Pondering artistic beauty encourages ‘big picture’ thinking
A psychological experiment conducted at Kettle's Yard suggests that actively
considering the beauty of art increases abstract thinking and “transformative” emotion
– helping us escape the “mental trappings” of day-to-day living.
Since the dawn of philosophy, thinkers from Plato to Kant have considered how
beauty affects human experience, and whether it has the power to transform our state
of mind.
Now, a new study from the University of Cambridge suggests that stopping to
contemplate the beauty of artistic objects in a gallery or museum boosts our ability to
think in abstract ways and consider the “bigger picture” when it comes to our lives.
Researchers say the findings offer empirical evidence that engaging with artistic
beauty helps us escape the “mental trappings of daily life,” such as current anxieties
and to-do lists, and induce “psychological distancing”: the process of zooming out on
your thoughts to gain clarity.
A team of Cambridge psychologists conducted an experiment using the University’s
modern art gallery, Kettle’s Yard, as a “living laboratory” to compare the cognitive
effects of merely seeing art with actively judging how beautiful it is.
Researchers found that study participants who focused on the beauty of objects in an
exhibition of ceramics were more likely to experience elevated psychological states
enabling them to think “beyond the here and now”, and more likely to report feeling
enlightened, moved, or transformed.
This was compared to participants who were simply asked to look intently at the
artistic objects to match them with a series of line drawings. The findings are
published in the journal
Empirical Studies of the Arts
.
The study, among the first to explore how aesthetic experiences in a gallery or
museum can affect cognitive processing, reinforces the importance of art creation as
well as access to artistic spaces, say researchers.
“Many philosophers throughout history have suggested that engaging with aesthetic
beauty invokes a special kind of psychological state,” said Prof Simone Schnall,
senior author of the study and Professor of Experimental Social Psychology at
Cambridge.
“Our research indicates that engaging with the beauty of art can enhance abstract
thinking and promote a different mindset to our everyday patterns of thought, shifting
us into a more expansive state of mind.”
“This is known as psychological distancing, when one snaps out of the mental
trappings of daily life and focuses more on the overall picture.”
“Visiting an art museum is not just a pleasant way to spend an
afternoon, it may actually change how we think about our lives”
Prof Simone Schnall
For the latest study, 187 people were recruited to visit Kettle’s Yard gallery during an
exhibition of handmade clay objects by pottery artist Lucie Rie.
“Ceramics were ideal for our purposes,” said Schnall. “A glorious painting by an Old
Master would be too striking. We needed art that is subtle in form, requiring a focused
contemplation of the nature of beauty.”
Participants were randomly split into two groups: the ‘beauty’ group was asked to
actively consider and then rate the beauty of each ceramic object they viewed, while
the second group just matched a line drawing of the object with the artwork itself.
All participants were then tested on how they process information, and if it’s in a
more practical or abstract way.
For example, does ‘writing a letter’ mean literally putting pen to paper or sharing your
thoughts? Is ‘voting’ marking a ballot or influencing an election? Is ‘locking a door’
inserting a key or securing a house?
“These tests are designed to gauge whether a person is thinking in an immediate,
procedural way, as we often do in our day-to-day lives, or is attuned to the deeper
meaning and bigger picture of the actions they take,” said Dr Elzė Sigutė Mikalonytė,
lead author of the study and a researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.
Across all participants, those in the beauty group scored almost 14% higher on
average than the control group in abstract thinking. While they were told the study
was about cognitive processes, participants were asked about interests, with around
half saying they had an artistic hobby.
Among those, the effect was greater: those with an artistic hobby in the ‘beauty’
group scored over 25% higher on average for abstract thinking than those with an
artistic hobby in the control group.
Emotional states of participants were also measured by asking about their feelings
while completing the gallery task. Across all participants, those in the beauty group
reported an average of 23% higher levels of “transformative and self-transcendent
feelings” – such as feeling moved, enlightened and inspired – than the control group.
“Our findings offer empirical support for a long-standing philosophical idea that
beauty appreciation can help people detach from their immediate practical concerns
and adopt a broader, more abstract perspective,” said Mikalonytė.
Importantly, however, the beauty group did not report feeling any happier than the
control group, suggesting that it was the engagement with beauty that influenced
abstract thinking, rather than any overall positivity from the experience.
The latest study is part of a wider project led by Schnall exploring the effects of
aesthetic experiences on cognition. The project, supported by the Templeton Religion
Trust, aims to address whether art can contribute to human flourishing and positive
values.
“People today are often tethered to their devices, and we usually think in very
concrete terms when we’re doing something on a screen,” added Schnall.
“It’s becoming much rarer to zone out and just let the mind wander, but that’s when
we think in ways that broaden our horizons. Admiring the beauty of art may be the
ideal way to trigger the abstract cognitive processes increasingly lost in a world of
screens and smartphones.”
