Awe is a self-transcendent emotion that can diminish one’s focus on the self and serves as an important motivator of commitment to social collectives. However, the influence of awe on ecological behavior is not clear. This study examines the relationships between people’s feeling of awe, their connectedness to nature, and ecological behavior. Three experiments tested the effect of awe on ecological behaviors including mediation tests. Compared with participants in the control condition, participants in the awe condition were more inclined to behave ecologically (Study 1 and 2) and reported a higher feeling of connectedness to nature (Study 2). Moreover, the relationship between awe and ecological behavior was mediated by connectedness to nature (Study 3). These findings indicate that awe helps broaden the self-concept by including nature and increase connectedness to nature, which in turn lead to ecological behavior. They also highlight the significance of connectedness in explaining why awe increases ecological behavior.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of the feeling awe on individuals' endorsement of conformist attitudes in consumption choices and the mediating role of social connectedness in generating this effect.Design/methodology/approach: We test our hypotheses across three studies. Study 1 used an online survey. Study 2 and 3 conducted two laboratory experiments to induce awe and measured consumer conformity in two consumption choice tasks.Findings: This research shows that both dispositional awe and induced awe can increase individuals' preferences for majority-endorsed vs. minority-endorsed choice alternatives in subsequently unrelated consumption situations, and this effect is mediated by perceptions of social connectedness with other decision-makers.Practical implications: Marketers can promote the sales of mass-market products through inducing awe.Social implications: Public regulators could utilize people's incidental awe as an effective policy intervention to nudge individual cooperation in some cases.Originality/value: The research is the first to demonstrate a novel consequence of awe on consumer decision-making. It also highlights the significance of desire for social connectedness that explains why the feeling of awe develops conformity to the opinions of unknown people.