Exploring aesthetic fluency: The roles of personality, nature relatedness, and art activities.

What is it about?

Scientists have shown growing interest in the psychology of aesthetic experience. Aesthetic fluency is one of the most promising variables to assess knowledge-based familiarity with a number of terms and artists in art history. However, there is little information regarding the structure of the aesthetic fluency and its personality and individual difference correlates, especially in nonwestern cultures. In the present study, we added five culture-specific items to the Aesthetic Fluency Scale (AFS; L. F. Smith & J. K. Smith, 2006) and subjected the items to an exploratory factor analysis in Iran. We further examined the associations between different aspects of the AFS, the Big Five personality dimensions (Costa & McCrae, 1985), nature relatedness, and art activities. Results suggest that the 15 items used in this study loaded adequately onto a single primary factor. Regression analysis showed that sex, age, art education, weekly art activities, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience predicted scores on the Persian AFS. Moreover, art activities mediated the link between the Openness to Experience and Aesthetic Fluency factors. Limitations of the current study are mentioned and future directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

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Why is it important?

this paper shows the importance of art activities as a mediator between Openness to Experience and Aesthetic Fluency factors.