Don'T Go With Your Gut: Exploring The Role Of Motivation In Aesthetic Experiences

The current study examined the impact of the need for cognitive closure, the motivation to engage in controlled processing, and perceptual fluency on aesthetic responses to abstract artwork. The study was done to further test Graf and Landwetu's (2015) pleasure-interest model of aesthetic liking (PIA model), which assumes that an individual's need for cognitive enrichment elicits controlled processing and increased interest in the stimulus. Participants' need for cognitive closure was assessed, and they were given 1 of 3 task instructions that were thought to influence their motivation. In one condition. participants were told to "go with their gut," which deemphasized controlled processing. In the second and third conditions, which promoted controlled processing, participants were told either to create a title for the image or that thinking about art has cognitive benefits. The cognitive-benefits condition was meant to elicit epistemic motivation in participants that would then lead them to engage in controlled processing. The findings indicated that the two controlled processing conditions led to greater pleasure and interest than did the gut-reaction condition and that fluency affected pleasure but not interest. Surprisingly, one's need for cognitive closure did not correlate with pleasure or interest ratings and did not moderate the effect of motivation condition. The results are discussed in the context of the PIA model.