PODCASTCities of Awe: The Science of Happiness

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Noticing the history and beauty around us can shift how we see ourselves—and our communities. An awe walk through Harlem reveals how the stories embedded in public spaces can spark connection, perspective, and a sense of what’s possible.

Summary: Cities are full of quiet moments of wonder—if we know how to notice them. In this episode of The Science of Happiness we explore the science of awe while taking an awe walk with students at City University of New York in Harlem. We learn  how everyday urban spaces can deepen our sense of connection, belonging, and curiosity. 

How To Do This Practice:

1. Choose a familiar place: Pick a street, park, campus, or neighborhood you move through often—somewhere ordinary.
2. Slow your pace: Walk more slowly than usual and give yourself permission to notice, rather than rush.
3. Look for signs of story: Pay attention to buildings, names, textures, and small details that hint at history, culture, or the people who’ve been there before.
4. Ask yourself: Who stood here before me? What happened here? What journeys passed through this space?
5. Notice your response: Pause when something catches you—a feeling of wonder, curiosity, or even goosebumps—and stay with it for a moment.
6. Reflect on connection: As you finish, consider how this place and the stories within it connect to your own life, sense of belonging, or what feels possible for you.

Today’s Guest:

BOB MCKINNON is an author, teacher, and Director of the Social Mobility Lab at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York

Learn more about Bob here: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/profile/bob_mckinnon

This episode is supported by The Gambrell Foundation, who believe a great life grows from strong relationships, a sense of belonging, and moments of awe and wonder. Learn more about their work at gambrellfoundation.org

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

Cities of Awe Series: https://tinyurl.com/2vyhxvny

How Cities Can Make Space for Awe: https://tinyurl.com/yr7m2zb5

What Humans Can Learn From Trees: https://tinyurl.com/48te84ps

Related Happiness Break episodes:

How To Ground Yourself in Nature: https://tinyurl.com/25ftdxpm

Pause to Look at the Sky: https://tinyurl.com/4jttkbw3

Experience Nature Wherever You Are, with Dacher: https://tinyurl.com/mrutudeh

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription:

DACHER KELTNER: This episode is supported by the Gambrell Foundation, who believe a great life grows from strong relationships, a sense of belonging and moments of awe and wonder. Learn more about their work at gambrellfoundation.org. 

BOB MCKINNON: I've been teaching at City College probably for like four or five years, and one day I was invited to an event and I was walking around the corner and I was like, oh my gosh. I had no idea that Alexander Hamilton's house was around the corner from campus. I remember the feeling when I saw it. It literally was a feeling of awe. I'm like, it is here. And I find such awe in history and standing in places where other people have stood or major events have happened. 

And then I started thinking about what are all the other things around here? And if I'm not seeing it, I wonder if my students are seeing it. And if the community is seeing it, how can we tell these stories? And so I was like, wow, I think there's some potential here if we just go ahead and try to figure out a handful of places in this neighborhood that could really inspire students and sort of stop them in the tracks and be like, I didn't know that. 

DACHER KELTNER: This is the Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. Welcome to the second episode in our ongoing series, Cities of Awe. Together we'll explore how we can invite a sense of awe and wonder into our experiences of public spaces and how they can strengthen our collective wellbeing and connection to the world around us. Recently I traveled to New York City to meet up with psychologist Bob McKinnon. He's one of the world's experts on the science of what it takes to get ahead in life. Even when we face headwinds. It's called social mobility. 

BOB MCKINNON: Research shows that actually kids who believe that they don't have a chance of moving up actually don't move up. It's self-fulfilling. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the belief that well, anyone can do anything. And so if you just work hard enough, you can sort of become whatever you want. And we know that's also not true.

DACHER KELTNER: Bob teaches at the City College of New York, and a little while back he took students on an awe walk around Harlem. They toured major cultural institutions like the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and even the home of one of our founding fathers. 

STUDENT 1: I didn't know he was Caribbean. I didn't know that he even lived there. The fact that he as an immigrant came here based on nothing but good faith. And was able to work his way up to the position of being one of the founding fathers. It’s very emblematic of what this country is. 

DACHER KELTNER: We'll be exploring the science of awe in public spaces, how it influences our sense of belonging, as well as our ability to move up in life. That's up next after these messages from our sponsors. 

DACHER KELTNER: Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. As part of our Cities of Awe series, we're looking at the ways public spaces can transform and enrich our daily lives. Bob McKinnon directs the social mobility lab at City College of New York where he researches what drives how we move up in life, and translates that knowledge into practical advice that can help students from communities that need it most. Moments of awe can help. Research shows that experiencing even a little bit of awe supports students in staying curious in school. So McKinnon invited his students on an all walk of historic spaces in Harlem. I asked him to take us on the walk with him step by step. 

BOB MCKINNON: So the first stop that we go onto is right on campus, something called the Great Hall. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE: Let's wait for everyone to gather. Really look around, check out the architectural detail.

BOB MCKINNON: It's a hall, but it's also a monument to public education. And so. City College was the first free university in the country, and the story is that this was an experiment to see what happens if we educate the whole public, because at the time, that's not the way in which education was working. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE: All of these banners all around us are essentially from major universities from around the world. They were given to the college as an extension of good luck and good wishes for this experiment. 

BOB MCKINNON: And then you'll see stained glass windows that were gifts from major universities and colleges inside the United States. 

DACHER KELTNER: What year is that? 

BOB MCKINNON: The university was founded around like 1860, 1870. The great hall was built in the early 19 hundreds. And then as we're telling this story on the tour, we're talking to them like they built this for you. Think about that. This is built for you and all of these universities are wishing you well. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE: The people who were physically building this, that were laying what you see here that were. Erecting this majestic sort of hall. Were working class folks as well, many of which presumably wanted to send their kids to a place like this.

BOB MCKINNON: And one of the students quoted like, I can feel them looking down on us and pushing us forward. 

STUDENT 2: We'll see the next generation make their accomplishments and let's see how when we graduate and we become that generation, we'll see the further next generation on how they will accomplish their success. 

BOB MCKINNON:We leave Great Hall, we go around the corner, maybe walk two, three minutes and there's the Grange. And the Grange is Alexander Hamilton's home. And so we're talking about his home. I'm like, this is Alexander Hamilton, you know, he created our financial system and the Coast Guard and the Treasury. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE:

So Alexander Hamilton was born in the Caribbean. He was an orphan. His father deserted him when he was young. His mother died of infectious disease when he was very, very young. He was sort of just stranded there. And someone took a chance on him, gave him a job as a bookkeeper, and he loved to read. So he read and read, and read and read, and he always wanted a better life for himself. And that time, a better life was coming to America. But how does he get here? He has no money, but the people where he lived believed in him. So they took up a collection and sent him to the mainland. 

BOB MCKINNON: Afterwards, students were like, wow, I didn't know he was from the Caribbean like I am. 

STUDENT 1: I didn't know. He was Caribbean. I didn't know that he even lived there. The fact that he as an immigrant came here based on nothing but good faith and was able to work his way up to the position of being one of the founding fathers is, it's very emblematic of what this country is. 

BOB MCKINNON: From there, we walk down, we go into Striver's Row. We talk about this idea that this was a place that was originally intended to be another enclave for richer middle class white people, but it happened to be built in an economic downturn, and they needed to make it open to others. And African American middle class people, doctors and scientists and jazz musicians came and they sort of made that their home. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE: Originally, the term Striver's Row was derogatory. It was actually a jab. It was like, oh, look at these people striving to be better than they are. But the people who lived here who essentially were like, striving for a middle class and beyond life, they were like, you know what, we're gonna own that. 'cause we are striving for a better life. Right? 

BOB MCKINNON: And so again, an inspiration for people who are in the middle of their journey and striving on their own. 

STUDENT 3: It's very like impactful to think about how there were successful African American surgeons, doctors, you know, businessmen that were able to, you know, afford it and like, just like what it means for them to tear in like a name that was meant to like spite them to something inspirational. 

BOB MCKINNON: We went to the Y and again, this building is in the middle of Harlem, right? 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: And you sort of see it all the time. And like imagine going here and Jackie Robinson is teaching you basketball.

DACHER KELTNER: No way. 

BOB MCKINNON SCENE TAPE: If you were living here. One of your neighbors might have been Malcolm X. If you were interested in arts or literature, you might have come across James Baldwin or Langston Hughes. People who were in these buildings, living, teaching, sharing, connected. The idea of entrepreneurship runs really deep in these streets. People who are like, you know what? I may not have access to other systems, but I'm gonna do something with the skills and the connections I have. 

BOB MCKINNON: And then finally when we end up at the, um, Schomberg Center for African American Research, and that was really profound. We had a curator there give a brief talk about the artwork as soon as you walk in, which is essentially a tribute to a Langston Hughes poem. 

CURATOR: I've known rivers, I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. 

BOB MCKINNON: It's essentially the story of him tracing. Not only his journey as an individual from Mississippi up into New York, but the journey of all African Americans throughout history along these great rivers of time. And then at the end of the talk for the students to discover that Langston Hughes is literally interred beneath their feet. 

CURATOR: Ashes of Langston Hughes are interred directly beneath right here in a stainless steel urn, a little red urn. So this is a sacred space at the Schomburg Center.

DACHER KELTNER: I just got goosebumps. 

BOB MCKINNON: Yeah. Which is, by the way, how I felt when we were designing the tour. We're going around looking at things and I walked in and I learned that and I got goosebumps. Yeah. I'm like, this has to be the final stop. And then afterwards you heard just some really wonderful articulations of what this means. Like one person saying how like, you know, I finally feel like I. 

DACHER KELTNER: Wow. 

BOB MCKINNON: Like this is my place. 

DACHER KELTNER:Wow. 

BOB MCKINNON: Because people like me have been here before. 

STUDENT 4: Right now as a senior especially, 'cause I'm from outta state, I feel a little bit alone and like I'm about to enter this whole world in rat race by myself. But especially seeing all the people who came before and all the major figures and universities that do like support us and who are hoping for the best for us. It's very encouraging and it helps me to feel like a little bit more motivated and like, okay, like there's people who came before me who do trust and know that I can succeed and who have invested in that as well. 

BOB MCKINNON: It was also this idea of curiosity that came through, like continuing the learning. Like someone actually made the comment, you know, sometimes I wonder what the value of education is. And then he said, and here I just realized, sometimes it's just to learn interesting and awe-inspiring things that you will keep with you. 

DACHER KELTNER: Awe outings like the one Bob led in Harlem can help alter the trajectories of the people who show up for them. We hear about that and we dig into the science behind how moments of awe can provide a sense of place and belonging. That's after this break. 

Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. We just went on an awe walk in Harlem with social mobility expert Bob McKinnon and his students. Soon after Bob and I went to a studio in Midtown Manhattan to talk about the role that awe plays in shaping how we move up in life. 

You know, you've been on the ground working with issues of social mobility and we know, from what I see in the data the last 10, 15 years, it is just gotten harder to move up the social ladder, so to speak, of education and wealth and the like. How do you think about social mobility? What does it mean to you? 

BOB MCKINNON: You know, sometimes we think about social mobility. We think strictly from an economic perspective, right? Like, how much money am I making? And as you know, money doesn't buy happiness. Certainly need enough to sort of feel sufficient in your life. And so if part of it is like, how do you redefine social mobility in a sense that it's accessible, it means a good life. It's about sort of thriving and enjoying and loving and you know, the relationships you have and all that kind of stuff while still being very aware of the economic inequality and the need to make sure that people have what they need. And so, you know, I think about that through that lens. Like what do people need and how can we get it to them?

DACHER KELTNER: How do you think about what helps people rise and find some social mobility?

BOB MCKINNON: It's so complicated. I think each person's journey is so individualized. When I think about my own, I grew up poor. I was able to, you know, make it where members of my family and friends that I had and knew (quote) didn't and tried to understand sort of why. I was the youngest in the family. And so there was a little bit of learning through trial and error with my brother and my sister who were older. I read as a kid, but I wasn't reading Tolstoy. I was reading like box scores for the Red Sox, but that meant that I read a lot and that signaled to my mom that I was a reader. And so she called me her little professor, even though she didn't know anyone who had ever gone to college, let alone teach there. And so that sort of a Pygmalion effect, which is sort of the investing in someone's potential. I definitely benefited from, you know, the fact that I was able to believe that education was important and access to Pell Grants and a good state university that I could go to in Pennsylvania. And so there's things that you could point to that were like sort of the obvious things. And then there's other things that aren't obvious. I've generally had really good health. I have had access to some social capital that I've used pretty wisely along the way. The large of it came through my education. I had a good group of friends. I moved to the right places. There's a lot of dumb luck where when I was younger and I did stupid things, it could have been the end of all of it, right? 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: But I didn't, what I was also finding fascinating as I was sort of looking into this is that the dialogue that we have around this is fundamentally broken. And so on one hand you have some people who are basically saying like, the American dream is dead. And research shows that kids who believe that they don't have a chance of moving up actually don't move up. It's self-fulfilling. And so we put these narratives out there, and it can be corrosive. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the belief that anyone can do anything. If you just work hard enough, you can become whatever you want. And we know that's also not true. 

DACHER KELTNER:I mean. It seems like there's this opportunity right now to change this narrative of social mobility.

BOB MCKINNON: Yeah. 

DACHER KELTNER: So what do you hope is the story that we start telling about social mobility? 

BOB MCKINNON:I think we try to provide a lot of answers, and I think social mobility is about a lot of questions, and so I teach the economics of social mobility class at City College, but it's unlike probably most economics courses, and it is highly personalized. The whole trajectory of the course is a series of four essays that the students write about their own life. 

DACHER KELTNER: Wow. 

BOB MCKINNON: Starting with trying to understand where they came from and then looking at sort of how systems and other things may have impacted their journey and the whole way up until the end where they think about what does my life look like 30 years from now? You give them the information to say like, here's the kinds of things that may impact you, good or bad, and now you make some choices about how you think that impacted both how you got into this room now and where you want to go. And I think that's what we're trying to do. How do you get it in the hands of people who can figure out what to do with it? 

DACHER KELTNER: What's the role of awe in all of this? A is in some sense to know that I'm standing where. Langston Hughes is interred. It's inspiring. What do you see more broadly as the role of awe and upward mobility? 

BOB MCKINNON: Yeah, I think on a very base level it's inspiring. You know? It can inspire you to sort of feel more connected to your community, to your world. You know that you're part of something. You belong. I think those are all really important. I think there's also a very big role of sense making. This makes sense to me now. Now I can understand it, and also a sense of agency in it. I actually heard one student who's talking about sort of like this, giving them the inspiration to push through. 

DACHER KELTNER: Right on.

BOB MCKINNON: I mean, as we know, like 50% of people who go to college don't finish. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.

BOB MCKINNON: And so, you know, they're working and got family stuff and so like this is sort of, you know, one little push to keep going. So that's inspiring. So I think that in generally the idea of awe, I mean it is literally, it's all around us. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: And it is also woven into social mobility. So anyone who's watched movies like Rocky or Rudy, yeah. That's an awesome feeling. 

DACHER KELTNER: It is. 

BOB MCKINNON: That you're conveying in that, right? 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah.

BOB MCKINNON: Like look at this achievement. At the same time, like that's just a superficial level of it. To me, when I look at those journeys, like you can watch that and if you ask someone like, Hey, you know, why did Rocky make it? They'll point to like the training scenes and like, look how hard he worked. And that is definitely true. Yeah. But years ago we recut a trailer for Rocky. What we did is we said, now look at all these other things. Yeah. And so for example, in the beginning, Rocky only gets a shot. Because someone else gets hurt, a boxer, so complete luck. 

DACHER KELTNER: I didn't. I forgot that. 

BOB MCKINNON: And then there is his loan shark boss who gives him money and time off to train. Pauly invites him into the beef facility where not only does he train and hit the sides of beef, but he gives him protein every day in the form of a giant juicy steak. And then he's got the support of Adrian and other people and on and on and on. And so to me, I find that more awesome. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: Than him climbing the steps and prevailing ultimately. 

DACHER KELTNER: How do you get young people to see that? Right. We have such an individualistic narrative here.

BOB MCKINNON: Yeah, so, so you're probably familiar with the research that was done by, I think Tom Gilovich and Shai Davide about headwinds and tailwinds, right? 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: So the nature is that we are more aware of the adversity in front of us than the tailwinds behind us, right? But it's actually pretty easy if you show the tailwinds for people, like, oh, I never saw that. We did an exercise where we have students highlight the lyrics from the title track to Hamilton. And at first we were like, go ahead and sort of highlight all the headwinds, the things that he had going against him, like his mom dies, cousin, commits suicide, all this kind of stuff. And then it's like, but now look at all the things and highlight all of the tailwinds. You know, they took up a collection to send him to the mainland. Right? 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: You know, and becomes an aid de camp in Washington. It's all there. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. 

BOB MCKINNON: You just have to sort of point it out. 

DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. Such an awakening. So good to hear. My final question has to do with our times. These are tough political times. Probably some of your students are directly affected by ice. 

BOB MCKINNON: Yep. 

DACHER KELTNER: And the violence that is being targeted at campuses and Bob, you must have a lot of immigrant students. It's a place of immigrant upward mobility. 

BOB MCKINNON: Mm-hmm. 

DACHER KELTNER: As public universities are. And what do you think this kind of work that you do on the narratives of upward mobility, the personal stories, the connection to history and, and even awe and a sense of home, what do you think that gives to these students facing this kind of threat? 

BOB MCKINNON:I think it provides in spite of what's happening, some reassurance that they belong, that we are a nation of immigrants, that we all came here in different ways. And when you point to Alexander Hamilton, was he legal when, how he, I don't know how he came here. You know, I don't, most of people don't know how their families got to America. 

DACHER KELTNER: Right. 

BOB MCKINNON: And so the idea to sort of show and demonstrate that you belong here, that your journey is just as valuable as everyone else's, I would hope provides a little bit of stability during unstable times and some ability to feel resolute in like, I'm gonna do what I can to be what I can in spite of people who don't want me to. 

DACHER KELTNER: Awesome. Thank you for your work on social mobility. It is transcendently important right now. 

BOB MCKINNON: And likewise, thank you for all the work that you're doing to help us see the world in a more awesome and wonderful way. 

DACHER KELTNER: Thanks, Bob. We're traveling from Harlem to Reno, Nevada for our next Cities of Awe exploration. Visiting a museum that invites us to slow down so we can experience the beauty, depth and awe that comes with looking at a piece of art. 

COLIN ROBERTSON:I think people are very reluctant to feel anything. We like to just try to ignore or put our feelings under the carpet and sweep them away and not deal with them, but art and sharing experiences with others about it can be a very powerful antidote to that isolationism. 

DACHER KELTNER: That's next time on the Science of Happiness. Thank you all for listening to the Science of Happiness. Our producer for this episode is Kate Parkinson Morgan. Our field reporter is Jess Jupiter. Our associate producers are Emily Brower, Tarini Kakkar, and Anna Zou. Our producer is Truc Nguyen. Our sound designer is Jenny Cataldo of Accompany Studios, our executive producer, Shuka Kalantari. I'm Dacher Keltner. Have a great day.