Geffken, Anna (2024) The Development of Aesthetic Appreciation: A Progressive Shift from Simple Emotion to Complex Cognition? Bachelor thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Aesthetic appreciation is a distinctive feature of human life that begins in early childhood. Nevertheless, existing theories on aesthetic appreciation largely lack a developmental perspective. This study employed a mixed and multi-method approach to investigate whether aesthetic appreciation progresses from simple emotional processing in childhood toward increasingly complex cognitive processing in adolescence. Our sample consisted of 58 participants that were divided into the sub-groups of children (N = 39) and adolescents (N = 19). While the hypothesis that positive emotional valence plays a more significant role in children than in adolescents was not supported, important insights were revealed. Significantly higher arousal levels were observed in adolescents during aesthetic appreciation, indicating that emotion remains an important component of aesthetic appreciation in this age group. Additionally, the study demonstrated that adolescents exhibited a greater tendency to engage in conceptual cognition, pointing toward a development of complex cognitive processing in aesthetic appreciation. Findings on analytical cognition did not support this notion however, and need to be further investigated in the future. We concluded that conceptual cognition develops in aesthetic appreciation from childhood to adolescence, but considering this a shift from simple emotional processing to complex cognition might be an oversimplification of the intricate nature of emotion in aesthetic appreciation.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Schino, G. |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | None [Bachelor Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Feb 2024 10:46 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Feb 2024 10:46 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3165 |
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