Engagement with art and meaning in life: the predictive roles of awe, interest, supernatural attributions

ABSTRACT

Drawing from Aesthetic Cognitivism, the position that art can lead to meaningful understandings, we predicted that people with more interest in art, experiences of awe around art, and supernatural attributions for art experiences would have higher levels of meaning in life. In Study 1, we tested these hypotheses in three samples (n = 100 in each sample) with varying art expertise. Results showed the strongest support for hypotheses in samples with varying levels of art training. In Study 2, in an online sample with wide variation in art training (N = 1,862), we found strong support for hypotheses. In both studies, multiple regressions including covariates (aesthetic fluency, religious belief salience) showed unique associations mainly for awe around art. Overall, our results were consistent with Aesthetic Cognitivism, providing a rare empirical test of this theory, and pointed to psychological experiences with art as potentially relevant to life meaning.

KEYWORDS:

• Art
• meaning in life
• awe
• interest
• supernatural attributions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Open Scholarship

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Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2024.2378709

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust, Art Seeking Understanding Grant Making Strategy, #TRT-2021-10488.