Development and validation of the Mechanisms of Engagement in the Arts and Humanities scales.

Abstract

There is substantial interest among psychologists in the psychological processes of engaging arts and humanities. Despite this, there is still a need for methodological tools to investigate the psychological mechanisms through which engagement in arts and humanities enhances individual well-being. Using four rounds of data collection (including one retest), we document the development and validation of the scales measuring each of the five theorized mechanisms: reflection, acquisition, immersion, socialization, and expression. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we found a three-factor structure for reflection (life/worldview, emotional, and external), and six-factor for acquisition (vicarious experience, direct encouragement, social persuasion, experience of mastery-ability, experience of mastery-success, and positive physiological response), two-factor structure for immersion (effort and passage of time), three-factor for socialization (relationships, identity, conversation), and one-factor structure for expression. We also reported measurement invariance in mechanisms of engagements in arts vs. humanities and between males and females and over time. The measure demonstrated predictive and concurrent validity for flourishing outcomes, good test-retest reliability, and measurement equivalence across gender, between arts and humanities, and over time.

The well-being benefits of virtual art galleries: Examining the roles of emotion, immersion, and individual differences

“…A second contribution of this work is the focus on immersion, a recently proposed mechanism underlying the relationship between arts engagement and flourishing as part of the RAISE mechanism model (Shim et al, 2019;Tay et al, 2018;Thapa et al, 2023). Like prior work (Cotter et al, 2022, in press), participants in this study were able to feel immersed in the virtual gallery environment.…”

“…Arts engagement across a variety of domains is a frequent leisure activity for a wide range of people (Fancourt & Finn, 2019;Weziak-Bialowolska et al, 2019). Given people's widespread engagement with the arts, it's unsurprising that a number of researchers have sought to examine the flourishing impacts of the arts (see Fancourt & Finn, 2019;Pesata et al, 2022 for review), with that enables them to be carried away and disconnected from the worries of everyday life, with specific qualities of not feeling the passage of time and finding the engagement as effortless with the loss of self-consciousness (Thapa et al, 2023). For example, experiences of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) would be considered as one way in which someone may become immersed during artistic engagement (Tay et al, 2018).…”

Personally significant forms of discrete experiences and recurring activities in the arts and humanities in a representative sample of U.S. residents.

“…As for the phenomenological features of participants' A&H engagement, we used a bottom-up approach and identified a set of eight SIGNIFICANT FORMS OF A&H ENGAGEMENT dimensions that described both participants' A&H discrete experiences and recurrent activities: growth, engagement, perspective change, pleasure, discomfort, sociality, retrospection, and instrumentality. These eight dimensions bear some resemblance to an existing conceptual framework of the psychological functions of A&H engagement, the RAISE model (Shim et al, 2019;Tay et al, 2018;Thapa et al, 2023), which posits five psychological mechanisms that mediate the association between A&H engagement and well-being: reflection, acquisition, immersion, socialization, and expression. For instance, the dimension of growth in the present study resembles the RAISE mechanisms of acquisition (i.e., socio-cognitive processes of acquiring skills and competencies), expression (i.e., expression of self), and socialization (i.e., development of social roles and identities).…”

Slow art plus: developing and piloting a single session art gallery-based intervention for mental health promotion via a mixed method waitlist randomized control trial

“…However, the current findings contribute to the literature on the positive effects of museum and gallery-based interventions on mental, physical, emotional, and social well-being ( 57 – 60 ). The positive outcomes of this intervention may be explained by the RAISE (Reflection, Acquisition, Immersion, Socialization, and Expression) mechanisms in the conceptual model of how arts and humanities engagement contributes to human flourishing ( 61 ).…”