Inspired by art: Higher aesthetic appeal elicits increased felt inspiration in a creative writing task.

Abstract

Moments of creative inspiration -an evoked state of motivation for creative activity -form a distinct step in creative processes. We hypothesize that the psychological state of being creatively inspired is similar to the state of being aesthetically moved, and that aesthetically moving experiences can serve as prompts for creative inspiration. We tested this hypothesis in a creative writing task: In Experiment 1, 25 participants from the general public were asked to write 12 short creative vignettes (repeated measures) in response to either "aesthetic" prompts (visual artworks they had rated highly aesthetically moving in a preceding task) or "nonaesthetic" prompts (triads of unrelated words). People then rated how inspired they had felt during idea generation. Ratings of inspiration were significantly higher for aesthetic vs. nonaesthetic prompts. In Experiment 2, 34 participants performed the same task with prompts consisting of highly-moving artworks, non-moving artworks (rated in a preceding task), or novel artworks not seen in advance. While pre-exposure to the stimuli had no significant effect, felt inspiration was significantly higher for moving vs. non-moving prompts, and posttest aesthetic ratings of novel artworks were positively correlated with felt inspiration. Furthermore, inspiration ratings correlated positively with the amount of produced text. Being aesthetically moved increases the likelihood of creative inspiration, a finding with implications both for the study of creative and aesthetic processes and also for the potential role of the arts in educational settings.

Self-relevance predicts the aesthetic appeal of real and synthetic artworks generated via neural style transfer

“…Our results show that there is a tight connection between aesthetic appeal and one's sense of self, and we predict that a similarly tight relationship would be observed for other forms of pleasure from comprehension, such as insight problem solving [e.g. 50] and creative inspiration [1,51]. Beyond what these results can tell us about the psychology of aesthetic experiences, they also bear on an increasingly urgent problem in our digitally immersive world.…”

“…Experiences with artwork can impact us deeply. They can move us emotionally and inspire us creatively [1]. They can also be transformative, opening up new ways of looking at ourselves and the world around us.…”

Self-Relevance Predicts the Aesthetic Appeal of Real and Synthetic Artworks Generated via Neural Style Transfer

“…We note that people do not always engage with artwork to seek an experience of “self”; often, artwork serves as a bridge to experiencing and understanding the “other.” Yet when an art experience relates to one’s self-schema, that knowledge structure can act as a key to unlock deeper processing, greater understanding, and more pleasure. Beyond aesthetic experiences, we predict that a similarly tight relationship would be observed for other forms of pleasure from comprehension (e.g., insight problem solving and creative inspiration; Welke et al, 2023). These results bear on an increasingly urgent problem in our digitally immersive world.…”

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Experiences with artwork can impact us deeply. They can move us emotionally (Menninghaus et al, 2019) and inspire us creatively (Welke et al, 2023). They can also be transformative, opening up new ways of looking at ourselves and the world around us.

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Donor inspiration in nonprofit management: Conceptualization and measurement in a peer‐to‐peer context

“…Besides psychology and marketing, inspiration is found in the literature of other disciplines, for example, entrepreneur management (Wartiovaara et al, 2019), tourism (Liu et al, 2017), health (Robinson & Knobloch‐Westerwick, 2020), or art (Welke et al, 2021). However, most of these studies were survey‐based, and we are not aware of any empirical inspiration study that uses observable data as we intend to do.…”