Does an enormous waterfall make you more generous?

The feelings moved and the giving did not. Spectacular nature produced more awe, more of a sense of smallness and better mood, along with a more social leaning on a choice measure. But on willingness to give to others, the three groups did not differ significantly, so a feeling that sounds moral is no promise about the next action.

The standard hypothesis is that awe reduces preoccupation with the self and so makes room for others, and its test has to be a deed rather than a feeling.

Participants watched a slideshow of spectacular nature, of everyday nature, or of neutral pictures. The middle group is the important one: without it the effect of nature cannot be separated from the effect of grandeur.

Spectacular nature did produce more awe, more of a sense of smallness and better mood, along with a more social leaning on a choice measure that presents splits between self and other.

But on willingness to give in practice, the three groups did not differ significantly. The feeling and the statement moved, and the deed did not. The experiment used pictures and a brief laboratory donation, not a real experience of nature over time, so the open question is whether a real landscape and a real cost would behave the same way.