A partner who seeks out experiences that make the two of you feel small in a good way — a mountain ridge, a field of stars, a swell of music in a dark hall — because the self-transcendent emotionself-transcendent emotionAn emotion, like awe, that pulls attention beyond the self and its concerns, quieting the ego and connecting a person to something larger.Glossary → of aweaweThe emotion felt in the presence of something vast that we can't quite fit into our existing understanding of the world — defined by vastness plus the mind's…Glossary →, felt together, quiets the ego and knits two people into a sense of "us."
Awe is the emotion we feel before something vast that we can't quite fit into our existing understanding. Keltner and Haidt defined it by two features: a sense of vastness and a need for accommodationneed for accommodationThe second ingredient of awe: the mind scrambling to update its existing understanding so it can take in something too vast to fit what it already knows.Glossary →, the mind scrambling to update itself 1. Its reliable consequence is the "small selfsmall selfA reliable consequence of awe: a momentary shrinking of self-importance, self-focus, and ego, paired, paradoxically, with a heightened sense of connection to…Glossary →" — a momentary shrinking of self-importance paired, paradoxically, with a heightened sense of connection to something larger 2. This flag is about a partner who goes looking for that on purpose, with you. That distinction matters, because the neighboring flags work differently: Trying New Things (#162) and Shared Adventures (#164) run on self-expansionself-expansionThe idea that people are basically motivated to grow the self by adding new perspectives, skills, and identities, and that close relationships are a main…Glossary → — you grow by adding experiences — and Purpose Together (#179) is about direction. Awe's signature move is the opposite: not expansion but diminishment of the self, the ego getting smaller and the "us" getting bigger by comparison. A trip to a new city is an adventure; standing silent under the aurora is awe.
The evidence on awe itself is strong. Piff's five studies, including standing beneath towering trees, showed awe increases generosity and helping, carried by the small self 2; a 2024 meta-analysis of 57 effect sizeseffect sizeA number describing how large or meaningful a finding is, not just whether it's statistically real — lets readers judge if an effect is small, modest, or…Glossary → from nearly 21,000 people confirmed the moderate awe–prosociality link 3. Bai and Keltner found the diminished-self pattern holds across cultures 4, a broad review ties awe to connection, meaning, and well-being 5, and a 2025 RCT found a brief awe practice reduced depressive symptoms with medium-to-large effects 6. Two threads reach romance: awe is inherently shareable — people want to turn and say look 47 — and sharing amplifies, since Boothby's work showed undergoing the same thing simultaneously, without a word, intensifies it and puts people "on the same wavelength" 8. Durkheim's collective effervescence names the unity of synchronized peak moments, and a 2022 meta-analytic review ties such shared peaks to bonding and solidarity 9.
Why it matters
Why it matters. What erodes long relationships is a slow contraction of scale into logistics and grievances; awe makes the self briefly smaller, the petty stuff smaller too, and turns two people the same direction, shoulder to shoulder. Peak moments also pay a memory dividend — anchors a couple returns to.
How to cultivate it
How to cultivate it. You don't need a national park 2: take an "awe walk" with the simple instruction to notice the vast 10, put the phones away, and say out loud afterward what it did to you.
The honest caveat
The honest caveat. The science of awe-the-emotion is robust, but the science of awe-as-a-couples-practice over the long run is an inference. Most studies look at individuals or strangers and measure short-term effects 235, and the shared-experience and collective-effervescence findings, while well-supported, weren't conducted on romantic partners 89. The leap from "awe connects people and is more intense when shared" to "couples who chase shared awe last longer" is reasonable but unproven — hold it lightly. Awe is also not a repair tool: it won't fix contempt, dishonesty, or a broken sense of safety. What it can do is widen the frame for two people who are already basically well — a real, if modest, gift, not a cure.