What makes someone aesthetic

But most people still find it hard to grasp what aesthetics are. Finding your own? Just as difficult. Ahead, we break down the concept and how you can find and bring your dream aesthetic to life. If you want to have a personal aesthetic, then we have to start with the basics: understanding what an aesthetic actually is. It's one of the favourite words used by millennials and Gen Zers in recent years and you've probably used it yourself, describing something as "so aesthetic".

All rights reserved. Filters 0. Aesthetic means the pleasant, positive or artful appearance of a person or a thing. The definition of aesthetic is being interested in how something looks and feels. Relating to the philosophy or theories of aesthetics. An underlying principle, a set of principles, or a view often manifested by outward appearances or style of behavior. Concerned with beauty , artistic impact, or appearance. The study of art or beauty. Neither the effect of novelty nor the effect of understanding on confusion varied across levels of Openness and Intellect.

Considered together, these results suggest that both Openness and Intellect are associated with greater sensitivity to novelty in the experience of interest, but only the Openness aspect is associated with greater sensitivity to novelty in the experience of pleasure.

While the slope moderations by Openness and Intellect were not found to differ from each other, the moderating influence of Openness was significant, while the influence of Intellect was not. Finally, Openness, but not Intellect, was associated with greater pleasure and interest overall.

Our final models explored the roles of art expertise measured with the aesthetic fluency scale. To examine art expertise, we included it alongside Openness and Intellect to see if it reduced their effects. As we discussed earlier, such a result would suggest that the effects of personality are largely carried by acquired expertise about the arts. This suggests that the effects of Openness and Intellect are not driven by greater expertise in the arts. For interest Model 4 , neither the effect of novelty nor the effect of understanding was moderated by art expertise, but expertise was related to greater intercepts in the model.

For pleasure Model 5 , neither the effect of novelty nor the effect of understanding was moderated by art expertise, but expertise was related to greater intercepts in the model. And for confusion Model 6 , art expertise moderated the effect of novelty, but not understanding; in contrast, neither Openness nor Intellect moderated either appraisal. This suggests that novelty is less related to confusion for those with greater art expertise.

These results suggest that the novelty-interest and novelty-pleasure moderation are not influenced by art expertise but are rather driven by Openness. However, the research linking actual art appreciation to the domain has several issues. First, as discussed in the introduction the focus on liking artworks is limited, as aesthetic experience is much broader and richer than mild feelings of pleasure Silvia, Art expertise was evaluated alongside personality to test whether the influence of Openness and Intellect on aesthetic appreciation can be explained by greater art knowledge.

The strength of the relationship was particularly driven by Openness as opposed to Intellect, supporting the distinction in the aspects based on perceptual versus abstract engagement DeYoung, Mechanisms for these relationships were also discovered through differences in appraisal-emotion relationships.

Openness diverged from Intellect in the experience of pleasure. Intellect did not predict individual differences in the processes associated with pleasure, but novelty was a stronger predictor of pleasure for people high in Openness.

Further, Openness predicted greater interest and pleasure regardless of how artworks were appraised, further distinguishing it from Intellect. Openness and Intellect were related to lower levels of confusion, but variance in appraisal-emotion relationships was not associated with either aspect. Finally, the possible confound of art expertise was evaluated as an explanation for the Openness-aesthetic emotions relationship.

The inclusion of art expertise did not influence any of the Openness-aesthetic emotion relationships, suggesting that the effects were particular to the personality variables rather than greater expertise. Expertise did predict greater interest and less confusion overall, and it was related to a smaller relationship between novelty and confusion.

Particularly, our findings show that Openness, as opposed to Intellect, is the aspect of the aesthetically engaged, and provide a process based understanding for w hy those higher in Openness are more aesthetically engaged. Finally, methodological differences between this and previous research on personality and aesthetics highlight the advantages of the current approach.

Within this paper we assume rather that test a causal flow from personality to emotion states. That is, we assume that personality reflects biologically driven consistencies in emotions, cognitions, and behavior. Therefore, personality is treated as an antecedent of states.

Similarly, appraisals are considered to be antecedents of emotions. For interest, both appraisals, when experimentally manipulated, have been shown to influence interest Silvia, Thus, within this paper, we treat appraisals as causing emotions. There are two methodological differences between the current method and most of the research on personality and aesthetics. First, we moved away from the predominant practice of evaluating liking artworks and shifted toward measuring distinct emotional states that have previously been implicated in the aesthetic experience.

Liking is a common and important aesthetic response—mild feelings of pleasure might be the most common everyday aesthetic experience—but it is only one of many important experiences people have in response to the arts Silvia, Second, we explored both within- and between-person effects. The integration of dispositional and situational variables has long been advocated Cronbach, ; Underwood, , but it is uncommon for aesthetics research to examine effects at the within-person level of analysis, which is the natural level for examining how appraisals influence emotional responses see Silvia, b ; Nezlek, The current research builds on these findings in two important ways by: a evaluating the independent roles of Openness and Intellect in interest-appraisal processes; and b evaluating differences in pleasure-appraisal and confusion-appraisal processes.

Openness and Intellect were both associated with reactivity to novelty in the experience of interest suggesting that novelty sensitivity is at the core of the domain. However, Intellect, as opposed to Openness, did not reflect greater interest overall. This suggests that being higher on Intellect is reflective of lower than average levels of interest when novelty is not found in an artwork, yet higher than average interest for novel artworks.

Conversely, Openness was related to greater interest regardless of appraised novelty suggesting that while novelty is preferred, greater interest is experienced even in the absence of it. Ziegler et al. While the Openness and Intellect aspects reflect quantitative differences in the appraisal structure of interest, qualitative differences are present in the experience of pleasure.

Openness, but not Intellect, was associated with the presence or absence of a pleasure-novelty relationship. Studies have shown quantitative differences in appraisal structures—the appraisal structure remains constant yet the predictive strength of an appraisal varies as a function of a trait Kuppens and Tong, However, few studies have found qualitative differences in appraisal structures.

Our findings indicate that those higher in Openness experience pleasure as a function of novelty and understanding, while those lower on the aspect are only influenced by understanding. The idea that understandable things are pleasant is congruent with fluency based aesthetic theories where things that are easily understood are pleasant to the beholder Reber, Our findings suggest that this may primarily be the case for people lower on Openness.

For those higher on Openness, pleasure is also influenced by the novelty of an artwork. This finding has important implications for aesthetic theories. Fluency based accounts are at odds with interest based accounts. Interest requires novelty, whereas fluency-based aesthetic experiences are a function of easy processing.

This distinction maps nicely onto interest and pleasure. Interest is experienced in the face of novelty and pleasure is experienced when processing requires little effort. Our research suggests that individual differences both complicate and clarify this distinction.

It seems that the influence of fluent processing in the experience of aesthetic pleasure is dependent on trait standing. Those higher in Openness are sensitive to novelty and complexity in their experience of pleasure. Conversely, pleasurable experiences for those lower on Openness are not predicted by stimulus novelty.

These findings add to the growing empirical consensus for the utility of studying Openness and Intellect as separate aspects of the broader domain. The distinction previously proposed—Openness as exploration through perception, and Intellect through learning and abstract information DeYoung, —is supported with Openness reflecting greater pleasure and interest and less confusion in response to visual art.

While Intellect was also found to play a role in the processes that facilitate interest, this role does not predict greater aesthetic reactions but rather reflects a preference for the novel, and a lesser tendency to feel confusion in response to visual art. The relationship between Intellect and interest in art, when controlling for Openness, is not evident at the between-person level, but is apparent when within-person processes are considered.

Henry James saw art as central to life and beauty, and this attitude, like that of many other creative people, was likely a function of his Openness. We aimed to extend our understanding of the role personality plays in common aesthetic experiences: pleasure, interest, and confusion.

Our findings suggest that Openness, as opposed to Intellect, is the personality core of aesthetic experiences, and that the relationship persists because those higher in Openness are more sensitive to novelty in artworks and experience greater engagement overall, predisposing them to feel more interest and pleasure in response to the arts.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council. The authors would like to thank Roger Beaty and Emily Nusbaum for their comments and helpful suggestions on the design of the studies. The authors are also grateful to David Christopher Rowson and Tallulah Dods for their help in selecting the images used in the studies, and to Colin Beck for his editing of the proofs.

Armstrong, T. Beauty as an emotion: the exhilarating prospect of mastering a challenging world. Barrick, M. Berlyne, D. Aaesthetics and Psychobiology. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. Personality predictors of artistic preferences as a function of the emotional valence and perceived complexity of paintings.

Arts 4, — Who art thou? Personality predictors of artistic preferences in a large UK sample: the importance of Openness. Cooper, J. Opposing art: rejection as an action tendency of hostile aaesthetic emotions. Arts 27, — Cronbach, L. The two disciplines of scientific psychology. Cumming, G. New York, NY: Routledge. Google Scholar. Day, H. Evaluations of subjective complexity, pleasingness and interestingness for a series of random polygons varying in complexity.

Fast forward to now - where I am lucky enough to have a whole community of people online who love all the things I love without judgement. Yeah, forget what is cool and uncool - you decide that. Cart 0.

Sign In My Account. What do you like? What do you dislike? Describe your personality. What do you love about yourself? What does your ideal day look like? List five unique things about yourself. How do you want people feel around you?