Emotional Palette
Semantic Space Theory and the Aesthetic Experiences Evoked by Visual Art
Despite the evolutionary history and cultural significance of visual art, its power to evoke aesthetic experiences is largely uncharted scientifically. Guided by Semantic Space Theory (Cowen & Keltner, 2021), we examine how people represent their aesthetic experiences in response to visual art. Participants viewed 1,457 artworks sampled from diverse cultural and historical traditions, and reported on the emotions they experienced and the artwork qualities they perceived. With an inductive approach and new computational methods, we documented that aesthetic experiences can be mapped on a high-dimensional semantic space comprising 25 categories. Extending beyond hedonism and broad valenced judgments, aesthetic experiences involve emotions of daily social living (e.g., “sadness”, “love”), states that arise in the imagination (e.g., “psychedelic”, “mysterious”), and perceptual qualities of art (e.g., “whimsical”, “disorienting”). Aesthetic experiences are often blended and bridged by gradients of experience, as visualized within an interactive map of the semantic space of aesthetic experiences: https://barradeau.com/2021/emotions-map/
When Rule Breaking in Art Falls Flat
Cultural Tightness Deflates Deviant Artists’ Impact
Previous research in Western countries shows that artists whose work deviates from their own previous style (intrapersonal deviance) and other artists’ styles (interpersonal deviance) gain greater impact than nondeviant artists (Stamkou, Van Kleef, & Homan, 2018). However, aesthetic norms are embedded in a cultural context that determines the meaning of artist deviance. Deviance is compatible with the cultural ideal of innovation endorsed by loose cultures, yet incongruent with the cultural ideal of conformity prominent in tight cultures. We examine how cultural tightness-looseness influences the effect of interpersonal (Studies 1-2) and intrapersonal deviance (Studies 3-4) on artist impact operationalized as perceived influence, valuation, purchase intention, public rating, and recommendation of the artist’s work to a museum. Study 1 shows that Italian participants (loose culture) perceived artists who deviated from the motif used by their contemporary artists as more impactful than Chinese participants (tight culture). Study 2 shows that the more US participants’ immediate community complied with Covid rules, the less impactful they considered deviant artists. Study 3 shows that US participants with a stronger tightness mindset were less likely to recommend artists who deviated from their previous style to a company than artists who consistently followed a single style. Study 4 shows that US participants with a stronger tightness mindset were less likely to recommend deviant artworks over nondeviant artworks to a museum. The effects of artist deviance on impact were mediated by experienced prototypical and epistemic aesthetic emotions (Studies 2-4).
Growing Bigger Hearts
Awe Sparks Prosociality in Children
Rooted in the novel and the mysterious, awe is a common experience in childhood, but research is almost silent with respect to the import of this emotion for children. Awe makes individuals feel small, thereby shifting their attention to the social world. Here we study the effects of art-elicited awe on children’s prosocial behavior towards an outgroup and its unique physiological correlates. In two pre-registered experiments, children aged 8-13 viewed movie clips that elicited either awe or joy, or a neutral control clip. Children who watched the awe-eliciting clip were more likely to spare their time on an effortful task and to donate their experimental earnings, all towards benefiting refugees. Additionally, these children exhibited increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia, an index of parasympathetic nervous system activation associated with social engagement. We discuss implications for aesthetic emotion theories and fostering prosociality by reimagining children’s environments to inspire awe at a critical age.
Art Engagement and Social Cognition
Does visual art facilitate social-cognitive abilities?
Century-old discussions of art revolve around its transformative power and some claim that art can change the world. This project aims to contribute to this discussion by investigating whether art can trigger social change through transforming individuals. Past research shows that reading literary fiction enhances interpersonal outcomes, specifically empathy and theory of mind (ToM) (Dodell-Feder & Tamir, 2018; Mumper & Gerrig, 2017). Here, we aimed to extend this line of research by testing whether this effect generalizes to visual art. Using paintings and visually matched non-art photographs, we tested whether art engagement facilitates social-cognitive abilities, specifically, empathy, ToM and emotion recognition. Our preliminary results indicate that, although there is no effect of art engagement on performance-based measures of social-cognition, individuals reported intensified emotional responses, eudaimonic experiences, and increased empathic understanding following art engagement. This suggests that, while art engagement alters the subjective experience in a positive way, brief engagement with visual artworks does not influence performance on social cognitive tasks.
From Fiction to Reality
Do films that challenge heteronormative values impact real-world bias against homosexuality?
This project is one of the first to examine the potential of art to influence social attitudes. Building on growing literature on the aesthetic experience, we propose that an art context increases tolerance for and liking of deviant content, due to affective and cognitive processes unique to the aesthetic experience. Exposure to deviant content through art could thus potentially improve attitudes towards minority groups, such as queer individuals. Across several experiments, we examined the effects of cinema on heteronormative values. We compared the effects of an art-context (cinema vs audio description) and conceptually deviant content (two men in a romantic relationship vs two brothers) on explicit and implicit bias measures. In Study 1, we found that participants in the deviant condition showed less implicit bias towards homosexuals than participants who had been exposed to normative content. We are now conducting a second study. Overall, this project could provide insights into how art may reduce bias and may be implemented in prejudice reduction interventions.
Why do Artists Create Art?
Artists’ Motives for Creating Art and Their Impact on Social Perceptions and Aesthetic Judgements
Why do artists create art? Do different motives for creating art lead to different impacts on the viewer? The reasons why artists make art have fiercely been debated among cultural policy advisers, politicians, art critics, and even artists themselves, but there is little empirical investigation so far of the actual motivations. This project consists of multiple studies combining qualitative, survey, and experimental methods. In the first study, we conducted semi-structured interviews (N = 36) and a survey (N = 200) with professional artists to identify their motives for creating art. This culminated in the discovery of 24 motives, which we grouped in a 2x2 motivational taxonomy based on two dimensions: internal versus external motives and self-focused versus other-focused motives. We then developed a method to experimentally manipulate motives along the dimensions of this taxonomy. We created vignettes that resembled excerpts taken from interviews with professional artists, each reflecting very different motives for creating art. We are about to launch an experimental study in which we aim to establish how knowledge of an artist’s motives for creating art affects 1) social perceptions of the artist, and 2) aesthetic evaluations of their artwork.