The Association between Openness and Aesthetic Evaluation: Focusing on Aesthetic Dimension of Value as the Mediating Factor

Abstract

: Miyashita, Kimura, & Oka (2017) demonstrated that openness in the big-five personality traits did not relate to aesthetic evaluations of paintings while the aesthetic dimension of value did. Conversely, previous studies showed that openness affects preferences for specific artistic paintings after predicting general preferences as a latent variable. Thus, the present study explored whether openness would affect aesthetic evaluation of paintings via mediating variable (i.e., aesthetic dimension of value). In our survey, 323 undergraduates were asked to evaluate 24 paintings using 4 scales of aesthetic evaluation. They were also asked to complete a questionnaire assessing their degrees of openness and the aesthetic dimension of value. Results demonstrated that openness did not directly relate to aesthetic evaluations of paintings but that it indirectly related to those via the aesthetic dimension of value. These results suggest that the aesthetic dimension of value relates to openness as a mediator of aesthetic evaluations.