This study examined the effects of expressions of humor and physical attractiveness on desire for future interaction in various types of heterosexual relationships. Humor was manipulated using interview transcripts containing humorous self-deprecating responses: physical attractiveness was manipulated using photographs. Men were found to emphasize physical attractiveness more than did women for dating, sexual intercourse, and a serious relationship. Consistent with the Social Transformation Model of Humor introduced in this article, individuals, particularly men, expressing humor were rated as more desirable than nonhumorous individuals for a serious relationship and marriage, but only when these individuals were physically attractive. Humorous individuals were perceived to be more cheerful but less intellectual than nonhumorous individuals. The Social Transformation Model appears to be a valuable way of looking at the interaction of humor and physical attractiveness. Directions for future research based on this model are discussed.

To evaluate the approximate level of aesthetic consensus among a large sample of professionals, modern music critics were sampled from known music rating books that rated comparable genres of music, including the ratings of 352 critics and 5161 albums of randomly chosen musicians. All critic pairs who had rated at least 30 albums in common were analyzed (N = 139 pairs). Overall, 87.0% of critic pairs showed significant positive correlations in their album ratings, and another 2.9% showed marginally significant positive correlations (average r = .49). Not a single significant negative correlation occurred, and nonsignificant correlations occurred in only 10.1% of the critic pairs. Overall, reasonable aesthetic consensus appears to exist among most modern music critics, even without specific, agreed-upon rating scales, methods or assumptions, and despite preliminary evidence that not all professional critics are equally good at what they do. The superiority of correlation measures over agreement measures of aesthetic consensus is also discussed.

We comprehensively measured individual differences in aesthetic interest by developing The Desire for Aesthetics Scale (DFAS). In Study 1, a 40-item scale was given to 71 undergraduates. Based on item-total correlations, the worst items were revised or dropped, and new items were created. In Study 2, a 43-item scale was tested with 99 undergraduates from two colleges, and was given to one group 3 months later, demonstrating adequate test-retest reliability scores ( r = .74). In Study 3, a revised 42-item scale was given to 62 older, non-students. For the combined relevant samples from Study 2 and Study 3 ( N = 110), the final 36-item DFAS yielded good internal consistency ( alpha = .82, p < .001 compared to a test value of .70; 95% confidence interval: (0.764, 0.865)). Overall, in multiple samples, this scale resulted in reliable measurements of individual differences in motivation to seek out and care about a wide range of aesthetic stimuli.

In order to evaluate rating behavior among modern music critics, a previously compiled database that randomly sampled 352 different critics' ratings of more than 15,000 albums was utilized. Potential quantitative markers of rating refinement were explored by analyzing frequency distributions of album ratings. As a group, critics' ratings were found to be roughly normally distributed, but individual critics were found to vary widely in rating behavior, as evidenced by both visual inspection of histograms and related statistics, such as skewness, kurtosis, z-score ranges, and Kolmogorov-Smirnov calculations. Precision remains an area in need of improvement among all critics, with the rating scales varying between only 10-20% precision, and ceiling effects with somewhat negatively skewed distributions occurring among some critics.Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find. Spinoza *This research was conducted as an independent research project by the author. Portions of this research were presented as a poster at the

Following work by scholars across academic disciplines and wide-ranging time periods, such as Hume, Kant, Burt, and Eysenck, this paper represents a review of theory and research on the nature of aesthetic appraisal, and ultimately theorizes about the tendencies that need to be avoided in order to become a better expert who can make defendable judgments of aesthetic works. Evidence exists that many biases commonly operate in aesthetic judgment, especially among laypersons, and these biases end up contaminating potentially valid appraisals of artworks, and ultimately the acclaim and success of artists in a society. In total, by identifying complementary concepts within social and cognitive psychology, philosophy, and sociology, eleven such biases are documented and discussed. There also appear to be parallels between the perceptual and cognitive heuristic processes that occur in more general human decision making and judgment, and those that can occur in biased art perception and evaluation. Especially notable are stereotyping and prejudiced tendencies that commonly exist in aesthetic judgments.