Emotion, Awe, and the Sublime
The article we read for today's Startup Lab suggests that positive emotions are more effective than unpleasant ones in an immersive or interactive VR stroytelling experience when the creators want to change how their player/viewer (which I refer to as "your person") thinks, believes, or acts/behaves. Ann Searight Christiano writes: Pleasant emotions often get overlooked in storytelling, but they can be extremely powerful. Scholars have long understood the power of awe, also known as the “ overview effect .” This theory was first captured by writer Frank White after he interviewed 29 astronauts. He found that people who had seen the Earth from space, or who observed someone who had, were filled with a sense of awe that opened them to new perspectives and connection to humanity. More recently, psychologists have suggested that inspiring awe in your audience can open people up to new ideas, foster self reflection and increase altruism. (see: Science of Story Building