Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality

6. Wonder and Psychological Development

6. Wonder and Psychological Development Those who wonder discover that this in itself is wonder. —m. c. escher T he natural sciences have made important contributions to our understanding of the experience of wonder. Biologically we know that humans are genetically designed to respond to unexpected features of the environment in ways that ensure survival and promote our general well-being. Emotions guide this adaptive process by mobilizing perception and cognition in ways that serve our vital needs and interests. It seems, however, that different emotions serve very di√erent sets of needs and interests. A life shaped by wonder is thus one characterized by needs and interests unlike those pursued by people whose lives are relatively devoid of this emotional sensibility. The life of William James illustrates how experiences of wonder orient us to very particular kinds of needs and interests. Trained at Harvard in the natural sciences, James became singularly uninterested in the kinds of reductionistic thinking that characterized the science of his day. His greater need was to understand how our lives fit into some larger cosmic whole. Both his psychological and philosophical writings are characterized by their heuristic or open-ended quality. Thus psychological development 81 James’s life and thought, much like those of John Muir, demonstrate how certain experiences of wonder direct attention beyond the immediate environment to a more general level of existence. Neither Muir nor James possessed the cognitive temperament for sustained interest in the particulars of life. Nor were they especially concerned with curiosity-driven manipulation of things or with solving problems that might yield utilitarian results (though Muir, before his sustained exposure to the ‘‘Godful beauty’’ of nature, was quite successful as an inventor). With the passage of time both became ever more disposed toward the fairly passive contemplation of why things are as they are. Their lives thus provide partial support of the view that experiences of wonder shape our personal lives in quite distinctive ways. Such experiences bring di√erent needs and interests to the fore, thereby altering the course of personal development. And for this reason the discipline of developmental psychology is also in a position to contribute to our understanding of the ‘‘prototypical characteristics’’ of the experience of wonder. The Course of Cognitive Development Wonder, like all emotional experiences, has cognitive elements. It presupposes a discrepancy between previous cognitive expectations and some new event. This discrepancy produces the ‘‘astonishment mingled with perplexity or bewildered curiosity’’ that defines wonder. As an emotional response to unexpected stimuli, wonder prompts us to abandon earlier cognitive structures and develop new ones that might better account for these unexpected perceptions. It follows that wonder is a critical element of cognitive development over the course of the human life span. Wonder promotes adaptation by stimulating the association cortex , compelling the creation of new, more expansive ‘‘interpretive’’ categories. In particular, it motivates us to construct ever more general understandings of reality that might account for the causal source of unexpected stimuli. Put di√erently, wonder prompts us to think in more abstract (rather than concrete) terms. The human 82 psychological development capacity for such abstract thought is intimately linked with the coevolution of our larger cerebral cortex and our cultural mode of existence. As Aristotle noted, ‘‘The animals other than humans live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience ; but the human race lives also by art and reasonings.’’∞ Such reasonings, according to Aristotle, include contemplation of the ultimate cause, meaning, and intentionality of ‘‘being’’ in general. That is, humanity’s highest cognitive achievements have a decidedly metaphysical quality in that they require the construction of mental categories that go beyond what is ‘‘out there’’ in the physical world. Wonder, by stimulating the formation of higher-level categories of thought, is a principal source of such distinctively metaphysical modes of cognition. A better understanding of the role that wonder plays in the course of cognitive development can be found by reviewing the research of the Swiss psychological theorist Jean Piaget. Trained in zoology, Piaget hoped to develop a broadly biological explanation of the process through which humans gradually construct knowledge.≤ He closely observed children, particularly his own children, as they learned to make sense of the world about them. Of particular interest to Piaget was the sequential process through which children come to understand such things as causality, the relationship between parts and wholes, and the...