{"id":19738,"date":"2025-05-19T06:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T04:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesmartcityjournal.cibeles.net\/sin-categoria\/pondering-artistic-beauty-encourages-big-picture-thinking\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T19:45:37","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T17:45:37","slug":"pondering-artistic-beauty-encourages-big-picture-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesmartcityjournal.com\/en\/articles\/pondering-artistic-beauty-encourages-big-picture-thinking","title":{"rendered":"Pondering artistic beauty encourages \u2018big picture\u2019 thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

A psychological experiment conducted at Kettle’s Yard suggests that actively considering the beauty of art increases abstract thinking and \u201ctransformative\u201d emotion \u2013 helping us escape the \u201cmental trappings\u201d of day-to-day living<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cbigger picture\u201d when it comes to our lives.<\/p>\n

Researchers say the findings offer empirical evidence that engaging with artistic beauty helps us escape the \u201cmental trappings of daily life,\u201d such as current anxieties and to-do lists, and induce \u201cpsychological distancing\u201d: the process of zooming out on your thoughts to gain clarity.<\/p>\n

A team of Cambridge psychologists conducted an experiment using the University\u2019s modern art gallery, Kettle\u2019s Yard, as a \u201cliving laboratory\u201d to compare the cognitive effects of merely seeing art with actively judging how beautiful it is.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cbeyond the here and now\u201d, and more likely to report feeling enlightened, moved, or transformed.<\/p>\n

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<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany philosophers throughout history have suggested that engaging with aesthetic beauty invokes a special kind of psychological state,\u201d said Prof Simone Schnall, senior author of the study and Professor of Experimental Social Psychology at Cambridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is known as psychological distancing, when one snaps out of the mental trappings of daily life and focuses more on the overall picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the latest study, 187 people were recruited to visit Kettle\u2019s Yard gallery during an exhibition of handmade clay objects by pottery artist Lucie Rie.<\/p>\n

\u201cCeramics were ideal for our purposes,\u201d said Schnall. \u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants were randomly split into two groups: the \u2018beauty\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese 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,\u201d said Dr Elz\u0117 Sigut\u0117 Mikalonyt\u0117, lead author of the study and a researcher at Cambridge\u2019s Department of Psychology.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Among those, the effect was greater: those with an artistic hobby in the \u2018beauty\u2019 group scored over 25% higher on average for abstract thinking than those with an artistic hobby in the control group.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ctransformative and self-transcendent feelings\u201d \u2013 such as feeling moved, enlightened and inspired \u2013 than the control group.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur 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,\u201d said Mikalonyt\u0117.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, aims to address whether art can contribute to human flourishing and positive values.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople today are often tethered to their devices, and we usually think in very concrete terms when we\u2019re doing something on a screen,\u201d added Schnall.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s becoming much rarer to zone out and just let the mind wander, but that\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story: Fred Lewsey (https:\/\/www.cam.ac.uk\/stories\/artistic-beauty-abstract-thinking)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A psychological experiment conducted at Kettle’s Yard suggests that actively considering the beauty of art increases abstract thinking and \u201ctransformative\u201d emotion \u2013 helping us escape the \u201cmental trappings\u201d 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\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19737,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_scj_primary_category_id":130,"_scj_featured":true,"_scj_featured_from":"","_scj_featured_until":"","_scj_featured_order":148,"_scj_visibility_class":"current","_scj_layout_family":"video","_scj_article_style":"","_scj_display_overrides":[],"_scj_intro_image_id":19737,"_scj_intro_alt":"Ceramic artworks studied at Kettle's Yard enhance abstract thinking and psychological distancing in a Cambridge 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