The Architecture of Awe: Experience, Disposition, and Meaning-Making in Autism

Emotional differences in autism are often interpreted as evidence of diminished emotional capacity. Yet contemporary emotion science views emotions as multicomponent processes organized across perceptual, cognitive, embodied, and meaning-making systems. Here we examine awe—a complex positive emotion involving shifts in attention, self-concept, and meaning making. Little is known about how awe is experienced in autism. We examined awe in autistic and neurotypical adults across three levels of analysis: experiential components, dispositional positive emotion, and narrative expression. Groups did not differ in dispositional awe. Instead, differences were selective and structural. Autistic adults differed in altered time perception and physiological aspects of awe, and in narratives describing interpersonal and abstract sources of awe. Differences persisted after controlling for socioeconomic status, personality traits, positive affect, and narrative verbosity. The findings suggest that awe in autism is preserved but differently organized, positioning autism as a revealing case for understanding the organization of emotional experience.