Altenmuller and Plewe found that social factors influence our assessments of visual art. They report that “Human experiences are highly sensitive toward social cues, and art appreciation is no exception. . . . we compared three experimental conditions varying implicit social cues (N = 533): Participants viewed a muted video of the expressionist painting ‘Tirol’ by Franz Marc (1914), which either displayed no other visitors or two seemingly interested others in a fine arts museum setting. These others were either framed as having high (art history scholars) or low art expertise (computer science scholars). Our findings demonstrate that the mere seemingly interested behavior of other visitors increases observers’ more private aesthetic judgment (e.g., perceptions of liking, beauty, and expressiveness) and their more outward engagement with an artwork (e.g., telling others and buying prints)—if these others are perceived as art experts.”
Marlene Altenmuller and Miriam Plewe. “(Not) Alone in the Museum: Implicit Social Influences on Art Appreciation.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, in press, https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000713