new evidence, science as a whole.
shifts paradigms based on new evidence. And so we have to be open to new experiences and willing to accommodate new information to update our existing worldview based on those moments. And that is part of what's at the heart of how awe is defined in the literature. And so I was really interested in the use of awe as a teaching tool, essentially. How can we leverage moments of awe to support learning by getting people excited about this?
Jiani (04:09.294)
Mm -hmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (04:36.13)
feeling of, I've never thought in this way before, I've never experienced this before. So that's going to be the initial impetus for studying awe.
Jiani (04:46.702)
I love it. And I love how the awe is actually leveraged in a way for us to actually do more science learning because whenever we think about science, it's like, it's so difficult. It sounds so difficult and so far -fetched and, and to understand everything involves a lot of mathematics and logics and research and the awe is actually helping us to overcome that initial
fear or like a judgment, like I am not like a science person. Science is like not my business. How would you describe the, when someone or when a student or when a talent is in the state of awe, what exactly is happening in their mind, in their emotion, in their thinking space or feeling space?
Megan Cuzzolino (05:43.074)
Yeah, so people talk about it as being moments where we see what it looks like physically and physiologically, right? Like your mouth hangs open or you get goosebumps or people are often sort of looking up. Like when we think about the way your body looks when you're feeling a sense of awe, people talk about a moment where you're sort of.
Jiani (05:56.25)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
Megan Cuzzolino (06:07.362)
you're very present. You're not thinking about your to -do list or the fight you just had with somebody. You're in the moment, fully engaged. People often ask about the relationship between awe and flow. And it hasn't been widely studied, but I think there is definitely something there. I think that this kind of feeling of deep, immersive presence. And then I think there is this moment that's similar to surprise, right? And it's like, wow, I'm sort of.
caught off guard by this, I was doing something else and now, wow, I'm deep in this moment. But unlike surprise, it often tends to linger. There's kind of a longer half -life for all, that it's not just that, ooh, I'm caught off guard for a second. It's like, I'm really more deeply immersed in this feeling.
Jiani (07:01.038)
So it has this like a visceral kind of embodied feeling of surprise rather than pure cognitive.
Megan Cuzzolino (07:10.946)
Yeah, and what's interesting is, yeah, and what's interesting is sometimes people talk about feeling kind of outside themselves, right? Almost like an out -of -body experience, and others talk about this very sort of visceral embodied experience. I think people talk about it in different ways, but clearly there is, there's something physical that's going on when you're in this moment.
Jiani (07:34.99)
It feels like as if every cell in my body is like in awe. And that reminds me of like yoga. We have like a chant like, it feels like the whole body is like in that state. That's beautiful. And you, you conducted research and you asked a lot of scientists and whenever they're in the state of awe and what they felt and what they kind of...
Megan Cuzzolino (07:38.882)
Heheheheh
Jiani (08:01.198)
are able to do after the feeling of all, can you help us understand a little bit more about your, your findings based on that particular research? And I will attach the research in the show note as well so people can read them.
Megan Cuzzolino (08:16.962)
Sure. So yeah, this was my first foray into the study of awe. And as you alluded to, I've sort of moved into some other domains as well and other types of work. But I started with scientists because that's where my initial interest was. And I spoke to 30 scientists about their experiences of awe in the context of their work. And for them, awe was deeply and inextricably tied to learning and discovery. So.
For scientists, when I asked them to define awe, they talked about these aha moments or epiphanies. It's like, I understand something new that I didn't understand before. I see the world in a new way. Sometimes these were conceptual understandings that they may have been taught, like sitting in a class. I had a participant who said, I had never realized how beautiful the human genome was. And so people trying to wrap their heads around some sort of.
big conceptual understanding from science. But for a lot of them, it was much more personal and maybe not as momentous in terms of a contribution to the field. But for them, it was, I just had a discovery in my work and maybe it's really small, but I've just unlocked some new secret of the universe. And a lot of them talked about like, you know, right now I'm the only person that knows that I'm here alone in the lab or in the field. And I just had this moment.
And eventually I'm going to get to share it with everyone. And that's going to be powerful too. But someone just used the phrase, encountering a secret garden. And so this feeling of that the aha moment comes from one's own interaction with the universe, that they've done something that's led to this discovery. So for the scientists in particular, these moments of awe were very learning -based and discovery -based. And...
You know, another thing they talked about was being in awe of science as a field and of scientists and saying, I get to be part of this, that the process of discovering things about the universe has been around since the beginning of time. It looks different now than it did thousands of years ago, but this is sort of a deeply human endeavor and I'm part of it. I'm part of this kind of legacy of scientists. And so that was another thing that caused a lot of awe. And then.
Megan Cuzzolino (10:40.898)
Because the last big takeaway you asked about what it did for them, it was really striking how many scientists talked about the relationship between awe and motivation. So they said, being a scientist is not always easy. It's not glamorous. The pay is not amazing. The hours are terrible. I'm trying to publish and get funding and get tenure and do all of these things because of the institutional pressures.
And it's hard work, but these moments of awe are what keep me coming back, despite all of this drudgery and this frustration. And some who said, I found it too hard to find moments of awe in academia had left. And so some of the participants in my sample had moved on to careers in teaching or industry or policy or different things that they had left the research field because they found that,
Jiani (11:19.182)
you
Megan Cuzzolino (11:39.586)
The institutional constraints were such that they couldn't feel a sense of awe in their work anymore, and that was important enough to them that they felt like they needed to leave and try something else.
Jiani (11:51.022)
Yeah, and you I think in our initial conversation, we're talking about the power of all in the workspace, like across industries, and it actually can tap into like a feeling of like, like when you say like a motivation, and we are part of a bigger mission, part of a bigger picture, just like you kind of draw the analogy to the folks who are scientists, like a secret garden in the works workspace, or
part of a bigger mission in the workspace and long -term motivation in the workspace. Can you share with us a little bit more on that? Like how does that transfer to the industry and the leadership and the talent? Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (12:34.242)
Sure. Yes. So a more recent study that we've conducted that is we're still in the analysis process, but some kind of emergence. So this is a sneak peek of some things that we're finding out. But so we conducted a survey of a hundred people across many different industries. We had some clusters. So we had a lot of folks in education, broadly defined. We had a lot of folks in healthcare, broadly defined. But.
Then we had a lot of one -offs too. So across the sample, we had, I think, nearly 30 different kinds of sectors represented. And there are some similarities when we look at this broader data set to the scientists, and there are also some differences. So the motivational piece holds true. So we're seeing that people across many different fields say moments of awe at work are what keep me going in the face of challenging circumstances. And so you know,
I don't get paid well or my hours are bad or I have all these disgruntled clients or whatever it is that makes work hard. But moments of awe make them want to keep coming back to work every day. But the elicitors of awe are different. So for the scientists, I talked about how deeply connected moments of awe were to learning and discovery. But when we look at across a wider range of sectors, that center of gravity seems to shift. So.
we see a lot more people talking about impact. And so the ways that their work has impact on others and getting to see that I have an impact on, fill in the blank, right? My students, my patients, my clients, my customers, whoever it is that your work serves, the environment, right? That being able to see evidence of impact is one of the key sources of awe for people more broadly. And another key source of awe is just...
observing the abilities and actions and virtues of other people. So people are awed by their colleagues, you know, that somebody I work with is so smart and I can't believe what their depth of knowledge or someone went out of their way to help me with something when they didn't have to and I was awed by their generosity that they took the time to do that. Or I'm awed by the strength of the, you know, I'm a teacher, but I'm awed by my students every day and the stories that they come with.
Megan Cuzzolino (14:57.282)
so people, you know, whereas for so many of the scientists, it was about these personal moments of discovery and not to say that they didn't also talk about colleagues and students, but that it was so much of it seemed internal. and that seems to be something that is, you know, a specific finding to that line of work. whereas when we survey people across a wide range of industries, we're seeing a lot more stories and have to do with the.
the actions and characteristics of other people.
Jiani (15:28.938)
So it's more, it's like within and beyond oneself. It's like a bigger than ourselves. And we feel like we are part of that bigger ecosystem or existence or presence. And that gets find meaning, help people to find meaning. And even though things that we're doing right now may get boring or challenging or grudging.
But when we kind of feel the sense of awe, we are able to see beyond the current moment and into the bigger gestalt, bigger systems that we are part of.
Megan Cuzzolino (16:10.946)
That's right. And that's that kind of phenomenon of kind of feeling part of something larger than the self is, has a name in the research literature, small self, which a researcher named Paul Piff and some of his colleagues have done a lot of work on. And there's been a lot of empirical research actually to show that triggering a sense of awe in people that kind of creates the sense of feeling part of something larger than the self and leads to more pro -social behaviors because people feel this inclination.
Jiani (16:22.414)
also.
Megan Cuzzolino (16:39.97)
subconsciously to behave in positive ways towards this larger collective of which they are a part. So you see that people, when they are primed to feel awe in comparison to other kinds of emotions, are more likely to cooperate in prisoner's dilemma type of games or to pick up the pencils that a researcher dropped on the floor or to say, I'll donate my time or my money to that cause. So we actually see evidence in the light.
that people who feel awe are sort of more inclined to behave in ways that benefit the well -being of the collective versus people who are primed to feel amusement or pride or some other kind of emotion.
Jiani (17:24.782)
So it's like a very humbling and yet big feeling. What is prison prisoners dilemma that you mentioned?
Megan Cuzzolino (17:34.69)
it's a game where you are being prompted to make choices along the way that will either pit you against the other player or work with them. You don't know what choices they're making. And so it's sort of, you are trying to make your best guess as to what your next move should be to sort of have the
the best chance of success, but your moves are interacting with the choices that the other person is making. And so, you know, that's the sort of the decision between do we cooperate to kind of have the best collective outcome or are we fighting against each other to sort of have the best individual outcome.
Jiani (18:23.214)
So people who tend to feel a sense of awe tend to when between A, which is like collaboration or B, which is competition, they are more likely to pick A, yes, let's collaborate and let's help each other. That's beautiful. And some people may think does all comes with like, is this like nature or is this like nurture?
Megan Cuzzolino (18:41.762)
That's right.
Jiani (18:53.454)
If it's nurture, how do we actually nurture it in a workspace and, and have, has any kind of research kind of delved into this space of like, how can we grow more?
Megan Cuzzolino (19:08.866)
Yeah, that's a great question. And that's a lot of what our research now is attempting to answer is that question of how do we cultivate this? So think to the, is it nurture or nature question? I think it's both. So we see research showing that some people are more predisposed to feeling awe than others. So there's kind of a dispositional quality to it. So people, if you think about the trait of like open -mindedness or openness to new experiences that people who,
score higher and assessments of that are also more likely to find awe in their daily lives. They experience awe more frequently and more easily. And so I think that is both something that has innate qualities to it, but can also be cultivated. And I think making time for deliberate reflection is an important part of that. So much the way that people...
keep a gratitude journal, right? I think you can keep an awe journal, right? And so, and that's actually how this is often studied, is through daily diary type studies where people are just asked to keep a record of times that they have felt awe. And so that's both a data collection mechanism, but also an intervention because being prompted to think, did I feel awe today? What caused it? And then,
Jiani (20:09.39)
yeah.
Jiani (20:34.51)
Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (20:34.914)
Can I seek more of that? How can I get more of that in my life is a practice that can be cultivated. And even when I talked to scientists, they said the interview served as a form of intervention. And that by the end of that hour, they were like, I'm thinking differently now than I did at the start of this conversation. And now maybe I'm going to notice things differently. And so I think just making space to talk about it, to think about it, to notice it can help.
cultivate it. And then I think so that's sort of an individual level practice. And then I think kind of a more top down mechanism for cultivation is all about framing. Right. So you talked about, you know, feeling connected to something larger than the self. And when we're thinking specifically in the workplace, I think there's a lot to be said for communicating individuals contributions to an organizational mission. So if you are feeling like you're very close to the work,
Jiani (21:07.118)
Mmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (21:32.29)
then that might be obvious. Like, of course, I'm a teacher. I work with students every day. I see the impact that I have on them, or whatever that is. But if you are in the HR department, or you're the custodial staff, or you are doing something that is further removed from the direct impact of the work, it may be harder to see the puzzle piece that you hold, the position you hold in the.
organization. And so I think that managers and organizational leaders can play a part in communicating that clearly and saying, you know, you don't get to see the impact of your work every day. So we're going to share some stories from the people who benefit from what we do and see how your daily tasks, you know, connect the dots for people. You doing X, Y, or Z makes it possible for everybody else to do what they need to do to make the organization run smoothly.
Jiani (22:28.078)
I love that. It's coming, coming back to the story storytelling, like, like, like translating the day to day impact into kind of the story impact in the customers, in the people that we actually serve when we help as organizations or, or institutions or companies. This is a, this is very,
interesting. Let me kind of delve, let's kind of delve a little deeper into that. And so you first talked about doing like a grad, a all journal versus a gratitude journal. And sometimes, even though sometimes I do have like a sense of awe when I like, when I get to see like,
a talent is able to, all of a sudden, acquire this new skill and they're able to use this new skill to help other people. And that just gets me into the sense of awe. And at the same time, it's also grateful. I feel I'm grateful that what I'm doing is going to help and impact people that I know or don't know, indirectly or indirectly.
Is there any particular difference between like a gratitude and a sense of awe? And how do they, how do they differ in a way?
Megan Cuzzolino (23:47.234)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's certainly links and we're seeing that in the data that people talk about when I have this moment of awe because I see the impact that our organization has or whatever it is. I feel grateful to have this opportunity to do this work or to be part of this mission or whatever it is. So I think in thinking about work specifically that we're seeing that explicitly in the data that people are making that connection.
Jiani (24:03.982)
Mm.
Megan Cuzzolino (24:14.466)
In terms of what's distinct about it, I mean, I think part of it is the notion of a shift in perspective, that, you know, being able to say the sort of the so what piece, the, you know, I had this sense of awe and it's making me think differently about my work in such and such way. Whereas sort of, you know, you might feel grateful and like, wow, I'm so glad I get to be a part of this.
but feeling a sense of awe might lead you to change something about how you approach a certain task or it might make you feel, you know, that you want to be closer to the impact, you know. So I hear, I've talked to people who say, I have been moving up in my organization and I realized that in doing that, I'm actually moving further away from the impact and it's making me feel less awe.
And so, you know, what do you do about that? Do you, maybe it's I seek that in some other aspect of my life through, you know, volunteer work or something with my community, or maybe it's I need ways to feed that part of me within my job. And I'm going to, you know, collaborate with other teams at my organization to make sure that those kinds of stories get shared so that I can kind of stay connected to the work. Right. So, so I think that's one piece of it is that there's the, the so what.
not just I feel this way, but what does that mean for me? Piece that I think, yeah, how am I thinking differently or how am I going to act on this realization? and I guess the other piece of this that is kind of more nuanced is that we assume that awe is always good and that's not really true as it's defined in the literature, right? So you can be in awe of a natural disaster.
Jiani (25:44.846)
What change?
Jiani (26:06.478)
okay.
Megan Cuzzolino (26:09.026)
You can be in awe of the power of a hurricane. You can be in awe of a tyrannical leader. You can be in awe of all sorts of things that are not inherently positive. And so I think, kind of, as you're reflecting on moments of awe, sort of trying to tease out the emotional balance of them is part of it. Like, I'm in awe and it's making it.
I feel good about that, right? Or I'm in awe of the disorganization of my company. I'm in awe at like how things are going and that's not working for me, right? So awe isn't necessarily by definition a positive thing. And so you can have these kind of big powerful feelings that are illuminating, but not always. So in ways that would be connected to gratitude because they might not be positive.
Jiani (26:36.782)
Mmm.
Jiani (27:03.11)
So, kind of a foolproof way to leverage or to harness the, the benefit of awe is actually combine that with gratitude. And if you feel awe from the big picture perspective, then if you can feel gratitude at the same time, then that's the right awe path that we wanted to stay on. But if it's like, no, that's like a lot of like disturbed.
feelings that let's kind of steer away. So the all is like you said shifting perspective is soliciting change say okay so I need to stay or I need to shift I need to pivot. I've never thought about yeah that I can go all directions that's true.
Megan Cuzzolino (27:50.946)
And sometimes more than one feeling at the same time, right? Like I imagine that if, you know, if you look at the writings of astronauts who talk about being in space, that they're experiencing awe that is tinged with humility and reverence and gratitude and also fear and loneliness, right? And isolation, right? That they talk about the awe of, you know, when they kind of.
Jiani (27:54.99)
Mmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (28:15.682)
at Earth, there's a whole lot of research, this is called the overview effect, when astronauts in space are looking back at Earth, that those feelings are extremely powerful and it's some of the most potent examples of awe that I think exist and they are very multi -dimensional in terms of the nature of the emotion.
Jiani (28:36.75)
And are there any difference that kind of differentiate the awe that adult feel versus the awe that a child feel? So what's the difference between like childlike wonder versus adultlike wonder?
Megan Cuzzolino (28:57.41)
Yeah, this is a great question. And it's one that I talked about a lot with one of the members of my dissertation committee is a developmental psychologist named Paul Harris. And when I was working on my dissertation years ago, he and I had conversations about this because I originally thought I was going to study kids. And at the time, we were talking about what does all look like in young children. And on the one hand, you might think,
Kids experience awe constantly. They're in a sort of ever present state of awe because everything is new, right? And they are just sort of going around the world being amazed by everything that's happening to them. And so it's so easy for kids to feel awe because everything is new. They don't have the time to have had all these life experiences and they're not jaded, right? They sort of are open to these new experiences. On the other hand, when we think about the...
Jiani (29:37.582)
Because everything is new! Yes.
Megan Cuzzolino (29:51.906)
depth and nuance of the experience of awe, one might argue that it requires life experience to be able to differentiate and say, no, this is actually a novel thing that's happening. It's not just part of the world. And it's not just that I personally haven't encountered it yet, but rather it is actually sort of significant enough to rise to the level of awe. And so you might ask, does a young child have the context and the life experience to be able to make that distinction? So when you see a kid kind of,
when we think about childlike wonder, is that a different thing than the awe we think about as adults that has this level of, it's a comparative or relational thing because we're thinking, this isn't what my daily life is like. I'm actually in some other kind of unique experience right now. So I don't have a good answer for you. I think, and you know, someone might say, well, it's just semantics, but I do actually, I think there's a developmental trajectory to awe that I think should be explored.
Jiani (30:40.75)
Mm.
Jiani (30:52.814)
And I think kind of coming from like a non -empirical and just like a personal kind of point of view perspective I think the childlike sense of awe is very natural. It's not it's like
it's more coming from like a nature perspective and it's probably unorganized, unstrategic and quite open -ended and versus adults as we accumulate and experience more life, ups and downs, challenges and bliss. When we feel a sense of awe, maybe it's probably...
I think it's more geared toward the bigger picture, like others, otherness maybe. It's not from the internal, it's more from the otherness perspective, the bigger picture, the meaning, the helping. So maybe more strategy, more structure, and more long -term residue, I would think. It's all assumptions. We need to validate that with data.
Megan Cuzzolino (32:12.066)
It sounds right though, right? That kids are, and kids are not necessarily engaging in these sort of deliberate reflection practices that I was talking about. Although I think that that's the kind of thing you could build in, right? That it's part of your bedtime routine to say, and maybe you don't use awe, right? Maybe you use a different word, but like, what's something that made you say, wow, today? Right? To have it, and then why? What was so amazing about that? So I think that these,
Jiani (32:13.914)
Ha ha ha, it's hypotheses.
Jiani (32:33.038)
Wow, yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (32:39.906)
There are developmental ways to incorporate some of these metacognitive practices that would be right for a four or five or six year old. But even still, they're not going to have that same quantity or quality of...
They don't have the same library of experiences to draw upon when they're thinking about like, why did this make me say, wow? You know, it's like, what? It was new today. And you know, I might say it might feel new again tomorrow because I'm still only four and everything feels new.
Jiani (33:13.806)
Yeah, and that resonate with the book, The Beginner's Mind. Like we constantly deliberately kind of reorient to zero and then and then restart. Every day is a new day. And for adults, it's a little bit tough, but we orient our mind to do that. That'll be helpful also in the organizations like environment. What role do you think culture play or diverse culture play in terms of like the power of all?
Megan Cuzzolino (33:24.77)
Yes.
Megan Cuzzolino (33:45.059)
Yeah, so there's been a little bit of research on cultural differences and how we experience awe. And so I can say a little bit about that and then what I think more research is needed, but I can kind of speculate on what it would mean for implications for the workplace. Yeah, and it's not my research. My research has all been US centered thus far. So there have been a few studies looking at
Jiani (34:03.438)
We're at the forefront of... Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (34:14.786)
cross -cultural experiences of awe. And one of the things we see is that the ways people describe awe seem to be fairly universal, but what causes or elicits awe? There's some differences. And so as we might expect, more individualistic cultures tend to have more people talking about personal individual elicitors of awe, right? So I'm in awe of...
this thing that happened to me or for me or by me, right? I'm in awe of, you know, that they're kind of inward facing and that people in more collectivist cultures tend to have more stories of awe that are about social experiences. And so they tend to be more outward facing in terms of the ways they talk about eliciters of awe. But these are, it's sort of early days for.
this research, but there are some people working on it. And I think the takeaway, even as early as it is, is not everything is awe inducing for every person. And so there are some kind of organizational leadership culture things that we can do to try to, based on what we think tends to elicit awe for people, and we can try to make those things more present, like the...
connecting the dots of how your work contributes to an organizational mission, for example. So we can learn from some of these things that tend to elicit awe. You know, there's, Docker Keltner is the leading scholar on awe. He's at Berkeley. And he and his colleagues have identified eight primary elicitors of all, sort of eight categories. They come up with eight wonders of the world, essentially. And so those...
Jiani (36:05.966)
A wonders of the world. Love it.
Megan Cuzzolino (36:07.746)
And so there's some universality to these, because this was a cross -cultural study that they did. And so they talk about stories of moral beauty, so witnessing other people's kindness or courage or strength. So elevating those kinds of stories in an organization seems like it would have wide applicability.
Other things like nature and music and art or visual design. So things that can be sort of incorporated into the physical experience of a workplace. But again, every, you know, what might cause, you know, maybe we add a mural to the wall and it makes me feel awed. And you're like, I don't like that at all. Right. So, so there's no silver bullet, right. Cause everybody's going to experience things differently. So we can draw on both these universalities and try to infuse them into the work.
Jiani (36:48.366)
Hahaha
Megan Cuzzolino (37:00.034)
place culture, but also allow space for individual reflection as we've been talking about so that people can have a journaling practice or, you know, some prompts that go out in a weekly, you know, organizational wide email that, you know, what made you feel all this week? And so, so that giving people a space to identify their own moments of awe and leverage them allows for some of these, you know, cultural and individual.
differences and doesn't make assumptions that my awe is your awe.
Jiani (37:33.998)
I love that. Like a weekly all journal for the team.
Megan Cuzzolino (37:40.994)
And maybe it's just like on your Slack or something where people are just chiming in as they choose to. And this also requires some, yeah, I mean, this requires some vulnerability and some psychological safety in the workplace to be able to say, I'm gonna talk about my emotions at work. That we're sort of conditioned to not do that. And so I think there also has, that is sort of a...
Jiani (37:47.79)
The all channel
Safety.
Jiani (37:59.278)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (38:07.106)
management or a workplace culture thing is a, you're welcome to talk about your feelings here. And then that gives the space for people to do that to the extent that they feel comfortable and to express their individual experiences.
Jiani (38:23.022)
I love it. I love it. Such a multifaceted and deeply odd conversation that we're having as we move into the future. And, you know, now we have like artificial intelligence, gen AI, extended reality. We have like brain machine interaction and how would you, how do you, how do you see?
Megan Cuzzolino (38:33.986)
Hahaha
Jiani (38:53.39)
our ability to feel a sense of awe can potentially being enhanced or impacted by those fastly kind of emerging technologies and how can we stay in our sanity and stay awe and feel more awe and feel more frequent awe if we can.
Megan Cuzzolino (39:16.29)
Yeah, this is something I'm still sort of puzzling through myself. And I don't think we really have all the information yet to be able to say definitively because things are just changing so fast. But in terms of XR, VR, there's actually quite a bit of research on the use of virtual reality tools to elicit awe. And so that's actually an area that's fairly well studied is that you can induce awe through.
VR, right, so you can put on the headset and feel like you're, you know, in outer space or in the Arctic or whatever it is. I have a colleague who was part of our lab but is now at Northeastern University named Eileen McGivney, who has been, she studies the use of VR in science classrooms primarily, but one of her main areas of interest is on the emotional aspects of it. And there's other.
researchers not in the education field, but who have also been doing a lot of work on VR and awe. And so I think it's clear that that's a really good use for these emerging technologies is to get sort of an initial kind of elevation of, you know, one's kind of emotional response or engagement that then you can leverage to build interest in something. So I think that's a good use of VR because we can't.
Jiani (40:23.118)
Mm.
Megan Cuzzolino (40:40.002)
fly everyone up to the Grand Canyon or whatever, but it's a lot more cost effective to put a headset on people and give them that feeling. Right, so it's not in lieu of kind of real world experiences, quote unquote, but it could be a supplemental tool for eliciting awe. So I think there's promise there. In terms of things like generated AI, that's something I don't, I mean, I could imagine,
Jiani (40:47.182)
sitting on the couch.
Megan Cuzzolino (41:09.122)
ways in which it would be a hindrance, right? That it's in some ways, we have the world at our fingertips, but it's formulaic in a way. It's like you only get out of it what you type into it and it's predictive. So it's not necessarily helping you think out of the box in the same way as kind of more individual brainstorming, right? But I could also imagine ways that it's...
powerful that maybe you can ask it, you know, give it as some suggestion. Here are some things that make me feel all what else might make me feel all like, you know, so Sure. So, you know, it's something I haven't really thought about in a scholarly way yet is what is the role of AI in in generating awe I think as is the answer to pretty much anything when it comes to that topic. I think there are affordances and limitations.
Jiani (41:45.874)
Yeah, leverage predictive power too. Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (42:07.19)
So I think we need to think creatively about how to get the most out of it.
Jiani (42:14.894)
Yeah. And also after all AI is this technology. So human, human is a technology, right? DNA, RNA, and that's forms our body and our mind and all that. And I think the important piece is we stay on the meta level, like meta AI, meta technology level. So we, we're, we know how to, we have the wisdom to know how to best use them. Like you mentioned.
think of smart ways to use that, but at the same time, kind of keep in mind that if they have some limitations and maybe they're a way for us to design so they can transcend their own limitations of technology, but we stay as this meta master of technology is so important. That's beautiful.
Megan Cuzzolino (43:03.522)
Yeah.
Jiani (43:06.094)
And as we move into the magic conversation, I would like to take a brief pause here and give a quick recap of what we have talked about with Megan. And so we talked about the story of Megan and how she decided to focus her research and future research on the topic of awe. And we talked about what exactly do people feel when we are.
in the sense of awe. And we talked about how awe is different or similar to a childlike sense of awe or a gratitude. And it's mostly relying on its ability to help us shift perspectives, going beyond ourselves, go to others and go to people and go to the ecosystem that's bigger than ourselves. And Megan said there's a terminology called the small self, the power of small self. And we also explored how we can use awe and combine that with storytelling.
to help organizations and leaders of all sorts to build up the motivation, especially self -intrinsic long -term motivation among the talents for the organizations and the culture to progress further and share by sharing stories of people that they serve, either they work directly or indirectly to help people feel that sense of after all, that's all the company's working toward is to serve people in the long run. So.
wonderful. And we also talk about the AI and how AI and extended reality and how that how we can use that to elicit awe and what's some caution that we need to pay attention to as well. So yeah, so beautiful, beautiful. See, that's the research part comes to me. It's like things of size. So when we're talking about this, like,
Megan Cuzzolino (44:46.082)
Recap.
Jiani (45:00.558)
a magic piece. So Megan, when you were about 11 years old, what did you enjoy creating or playing so much that time just disappeared for you?
Megan Cuzzolino (45:13.41)
At the time I thought I was going to be an Olympic figure skater, which clearly, if you read my bio, didn't pan out. I danced and skated, and as I mentioned at the start, I pursued dance for much longer. But I think anything, the performing arts has been a passion for my whole life and something that I've never pursued professionally but have always done.
Jiani (45:25.87)
tapped it.
Megan Cuzzolino (45:42.946)
It's always been important to me. And so I think when I think about being 11, that was probably the thing that brought me the most joy and gave me a sense, you know, there's something very being out on the cold ice, you know, there's something that's so physical and it's so, it was just something that I think really I looked forward to doing and.
was eager to do. And then, you know, it was all in pump. Then I was, you know, watching skating on TV and you'd go to, there was a touring show that my family would go to every year. So it was something that just brought a lot of joy to all different aspects of my life at that age.
Jiani (46:28.654)
I love that. It's like skating on ice and doing dance and, and your parents probably are watching or sometimes you just do practice on your own and yeah, that sounds so cool. It's like arts, like, and then you have physical strengths. It's like a lot of things coming like all together. You have to balance technique, a lot of technique, arts and go ahead. Sorry.
Megan Cuzzolino (46:51.426)
Yeah, it's, I think that it's something, oops, sorry.
Megan Cuzzolino (47:00.386)
Sorry, yeah, I think that the, yes, there's something both sort of immersive and in the moment and also planful about those kinds of things because if you're choreographing a routine and sort of something that you've thought through, but you can also be, there's times to be improvisational in the moment and there's times to focus on technique and there's times to focus on artistry. And so, yeah, I think there's, and I think,
you know, I also started to lose some of the sense of joy as I thought about the pressures of what it would mean if I was going to pursue it at a more serious level. And so I also think there's something to be said for being, you know, as you talked about kind of staying a beginner and allowing yourself to sort of keep trying new things and have that mindset of somebody who's learning because I think there can also be.
anxiety that comes with trying, focusing too hard on how good am I at this thing.
Jiani (48:00.174)
Mm -hmm.
Jiani (48:04.686)
the results. Yeah, I have to like, I need to get this good results. Therefore I need to like, so that kind of zap the joy right off off the bat. Yeah, beautiful. And were there any particular challenges that you have to go through and help shape who you are as of you 2024?
Megan Cuzzolino (48:06.05)
Mm -hmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (48:12.514)
Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (48:24.866)
Yes.
Jiani (48:26.958)
Hahaha
Megan Cuzzolino (48:29.026)
I think the challenges of being a whole person in this world are, right, that like I am a researcher and educator, but as I said in the intro at the beginning, I'm also a mom and I'm a wife and I'm a daughter and I am a baking and cooking enthusiast and I have a bunch of TV shows I wish I had time to watch. And I think we, thinking about how to balance,
Jiani (48:52.046)
Yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (48:59.01)
time in ways that feel fulfilling to oneself and to one's obligations is hard for everybody, right? And I think that's a challenge that I think about every day is how am I spending my time and is it how I want to be spending my time and how can I spend more of my time in the ways I want to be spending it. And so I think that that is something that I...
Jiani (49:12.11)
Hmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (49:24.386)
that I grapple with. And it's interesting because it's something that I then see in my data is other people talking about that, right? It's like, I don't feel a sense of awe in my work and so I want to do something else, right? And so it's something I think about intellectually and personally a lot is sort of who am I as a whole person and how does that interact with the type of work that I'm doing and that I want to do.
Jiani (49:50.574)
I love that and would all help? Like feeling a sense of all from time to time help? Would that be a possible solution? One of the possible solutions?
Megan Cuzzolino (49:55.81)
Hehehehe
Megan Cuzzolino (50:03.906)
Yes, I think so. I think that, yeah, I think I certainly notice when my workday has awe and when it doesn't. And yet when I'm having a conversation like this, or I'm reading my data, or I'm conducting an interview, or I'm mentoring students, I feel awe. And when I'm processing expense reports, I don't, right? So I know the kinds of things that make me feel awe. And some of it's unavoidable, but I think I can.
Jiani (50:25.838)
No.
Megan Cuzzolino (50:30.626)
do that reflection for myself and say, wow, today was a really awe -filled day. Is there anything I can do to rearrange my schedule to fit more of that in or to streamline some of the stuff that doesn't make me feel awe? And I think that also being present, as we talked about, that you can't really feel awe if you're distracted and you're on your phone. So putting the devices away and saying, I'm just going to be in the moment.
It's hard to do, but I think that's a good practice for all of us if we want. We've got to lift our heads up from the screen from time to time if we want to not let those moments of awe pass us by.
Jiani (51:08.014)
Yeah, it is tough, but we can do that. And sometimes you and I find myself like, kind of just, it's an unintentional, maybe even subconscious. We're in this habit of doing, doing that. Even sometimes when I walk, I'm like, so it's, yeah.
Megan Cuzzolino (51:16.29)
Mm -hmm.
Megan Cuzzolino (51:24.93)
And I should say that like, not to vilify technology in that way, right? Because like, you know, my mom sent me this video of the other day of this guitar player who was incredible. And I felt a sense of awe watching him and I was watching it on my phone. So it's not that your phone can't help you feel awe. It's just that balance, right? It's all in the balance.
Jiani (51:45.358)
Let all be the guide. Love it. So what do you think is your magic?
Megan Cuzzolino (51:49.41)
Yes.
Megan Cuzzolino (51:57.746)
my goodness.
I think that...
The reason I do the work that I do, specifically the reason that I'm a qualitative researcher is because I like to hear and tell stories. So the thing that causes awe for me at my own work is listening to people talk about their own lives and hearing those individual stories and then also being able to synthesize them. And that's the work of the researcher is finding themes and finding
Jiani (52:21.806)
Thank you.
Megan Cuzzolino (52:36.706)
commonalities across a bunch of different individual stories. And so I think that being sort of the, the conduit for, you know, other people's stories and being able to help share them is something I would like to think I do well and something that brings me joy. And I think that when I can start to see those pieces fit together, when I'm looking at,
at people's stories and seeing something sort of universal emerge from it. I think that's probably the closest I get to feeling magic in my work life at least. I don't know if that's the answer to your question or not.
Jiani (53:18.67)
I love it. There's no right or wrong answers to the magic and our magic also evolve over time. So there's just a sense of where you feel you are most enjoyable. Like you get like you forgot time and you're in this zone of happiness and productivity and all.
Megan Cuzzolino (53:44.386)
It's very meta.
Jiani (53:48.046)
Very meta, yes. So good. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. And I hope our audience get a good lesson out of our conversation and, and reflect, you know, is there any ways that they can feel all to the things that they're doing or as leaders, is there any way they can facilitate maybe start at all channel and, you know, don't bring your judgment but all into that.
And, you know, there's a lot of things we can make our life more enjoyable and in a time of high uncertainty and actually take uncertainty as a fuel to fuel our open mind and get more sense of awe to the bigger picture, the humanity and even beyond humanity.
That's so great. And for folks who want to get in touch with Megan, learn more about her research or have her maybe to train your team or do consultation, just feel free to contact Megan and her information is in the show notes below. So thank you very much, Megan, for sharing your wisdom, your research and your hypotheses with us. And it's such a pleasure.
Megan Cuzzolino (55:12.482)
Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.
Jiani (55:16.014)
Yeah, me too. I have so much fault.
Disclaimer
The content shared is to highlight the passion and wonder of our guests. It is not professional advice. Please read our evidence-based research to help you develop your unique understanding.
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