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Comparing Spiritual Transformations and Experiences of
Profound Beauty
Adam B. Cohen
Arizona State University and University of
California, Berkeley
June Gruber
Yale University and University of California,
Berkeley
Dacher Keltner
University of California, Berkeley
Certain highly emotional experiences have the potential to produce long-lasting and
meaningful changes in personality. Two such experiences are spiritual transformations
and experiences of profound beauty. However, little is known about the cognitive
appraisals or narrative elements involved in such experiences, how they are similar, and
how they differ. In a study of emotion-related narratives, these experiences were found
to share many features but also differ in their valence. Experiences of profound beauty
are almost always positive, but spiritual transformations are both positive and negative.
Moreover, spiritual transformations seem to produce long-lasting change, but experi-
ences of profound beauty, although evocative, do not seem to produce long-lasting
change. An emotion approach helps to elucidate two understudied but important
emotional experiences.
Keywords: religion, spirituality, conversion, beauty, awe
In recent years, the study of spirituality has
become an emergent focus in psychological sci-
ence. Psychologists have focused on many posi-
tive aspects of spirituality and have recognized the
importance of people’s spiritual identities and the
relation of religious and spiritual variables to a
variety of physical and mental health outcomes
(Hill & Pargament, 2003; Koenig, McCullough,
& Larson, 2001; MacDonald, 2000). Hill and Par-
gament (2003) have defined spirituality as a
search for the sacred (see also Zinnbauer, Parga-
ment, & Scott, 1999). Walker and Pitts (1998)
asked people to describe spiritual people using a
prototype approach, and such people are seen as
devout (e.g., they believe in a higher power and
are likely to pray), committed, meditative, con-
tented, trustworthy, and caring. Underwood and
Teresi (2002) developed a scale to measure daily
spiritual experiences and claimed that daily spiri-
tual experiences include (among others) feelings
of connection to all life, joy that lifts people out of
daily concerns, strength, comfort, being spiritually
touched by the beauty of creation, gratitude, and
acceptance of other people. LaPierre (1994) ar-
gued that spirituality involves several dimensions,
including (1) a search for meaning in life, (2) an
encounter with the transcendent, (3) a sense of
community, (4) a search for ultimate truth or high-
est value, (5) a respect and appreciation for the
mystery of creation, and (6) a personal transfor-
mation. All of these aspects seem, on the face of it,
to be positively valenced.
Adam B. Cohen, Department of Psychology, Arizona
State University, and Institute of Personality and Social
Research, University of California, Berkeley; June Gruber,
Department of Psychology, Yale University, and Depart-
ment of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley;
Dacher Keltner, Institute of Personality and Social Research
and Department of Psychology, University of California,
Berkeley.
This work has been funded by the Spiritual Transforma-
tion Scientific Research Program, sponsored by the Metan-
exus Institute on Religion and Science, with the generous
support of the John Templeton Foundation. Adam B. Cohen
also gratefully acknowledges the support of a Templeton
Advanced Research program grant, also from Metanexus.
The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of
Metanexus or Templeton. We thank Alexandra Baksa, Priy-
anka Dhar, and Ingrid Hernandez for help with data entry
and coding.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Adam B. Cohen, Department of Psychology,
Arizona State University, P.O. Box 871104, Tempe, AZ
85287-1104. E-mail: adamcohen@asu.edu
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality © 2010 American Psychological Association
2010, Vol. 2, No. 3, 127–135 1941-1022/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0019126
127
In the psychology of religion, there has long
been an interest in studying spiritually transfor-
mative experiences. As is so often the case in
psychology, we found our inspiration for the
present study in the classic writings of William
James. James (1902/1997) devoted two chapters
of his classic book, Varieties of Religious Ex-
perience, to conversion, which is surely one of
the most important subtypes of spiritual expe-
riences. James wrote extensively about how
these experiences can result in feelings and
changes including the loss of all worry, cer-
tainty of salvation (among Christians), the per-
ception of knowing truths not known before, a
sense of newness, and cleanness in world (see
also Starbuck, 1897).
In addition to the aforementioned positive
aspects of religious conversions, James (1902/
1997) noted that these experiences may involve
a “sense of incompleteness and imperfection;
brooding; depression; morbid introspection;
sense of sin; anxiety about the hereafter; distress
over doubts, and the like” (p. 167). It would
make an important contribution to the psycho-
logical study of religion and spirituality to re-
mind the field of the theory that spiritual expe-
riences do not consist solely of positive aspects
but can be highly frightening, arousing, and
disillusioning. Hill (2002), inspired by the writ-
ings of James, outlined how spiritual transfor-
mation or growth can result from positive and
negative emotion (e.g., fear, unmet needs for
meaning).
In this study, we borrowed from methodolog-
ical tools used in emotion research to document
the emotional characteristics of spiritual trans-
formations, compared with experiences of pro-
found beauty. We chose to contrast spiritual
transformations with experiences of profound
beauty for two reasons. First, experiences of
profound beauty are one of the elements of the
Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (Underwood
& Teresi, 2002), which is theoretically an influ-
ential view of spiritual experiences and a com-
monly used measure. Second, we hypothesized
that it is likely that experiences of profound
beauty would be more uniformly positive and
would give us the chance to investigate whether
spiritually transformative experiences are also
likely to be positive or whether James’s analysis
was correct in pointing to the negative aspects.
This is an interesting comparison, because one
could theorize that experiences of profound
beauty could have many of the same conse-
quences, such as increased other-focus, and
cognitive accommodation (increased under-
standing of self and world; Keltner & Haidt,
2003).
Experiences of Profound Beauty
Beautiful stimuli have been theorized to con-
tain both complexity and order, to encourage
making sense of the visual scene, and to shift
levels of physiological arousal (Berlyne, 1971).
These characteristics—most notably, complex-
ity and the demand to find new meaning—are
central to awe experiences (Keltner & Haidt,
2003). Visual stimuli, such as landscapes, often
elicit feelings of beauty and awe, and prefer-
ences for certain landscape features have been
theorized to have an evolutionary basis (Kaplan
& Kaplan, 1989; Orians & Heerwagen, 1992).
For example, Orians and Heerwagen (1992)
theorized that humans have evolved preferences
for landscapes that embody features of a high-
quality African savanna during the Pleistocene
era, in which the vast majority of human evo-
lution took place. Of interest in this regard,
people who were randomly assigned to live near
trees and grass managed life stress better than
those assigned to live in areas without such
natural features (Kuo, 2001). Natural beauty, it
seems, gives people a sense of understanding
and perspective, consistent with recent claims
about the correlates of awe. In the present study,
we hypothesized that natural scenes would
commonly be reported as eliciting awe-filled
experiences of profound beauty.
Goals of the Present Research
We sought to uncover differences and simi-
larities between two highly emotional experi-
ences with the capacity to produce change,
spiritual transformations, and experiences of
profound beauty. To pursue these aims, we re-
lied on narrative techniques used in the study of
emotion-related appraisal, feeling, and thought
(e.g., Shaver et al., 1987; Smith & Ellsworth,
1985) that have been used to identify the core
meanings of different emotions (e.g., Ellsworth
& Smith, 1988a, 1988b; Roseman, 1991, 2004;
Smith & Ellsworth, 1985) and to differentiate
between subtypes of emotions, such as the self-
conscious emotions of embarrassment and
128 COHEN, GRUBER, AND KELTNER
shame (e.g., Keltner & Buswell, 1996; Miller &
Tangney, 1992).
Also, we used measures of cognitive apprais-
als because of the long tradition of investigating
the appraisal structure of positive emotions
(e.g., Roseman, 1991; Smith & Ellsworth,
1985), such as for love in romantic relationships
(Fitness & Fletcher, 1993) and interest (Silvia,
2005). Appraisal processes powerfully deter-
mine which emotion is experienced in a given
situation (Roseman, 1991, 2004). Because of
the complexity and the uncharted character of
the emotional experiences of spiritual transfor-
mation and profound beauty, we also solicited
open-ended narrative descriptions of the expe-
riences to be able to extract prototypes.
Method
Undergraduate students from the University
of California, Berkeley, were asked to fill out an
anonymous questionnaire packet concerning
one of two experiences: spiritually transforma-
tive experiences or experiences of profound
beauty. We chose an undergraduate population
because of theorizing and empirical work by
James (1902/1997), Starbuck (1897, 1900), and
others, which have pointed to late adolescence–
early adulthood as a time when such experi-
ences are common and can have important, far-
reaching consequences.
Participants were randomly assigned to write
about either a spiritually transformative experi-
ence or an experience of profound beauty. In the
beauty condition, participants (n⫽63) were
instructed as follows:
We are interested in experiences that involve a pro-
found sense of beauty. People describe many different
kinds of such experiences. If you have ever had such an
experience, please tell us about it below. If you have
not ever had such an experience, please answer the
questions below in terms of what you think a typical
experience is like that involves a profound sense of
beauty.
In the spiritual transformation prompt, partic-
ipants (n⫽84) were instructed as follows:
We are interested in experiences that people consider
to be a spiritual transformation. People describe many
different kinds of such experiences. A spiritual trans-
formation may be of the religious variety, it may have
to do with what you consider to be sacred, it may be in
response to something in nature, it may result from
relationship with other people, or art, or many other
things. If you have ever had such an experience, please
tell us about it below. If you have not ever had such an
experience, please answer the questions below in terms
of what you think a typical spiritual transformation is
like.
We provided more examples for the spiritual
transformation prompt (religion, sacred, nature,
relationship, art) because of the highly idiosyn-
cratic and heterogeneous meanings of spirituality
(Zinnbauer et al., 1999), and we wanted partici-
pants to feel free to write about whatever domain
or experience of interest. More participants were
given the spiritual transformation version because
pilot work suggested that these experiences are
less common than beauty experiences.
We present data on the actual experiences of
the participants, not their descriptions of their
views of typical experiences. The dependent
measures included cognitive appraisals of the
experiences (see Table 1; Smith & Ellsworth,
1985); ratings of the involvement of 46 emo-
tions and emotionlike states (see Table 1); and
open-ended narrative descriptions of the causes,
thoughts, feelings, physiology/behavior, and
consequences of the experiences (Fehr & Rus-
sell, 1984; Shaver et al., 1987; see Table 2). We
first solicited the narrative data so that cognitive
appraisal items and emotion ratings would not
influence the open-ended reports.
A detailed coding scheme to categorize the
narrative features of the essays was developed
on the basis of both (a) theoretical consider-
ations and (b) a reading of participants’ essays.
Two trained research assistants who were un-
aware of condition (beauty or spiritual experi-
ence) and hypotheses both coded a randomly
chosen subset of 30 experiences: 15 beauty ex-
periences and 15 spiritual transformations.
Agreement for each narrative code was high
(see Table 2), so we present data from one of
the coders, randomly chosen.
Results
Demographics
For all results, ns differ very slightly because
of skipped questions. In the condition for expe-
riences of profound beauty, 36 women and 16
men provided their gender. Of those reporting
ethnic background (n⫽46), 17 were European
American, 19 were Asian, and 6 were Hispanic,
with the remainder being from other ethnic
groups. In the spiritual experiences condi-
129SPIRITUALITY AND BEAUTY
Table 1
Cognitive Appraisals and Emotion Ratings of Spiritual and Beauty Experiences
Cognitive appraisal and emotion rating
Beauty Spiritual
tCohen’s dMSDMSD
Cognitive appraisals (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985)
Pleasant 4.6 0.8 4.0 1.3 2.8
ⴱⴱ
0.59
Enjoyable 4.6 1.0 3.8 1.3 3.3
ⴱⴱⴱ
0.71
Consider further 4.0 0.2 4.0 1.3 0.4 0.00
Devote attention to 2.2 1.3 2.5 1.5 1.1 ⫺0.22
Circumstances beyond anyone’s control 3.4 1.5 3.5 1.4 0.2 ⫺0.07
Had the ability to influence what was
happening 2.4 1.5 2.9 1.4 1.7
†
⫺0.34
Someone other than yourself was controlling
what was happening 2.5 1.6 3.0 1.5 1.4 ⫺0.32
Understand 3.7 1.2 3.6 1.2 0.2 0.08
Uncertain 1.8 1.1 2.3 1.1 2.2
ⴱ
⫺0.45
Predict what was going to happen 2.9 1.4 2.3 1.3 2.2
ⴱ
0.44
Problems that had to be solved 1.9 1.2 2.7 1.5 2.8
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.61
Obstacles 1.9 1.2 .8 1.4 3.3
ⴱⴱⴱ
0.86
Fair 3.5 1.3 3.4 1.5 0.6 0.07
Cheated or wronged 1.3 0.9 1.7 1.3 1.9
†
⫺0.37
Responsible did you feel 2.4 1.4 3.3 1.5 2.8
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.63
Someone or something other than yourself
was responsible 3.2 1.5 3.4 1.5 0.8 ⫺0.13
Exert yourself 1.7 1.1 2.8 1.5 4.1
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺0.87
Effort 2.4 1.3 3.1 1.4 2.5
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.52
Emotion or emotionlike feature
Amusement 3.2 1.5 2.4 1.4 2.5
ⴱ
0.55
Anger 1.4 1.0 1.8 1.3 1.9
†
⫺0.36
Animation 2.4 1.4 2.0 1.4 1.3 0.29
Arousal 3.7 1.2 3.4 1.5 0.9 0.23
Awe 4.5 1.0 3.9 1.4 2.6
ⴱⴱ
0.51
Beauty 4.8 0.7 3.3 1.7 5.9
ⴱⴱⴱ
1.27
Compassion 3.4 1.5 3.5 1.6 0.2 ⫺0.06
Confusion 1.6 1.1 2.7 1.3 4.4
ⴱⴱⴱ
⫺0.93
Connection to others 3.3 1.5 3.6 1.5 0.8 ⫺0.20
Contempt 1.4 1.0 1.8 1.4 1.2 ⫺0.34
Contemplative 3.6 1.3 3.5 1.6 0.4 0.07
Contentment 4.2 1.1 3.2 1.6 3.3
ⴱⴱⴱ
0.76
Desire 3.0 1.4 3.2 1.6 0.5 ⫺0.14
Disappointment 1.4 1.0 1.8 1.3 1.5 ⫺0.36
Disgust 1.2 0.8 1.6 1.3 1.5 ⫺0.39
Embarrassment 1.5 1.1 1.8 1.3 1.1 ⫺0.25
Excitement 3.5 1.4 3.3 1.5 0.7 0.14
Fear 1.6 1.2 2.3 1.5 2.5
ⴱ
⫺0.53
Goals and values 2.6 1.4 3.5 1.5 2.9
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.63
Guilt 1.2 0.6 1.9 1.4 3.1
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.71
Happiness 4.2 1.1 3.7 1.5 1.7
†
0.39
Hope 3.8 1.2 3.8 1.4 0.1 0.00
In control 2.5 1.4 3.0 1.4 1.7
†
⫺0.36
Inspiration 4.5 0.8 3.9 1.4 2.6
ⴱⴱ
0.56
Interest 4.2 1.2 3.5 1.5 2.2
ⴱ
0.53
Jealousy 1.4 1.1 1.2 0.8 0.9 0.20
Lively 3.3 1.4 2.9 1.6 1.2 0.27
Love 3.6 1.5 3.6 1.5 0.1 0.00
Out of control 1.8 1.3 2.2 1.3 1.3 ⫺0.31
Pain 1.2 0.8 1.9 1.4 3.0
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.65
Relaxation 3.7 1.3 2.9 1.6 2.8
ⴱⴱ
0.56
130 COHEN, GRUBER, AND KELTNER
tion, 29 women and 13 men provided their
gender. Of participants in this condition, 11
reported their identity as European Ameri-
can, 21 as Asian, and 8 as Hispanic or Latino/a.
There were no significant differences between
the spiritual and beauty conditions in propor-
tions of men versus women,
2
(1, N⫽
94) ⫽0.00, ns; proportion of Hispanic or
Latino/a identity (yes vs. no),
2
(1, N⫽
93) ⫽1.14, p⫽.29; or proportion of White
versus Asian identity,
2
(1, N⫽68) ⫽1.15,
p⫽.28.
Cognitive Appraisals
Participants rated both spiritual transforma-
tions and beauty experiences as highly pleasant
and enjoyable and wanted to consider them
further. Beauty experiences were rated more
pleasant, enjoyable, and predictable. Partici-
pants felt more responsible for beauty experi-
ences. Spiritual transformations were rated as
involving more uncertainty, more obstacles to
be overcome, and more problems that need to
be solved; participants appraised spiritual trans-
formations as requiring more exertion and ef-
fort. These findings clearly suggest, as devel-
oped in the early work of James (1902/1997)
and Starbuck (1897/1900), that spiritual and
conversion experiences often involve nega-
tively valenced feelings and that the current
emphasis on the predominantly positive valence
of spirituality may misrepresent this facet of
spiritual experience.
Gender and ethnicity effects on spiritual
and beauty experiences. Men (coded as 1;
women coded as 0) were significantly more
likely to rate that they had the ability to influ-
ence what was happening (r⫽.29, n⫽92, pⱕ
.01), whereas women were more inclined to
endorse the notion that someone other than the
participant was controlling what was happening
(r⫽⫺.22, n⫽93, pⱕ.05), as well as
someone other than the self being responsible
(r⫽⫺22, n⫽92, pⱕ.05). These correlations
are interesting but should be seen as preliminary
because of the large number of correlations.
However, we also note that the pattern of cor-
relations for gender differences tells a consistent
story, with men feeling more in control and
responsible and women feeling less in control
and responsible.
For ethnicity (White vs. Asian), correlations
were small and no correlation was significant.
Emotion ratings. Beauty experiences were
rated as involving significantly more amuse-
ment, awe, beauty, contentment, inspiration, in-
terest, and relaxation than spiritual experiences.
Spiritual transformations were rated as involv-
ing significantly more confusion, fear, pain, re-
Table 1 (continued)
Cognitive appraisal and emotion rating
Beauty Spiritual
tCohen’s dMSDMSD
Religion 2.3 1.6 3.2 1.8 2.4
ⴱ
⫺0.54
Relief 2.4 1.4 3.0 1.6 1.9
†
⫺0.41
Sadness 1.6 1.1 2.4 1.5 2.9
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.63
Self-esteem 2.7 1.5 2.6 1.5 0.5 0.07
Sense of purpose 3.2 1.4 3.6 1.5 1.3 ⫺0.28
Sexual arousal 1.4 1.1 1.1 0.6 1.6 0.32
Spirituality 3.3 1.5 3.9 1.4 1.9
†
⫺0.41
Skepticism 1.4 0.9 2.1 1.4 3.0
ⴱⴱ
⫺0.63
Sympathy 1.8 1.2 2.1 1.2 1.1 ⫺0.25
Surprise 2.8 1.5 2.8 1.6 0.2 0.00
Tension 1.5 0.9 1.8 1.3 1.3 ⫺0.28
Thoughtful 3.7 1.3 3.8 1.3 0.2 ⫺0.08
Worry 1.4 1.0 2.0 1.4 2.4
ⴱ
⫺0.51
Way you deal with stress 1.6 1.1 2.1 1.5 2.0
ⴱ
⫺0.39
Virtue 2.9 1.3 2.8 1.6 0.2 0.07
Note. Emotion ratings ranged from 1 (not at all)to5(very much). tindicates the significance of the mean difference in
ratings between beauty and spiritual experiences.
†
pⱕ.10.
ⴱ
pⱕ.05.
ⴱⴱ
pⱕ.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
pⱕ.001. ns range from 40 to 41 for spiritual experiences and from 50 to 52 for
beauty experiences.
131SPIRITUALITY AND BEAUTY
Table 2
Features of Narratives About Beauty Experiences and Spiritual Transformations
Variable % Agreement % Beauty % Spiritual
2
Effect size phi
Causes
Nature 93.3 54.9 6.8 24.84
ⴱⴱⴱ
.51
Alone 83.3 11.8 13.6 0.08 .03
Religious event 76.7 0 34.1 20.65
ⴱⴱⴱ
.47
Travel 86.7 13.7 13.6 0.00 .00
Death/injury 96.7 2.0 15.9 5.96
ⴱ
.25
Thoughts
Connection to others 93.3 5.9 20.5 4.55
ⴱ
.22
Connection to God 96.7 2.0 29.5 14.30
ⴱⴱⴱ
.39
Small 90.0 7.8 9.1 0.05 .02
Appreciation 73.3 31.4 9.1 7.06
ⴱⴱ
.27
Understanding of religion 93.3 0 4.5 2.37 .16
Understanding of self 80.0 2.0 25.0 11.36
ⴱⴱⴱ
.35
Understanding of the world 76.7 2.0 15.9 5.96
ⴱ
.25
Understanding of others 93.3 0 2.3 1.17 .11
Purpose 90.0 2.0 13.6 4.72
ⴱ
.22
Negative thoughts about religion 96.7 0 2.3 1.17 .11
Positive thoughts about others 90.0 2.0 4.5 0.52 .07
Positive thoughts about self 96.7 11.8 4.5 1.60 .13
Positive thoughts about world 86.7 7.8 0 3.60
†
.20
Feelings
Happiness 80.0 35.3 27.3 0.70 .09
Beauty 80.0 47.1 0 27.71
ⴱⴱⴱ
.54
Awe 86.7 41.2 15.9 7.26
ⴱⴱ
.28
Calm 83.3 29.4 22.7 0.54 .08
Gratitude 90.0 7.8 11.4 0.34 .06
Relief 96.7 0 9.1 4.84
ⴱ
.23
Excitement 96.7 15.7 9.1 0.93 .10
Confusion 100.0 0 4.5 2.37 .16
Sadness 80.0 3.9 18.2 5.10
ⴱ
.23
Behaviors/physiology
Crying 96.7 11.8 25.0 2.82
†
.17
Smiling/laughing 96.7 31.4 15.9 3.08
†
.18
Heart racing 100.0 15.7 6.8 1.81 .14
Eyes wide 90.0 0 4.5 2.37 .16
Stillness 100.0 17.6 0 8.58
ⴱⴱ
.30
Exclamations (e.g., Wow!) 96.7 17.6 4.5 3.96
ⴱ
.20
Silence 83.3 45.1 50.0 0.23 .05
Changes
No change 86.7 17.6 9.1 1.46 .12
Changed understanding of self 76.7 15.7 54.5 15.97
ⴱⴱⴱ
.41
Changed understanding of world 80.0 13.7 29.5 3.56
†
.19
Religious strengthening 90.0 0 27.3 15.92
ⴱⴱⴱ
.41
Calm 96.7 2.0 2.3 0.01 .01
Sense of control 96.7 0 0 0 .00
Sense of purpose 93.3 0 6.8 3.59
†
.19
Connection to God 90.0 0 20.5 11.52
ⴱⴱⴱ
.35
Appreciation 93.3 29.4 9.1 6.10
ⴱⴱ
.25
Sense of beauty in the world 83.3 25.5 0 12.99
ⴱⴱⴱ
.37
Positive emotions about religion 90.0 0 11.4 6.12
ⴱⴱ
.25
Note. Agreement refers to the percent agreement for 30 randomly chosen narratives (15 beauty and 15 spiritual) between
two coders who were unaware of condition and hypotheses.
2
(1, N⫽95) refers to the significance of the difference in
proportions between beauty and spiritual experiences.
†
pⱕ.10.
ⴱ
pⱕ.05.
ⴱⴱ
pⱕ.01.
ⴱⴱⴱ
pⱕ.001. For phi statistics, we neglected the arbitrary sign of the coefficient.
132 COHEN, GRUBER, AND KELTNER
ligion, sadness, skepticism, (marginally more)
spirituality, skepticism, worry, and involving
the way the participant deals with stress. Again,
this dovetails nicely with early work by James
and Starbuck on the negatively valenced facets
of spiritual experience and conversion.
Compared with men, women (coded as 0;
men coded as 1) rated experiences as involving
more connection to others (r⫽⫺.34, n⫽93,
pⱕ.001) and marginally more inspiration
(r⫽⫺.19, n⫽93, pⱕ.10). Whites (coded as
1; Asians coded as 0) rated experiences as in-
volving more beauty (r⫽.25, n⫽67, pⱕ.05),
interest (r⫽.26, n⫽67, pⱕ.05), and skep-
ticism (r⫽.28, n⫽66, pⱕ.05), whereas
Asians rated experiences as involving more re-
lief (r⫽⫺.29, n⫽66, pⱕ.05). Again, given
the large number of correlations that we did not
correct for multiple tests, these results should be
viewed as preliminary.
Narrative Data
Table 2 reports results of narrative analyses.
Causes. Religious events and death more
frequently caused spiritual experiences. Nature
was much more frequently the source of beauty
experiences.
Thoughts. Connection to others, connec-
tion to God, understanding the self, understand-
ing the world, and sense of purpose were more
common in spiritual experiences. Appreciation
and positive thoughts about the world were
more common in beauty experiences. Feeling
small, understanding religion, negative thoughts
about religion, and positive thoughts about oth-
ers did not more frequently typify the spiritual
and beauty experiences.
Feelings. Happiness and feeling calm were
common in both kinds of experiences. Grati-
tude, excitement, and confusion were also not
different. Both relief and sadness were more
common in spiritual transformation. Beauty and
awe were more common in beauty experiences.
Physiology and behavior. Silence was a
common behavior in both experiences. Crying
was marginally more common in spiritual
transformation, whereas smiling/laughing
was marginally more common in beauty ex-
periences. Stillness and exclamatory remarks
(e.g., Wow!) were more common in beauty ex-
periences. Heart racing was somewhat more
common in beauty experiences but not signifi-
cantly different.
Changes. James (1902/1997) and Starbuck
(1897/1902, 1900) claimed that conversions
commonly result in a feeling of knowing truths
not known before, perception of newness, and
ecstatic happiness. Paloutzian, Richardson, and
Rambo (1999) reviewed the effects of religious
conversion experiences and concluded that such
experiences appear to have little effect on basic
personality structure but do have big effects on
goals, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, identity,
and life meaning. In our data, changed under-
standing of the self and of the world, religious
strengthening, positive feelings about religion,
and connection to God were all significantly
more common in spiritual transformation, and a
changed sense of purpose was marginally more
common to spiritual experiences. Increased ap-
preciation and seeing more beauty in the world
were significantly more common in beauty ex-
periences. No change seemed more common in
beauty experience, but the difference was not
significant.
Although, as noted earlier, spiritual experi-
ences involved significantly more negative
emotions (e.g., confusion and worry), neither
spiritual transformation nor beauty experiences
commonly involved negative consequences. For
example, for less than 3% of the time did either
experience resulted in negative emotions about the
self, the world, or others, and a lasting feeling of
disappointment was also rare. As James (1902/
1997) noted, these experiences can be difficult and
anxiety provoking, but they appear to resolve
themselves in positive ways—making people feel
free from sin and the world having an appearance
of newness (seePaloutzian et al., 1999, for a more
recent review of evidence on the effects of con-
version experiences).
General Discussion
An emergent emphasis in the study of emo-
tion is on the positive emotions (Fredrickson,
2001) and emotions that enable the individual to
transcend self-interest— emotions including
gratitude (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang,
2002; McCullough, Kimeldorf, & Cohen,
2008), love (Gonzaga, Keltner, Londahl, &
Smith, 2001), and awe (Keltner & Haidt, 2003).
In the present research, we examined two kinds
of emotional experiences that have the potential
133SPIRITUALITY AND BEAUTY
to change people in both positive and negative
directions, and perhaps in prosocial directions.
Narrative data capturing the antecedents and
phenomenologies of spiritual and beauty expe-
riences revealed overlapping themes as well as
compelling distinctions. As one might expect,
several of the defining features of these two
kinds of experiences were similar, including
high levels of awe. This is consistent with
claims that at the core of awe are two dimen-
sions of meaning—vastness and the need to
shift knowledge structures (Keltner & Haidt,
2003). Spiritual transformation and beauty ex-
periences were both highly positive in valence;
there was an emphasis on circumstances more
so than on the self being in control and an
emphasis on understanding. These similarities
are all the more impressive in light of the fact that
the elicitors of spiritual experiences and beauty—
religious events and nature, respectively—
differed. It is also important to note the prepon-
derance of similarities in spiritual and beauty
experiences across gender and across our two
ethnic groups.
At the same time, however, we observed nu-
merous and systematic differences in these ex-
periences. Spiritual transformation experiences
were defined by greater uncertainty, obstacles,
problems, and turmoil. Their emotional content
involved more negative affects, such as guilt,
pain, sadness, and worry. Also, in terms of
change-related consequences, participants were
much more likely to report gaining understand-
ing into the self, the world, and a sense of
purpose as a result of spiritual experiences.
These findings make an important point with
respect to the study of spiritual experiences.
Modern theorizing about spirituality has fo-
cused mostly on positive aspects of spirituality
such as contentedness and gratitude, to the rel-
ative exclusion of negatively valenced emotions
(Hill, 2002). Nevertheless, as far back as James
(1902/1997), theorists have highlighted the neg-
ative emotions that can comprise spiritual trans-
formations. Our findings suggest that emotions
such as anxiety, sadness, and pain are central to
religious and spiritual experiences. Of interest, our
data also suggest that these experiences result in
positive changes, consistent with previous theoriz-
ing about awe experiences and accommodation
(Keltner & Haidt, 2003), and awe was a com-
monly cited emotion by our participants.
This work makes contributions to our understand-
ings of two important emotional experiences—
spiritual transformations and experiences of pro-
found beauty. Our data have suggested a common
core in appraisal, narrative structure, and self-rated
emotions, as well as some important differences
between these types of experiences.
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Received April 1, 2009
Revision received December 29, 2009
Accepted January 19, 2010 䡲
135SPIRITUALITY AND BEAUTY
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