And these expectations are the cultural aspect of awe ;)

There's a rational component to awe because if we couldn't separate what we consider normal from extraordinary (which implies cognitive processing), we wouldn't experience it.

Awe helps us understand that the emotional and rational parts of the brain are so intertwined that you can't really determine the limits of one over the other. We're complex beings but that's what makes life amazing right?

Thanks for writing about this topic, very interesting!