Art Breaks: Emotional Responses to Viewing Digital Art

Introduction: Art has long been recognized as a means for enhancing pleasure and provoking awe. Most studies of art’s impact on wellbeing have been small and have focused on the effects of creating art or viewing art in person, yet digital art is accessible and has the potential to promote positive psychological outcomes. Methods: We conducted the largest study known to date examining differences in emotions, awe, and stress between participants who viewed digital art and those who viewed greyscale squares (controls). Within each group, some participants received text prompts prior to viewing images. We measured participants’ levels of aesthetic responsiveness (AReA), or the degree to which they react to aesthetic stimuli and used a multigroup latent change score mediation model, estimated in lavaan, to evaluate whether trait AReA predicted pre-to-post changes in stress and emotions, and whether these changes and viewing duration predicted post-viewing awe. Results: Results showed that stress (β=-0.234, p<.001) and negative emotions (β=-0.210, p<.001) dropped significantly more in the art viewing group than controls, and awe was significantly higher in the art viewing group than controls (β=0.890, p<.001). Positive emotions remained constant in the art viewing group but declined in controls (Δ = 0.396, p=.001). Among art-viewing participants, higher AReA was associated with a larger decrease in stress (β=-0.099, p<.001) and negative emotions (β=-0.081, p<.001) and a larger increase in positive emotions (β=0.201, p<.001). Positive emotions (Standardized Indirect Effect=0.043, p<.001) and viewing duration (Standardized Indirect Effect =0.002, p=.008) partially mediated the association between AReA and awe (Standardized total effect=0.641, p<.001). Results revealed non-significant effects of text prompts on outcomes, allowing for the collapsing of groups for primary analyses.Discussion: Brief digital art interventions may serve as accessible, low-cost opportunities to elicit awe as well as reduce negative emotions and stress, which may promote psychological health and wellbeing.