The value and distinctiveness of awe in science communication: comparing the incidence and content of ‘awesome’ representations in science and non-science picture books

Abstract

The emotions most valued by a culture tend to be depicted more often, and more saliently, in their cultural products than those that are not. The content of such representations will also vary in relation to the particular mandates (e.g. beliefs, values, norms) of those cultural spaces. In the present research, we conducted a study in three sections that compared systematically the representations of awe in sixty picture book biographies of scientists (n = 60) and sixty picture book biographies of non-scientists (n = 60). The first two sections revealed that the frequency and centrality of awe-related content in the images and text of these materials was significantly higher for the former book type. The third section likewise uncovered differences in the representation of the situations where awe is experienced, as well as the characteristics of characters portrayed as experiencing this emotion between and within the two types of picture books. Together, these findings show that awe is an especially valued emotion in the culture of science communication and that the representation of this affective category in this domain is distinct to how it is represented in other spaces.