Awe, in a manner of speaking, naw.

Yes indeed, ladies and men, according to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, feeling awe in the presence of "something greater" makes us better persons.

That something might be a spectacular sunset, or an experience with religion, music or art.

Apparently, it does us good to feel small and insignificant. I'll be quite candid with you here. I don't need to be in the presence of "something greater" to make me feel small and insignificant. Just walking doon the street will usually do it for me.

But I know what they're saying, at least as regards natural phenomena - a starry night, say, or a vast ocean - reminding us of our natural place in the universe: piffling.

Dr Paul Piff, of the University of California, Irvine (not the Ayrshire one, the Americashire one), says that being awestruck shifts our focus away from our own selfish needs and towards the greater good.

"When experiencing awe, you may not, egocentrically speaking, feel like you're at the centre of the world any more," says Doc Piff.

"By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forego strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others."

Dr Piff isn't just making this up. He and his researchers carried out experiments in which 1,500 people tended to be more generous with raffle tickets after being exposed to something awesome.

Personally, I wouldn't thank you for a raffle ticket - not worth the paper they're printed on, in my experience - but in principle the finding is sound. The awe-inspired also behaved more socially in specially designed games.

"Might awe cause people to become more invested in the greater good, giving to charity, volunteering to help others, or doing more to lessen the impact on the environment?" asks Dr Piff.

He believes the answer is yes but, for my money, he is taking things too far here.

My most humbling experience was being underneath a spectacular display of Northern Lights. I was so awestruck, part of me wanted to hide under a rock and never come out again.

Then again, I'm like that most of the time. My experience of being struck on the awe is that it makes me vaguely more spiritual in the sense of realising that the universe is bigger than my local Asda.

But I'm not sure it makes me want to clasp the many-headed to my bosom or to send some old clothes to Greenpeace. Maybe, like the Northern Lights, the link with being a better person is over my heid. Maybe, indeed, I'm just a heid-the-awe.