Personality correlates of liking for ‘unpleasant’ paintings and photographs

Personality correlates of liking for ‘unpleasant’paintings and photographs

David Rawlings*

School of Behavioural Science, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia

Received 4 May 2001; received in revised form 25 February 2002; accepted 7 March 2002

Abstract

Previous studies have associated liking for violent, morbid and unpleasant paintings with a range ofpersonality variables. The present study developed sets of ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’ representationalpaintings, abstract paintings and photographs, and administered these with a range of personality ques-tionnaires to 188 undergraduate students. Compared to females, males liked unpleasant exemplars of allthree stimulus-types. High-scorers on the personality dimensions Sensation Seeking, Unusual Experiences(schizotypy) and Psychoticism preferred unpleasant paintings when compared to low-scorers. Opennessand Experience Seeking were associated with liking for abstract, in comparison to traditional, representa-tional paintings. Neuroticism was negatively correlated with liking for both types of photographic stimulusand for pleasant abstract paintings. Separate principal components analyses of the paintings and photo-graphs implicated the unpleasant content of visual stimuli as a major determinant of preference in non-expert viewers. Regression analyses supported the conclusion that sex-differences, Sensation Seeking andUnusual Experiences independently contribute to liking for unpleasant paintings. # 2002 Elsevier ScienceLtd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Aesthetic preference; Painting preference; Sensation seeking; Openness, Psychoticism; Schizotypy

1. Introduction

Beginning with the early studies of Burt (1933) and Eysenck (1941), a substantial amount ofresearch has examined the relationship of personality dispositions to liking for various forms ofvisual art. Numerous studies have been concerned with correlating a range of personalitydimensions with stylistic aspects of such stimuli as polygons with different numbers of turns(Looft & Baranowski, 1971; Rawlings, Twomey, Burns, & Morris, 1998) or line drawings varying

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in ‘complexity’ (Dellas & Gaier, 1970; Eysenck, 1993; Zuckerman, Bore, Neary, Magelsdorff, &Brustman, 1972). Researchers using actual paintings (normally on slides) to study stylistic qua-lities have commonly focussed on the distinction between art that is traditional, representa-tional, and realistic, and art that is modern, abstract, or surrealistic. Indeed, this distinction hasbeen investigated with respect to a wide range of personality dimensions, including sensationseeking (Furnham & Avison, 1997; Furnham & Bunyan, 1988; Rawlings, Barrantes i Vidal, &Furnham, 2000), conservatism and dogmatism (Frumkin, 1963; Wilson, Ausman, & Matthews,1973), field dependence (Tobacyck, Bailey, & Myers, 1979), and locus of control (Juhasz &Paxson, 1978). The validity of using colour-slides, as a means of administration producingcomparable ratings to original paintings, has recently been established by Locher, Smith, andSmith (1999).

As well as studies relating personality to preferences for paintings varying in style, a smallernumber of studies have compared paintings differing in aspects of meaning or content. Of parti-cular relevance to the present investigation are those studies showing that certain personalitycharacteristics are linked to a relative preference for material that might be considered ‘unplea-sant’. Tobacyck, Myers, and Bailey (1981) factor-analysed subject-preferences for 40 paintingsand correlated their factors with a measure of sensation seeking, a construct presumed to repre-sent the tendency for individuals to prefer novel and intense sensory stimulation (Zuckerman,1979). Sensation seeking was correlated with liking for aggressive themes. Zaleski (1984)employed paintings showing images which were either positively emotionally arousing (e.g. erotic,celebratory), negatively emotionally arousing (e.g. violent, morbid), or neutral. Individuals scor-ing low on the sensation seeking scale preferred the highly arousing positive scenes to the neutral,with the highly arousing negative scenes liked least. Sensation seekers preferred the highlyarousing scenes, regardless of whether they were positive or negative. The present author and hiscolleagues employed realistic and abstract examples of violent, erotic, religious, and neutralpaintings (Rawlings, 2000; Rawlings et al., 2000). Sensation seeking correlated with liking forviolent paintings, but only when they were abstract. Zuckerman, Ulrich, and McLaughlin (1993)found an association between sensation seeking and liking for landscape paintings portraying‘violent expressions of nature’ or ‘tension’ rather than peaceful, calm expressions.

A small number of investigators have linked liking for unpleasant paintings with personalityconstructs other than sensation seeking. In two studies by the present author (Rawlings, 2000;Rawlings et al., 2000), preference ratings were related to Openness to Experience. Openness is oneof the ‘domain’ scales of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) of Costa and McCrae(1992), a questionnaire based on the popular five-factor model of personality (Goldberg, 1993).Like the other domains, it has six sub-scales or ‘facets’. In fact, the findings of the two studieswere somewhat inconsistent. Rawlings (2000) found a positive relationship between Opennessand liking for violent-abstract pictures, but the preference seemed to reflect preference forabstract pictures generally. Rawlings et al. (2000) performed studies using both English-speakingand Spanish-speaking samples. In the English sample, there was some tendency for Openness topredict liking for violent (as well as erotic) pictures, but in this study the preference was strongestfor violent-realistic works, and one Openness facet (Feelings) actually showed a negative corre-lation with liking for violent-abstract paintings.

Rawlings (2000) correlated several measures of ‘schizotypy’, the minor manifestations of schi-zophrenia and psychosis as they appear in the normal population, with preference ratings of

396 D. Rawlings / Personality and Individual Differences 34 (2003) 395–410

paintings grouped according to content. This research employed the Oxford–Liverpool Inventoryof Feelings and Experiences (O-Life) of Mason, Claridge, and Jackson (1995), a questionnairebased on a four-factor model of schizotypy. In two separate studies, liking for violent-abstractpaintings was correlated with both Unusual Experiences (measuring the tendency to report un-usual perceptual experiences and magical thinking) and Impulsive Nonconformity (measuring thetendency to take risks and to be careless, unconscientious, and disagreeable). It should be notedthat the O-Life was developed on the basis of several factor analyses of a range of measures ofschizotypy current at that time, as well as the items from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire(Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). Indeed, the Impulsive Nonconformity scale is strongly correlatedwith, and includes several items from, the Psychoticism scale from that questionnaire, which alsoshows a moderate and reliable correlation with Unusual Experiences.

Several of the above studies have examined sex differences in liking for unpleasant stimuli.Zaleski (1984) found a tendency for males to prefer unpleasant to pleasant stimuli to a greaterdegree than did females. On the other hand, Rawlings (2000) found that none of his variouscategories of paintings, including ‘violent’ paintings, showed sex differences in either of the twostudies reported, but notes the very low numbers of male subjects in both studies. A post hocanalysis of the data in the two studies carried out by Rawlings et al. (2000) indicates that, in theirEnglish sample, males were much more likely than females to enjoy ‘violent-abstract’ paintings:t (77)=4.29, P<0.001, and also showed a significant tendency to prefer ‘violent-realistic’ paintings:t (77)=2.07, P<0.05. However, there was no significant difference between the Spanish males andfemales in liking for violent-abstract paintings, while there was a ‘marginally’ significant tendency formales to prefer violent-realistic paintings: t (73)=1.92, P=0.06. It appears that the relation betweenSex and preference for unpleasant visual stimuli is somewhat inconsistent. When a difference doesoccur, males are likely to have a stronger preference for ‘unpleasantness’ than females.

In summary, whereas a wide range of personality scales has been shown to correlate with thetendency for individuals to like modern/abstract paintings in comparison to traditional/repre-sentational paintings, fewer substantial correlations have been found when the content of thepaintings has been examined. Specifically, in relation to ‘unpleasantness’, the most substantialcorrelations have been found using measures of sensation-seeking. Of the other questionnairemeasures employed in these studies, Openness shows a relatively inconsistent pattern of corre-lations. The schizotypy scales Unusual Experiences and Impulsive Nonconformity, two scaleswhich are conceptually and empirically linked to Eysenck’s Psychoticism scale, have bothbeen associated with liking for unpleasant paintings in the single study in which they havebeen used.

The present investigation extends previous research into the personality correlates of liking forunpleasant paintings in several ways. Many of the results produced so far have not been repli-cated. We employed a reasonably large sample in an attempt to produce more substantial evi-dence for, or against, previously discovered relationships.

Furthermore, studies of the relationship between Sex and liking for unpleasant paintings haveproduced inconsistent results. The possibility that Sex and the various personality dimensionsmight be independently related to liking for unpleasant paintings will be investigated usingregression analyses.

Finally, it seemed important to examine preference for unpleasant paintings using both tra-ditional representational paintings and modern abstract art. This follows from the fact that

D. Rawlings / Personality and Individual Differences 34 (2003) 395–410 397

personality variables such as sensation seeking have previously been associated with preferenceboth for unpleasant over pleasant, and modern over traditional, paintings. The present studyalso employed a third type of stimulus. Photographs were included from a large set of imagesproduced without particular reference to ‘aesthetic’ criteria. It could be argued that findingsestablished with paintings might be strengthened if similar patterns of relationship were foundusing a different type of visual stimulus, while possible differences between patterns ofcorrelations for paintings and photographs might contribute to the interpretation of obtainedresults.

Our hypotheses were therefore made with reference to the three types of visual stimuli: Tradi-tional representational paintings, modern abstract paintings, and photographs. Our main generalhypothesis was that males and participants who scored high on Sensation Seeking, on Psychoti-cism, and on Unusual Experiences would show a greater liking for unpleasant visual stimuli thanwould females and participants scoring low on these personality dimensions. The reverse wasexpected to apply for pleasant stimuli; in other words, males and high-scorers on the abovedimensions would show a relative tendency to dislike such stimuli. We predicted that the rela-tionships between the personality dimensions and the aesthetic stimuli would be maintained whenSex was statistically controlled.

Subsidiary hypotheses were that participants who scored high on Openness and SensationSeeking would like abstract paintings more than low-scorers, whereas traditional representationalpaintings would be preferred by low scorers on these dimensions.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were 200 undergraduate university students (160 females and 40 males). Of these,188 completed most measures and only these were included in the major analyses. The mean ageof this group was 21.97 (SD=3.37), with most (80.5%) being 22 years or less. The index of skewfor ‘age’ was 2.71, and age was not considered as a variable in the study.

2.2. Materials

2.2.1. The photograph setThe photographs were selected from a set of ‘real life’ photographic depictions comprising the

International Affective Picture System (IAPS). This is a set of photographs on a CD-Rom,depicting a wide range of everyday objects and events developed to provide normative emotionalstimuli for experimental investigations of emotion and attention (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert,1995). Aesthetic criteria are not used in selecting the photographs. Mean scores for ‘valence’,‘arousal’, and ‘dominance’ are given in the Manual to the IAPS for a large American sample, andthese were used to select 18 pleasant and 18 unpleasant photographs. Allocations were based onvalence ratings, with an attempt made to control for the other two dimensions of affect, particu-larly arousal. The ratings were later checked using five male and five female Australian under-graduates, who produced highly similar mean scores.


2.2.2. The painting setPaintings were initially selected by the author to represent the four categories Pleasant

Representational, Unpleasant Representational, Pleasant Abstract and Unpleasant Abstract.Representational paintings were painted prior to 1900, and were selected to be fairly typicalexamples of more realistic, photographic art covering a wide range of styles and periods. Abstractpaintings were mostly painted after 1900, and represented various schools of modern or con-temporary art. Unpleasant pictures involved violent or aggressive content, or themes associatedwith death or despair. Pleasant paintings did not involve such themes. All were of paintings dis-played in public art galleries throughout the world, and had proved useful in earlier studies of thiskind. A pilot study involving 78 female and 22 male undergraduate students required students torate the paintings on valence, arousal and dominance. These ratings were used to confirm theoriginal ratings of the author, and some adjustments made. The final set of 44 slides included 11in each of the above categories, and are listed in the Appendix.

2.2.3. The Sensation-Seeking Scale—Form V (SSS-V) of Zuckerman (1979)This 40-item form of the scale has been used in numerous studies of aesthetic preference. It

includes four sub-scales, measuring Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TAS); Experience Seeking(ES); Boredom Susceptibility (BS); and Disinhibition (Dis).

2.2.4. The Openness to Experience Scale adapted from the International Personality Item Pool(IPIP; Goldberg, 1999)

The IPIP is a web-based pool of items produced for the purpose of providing alternative par-allel versions of a number of popular personality questionnaires, including the NEO-PI-R. Owingto time constraints, a short ‘Openness’ scale was produced from the Openness to Experience scalefrom this parallel version by including four items (two positively scored and two negativelyscored) from each of the six ‘facet’ scales. The 24-item scale had an alpha-coefficient of 0.80.

2.2.5. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire—Revised (EPQ-R) of Eysenck, Eysenck, andBarrett (1985)

The 100-item EPQ-R is a popular measure of Eysenck’s tri-dimensional ‘PEN’ model, includingscales for Psychoticism (P), Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N). The EPQ-R also incorporatesa Social Desirability or Lie scale; this did not produce meaningful relationships with our aestheticpreference measures and was not used in reported analyses.

2.2.6. The Unusual Experiences Scale from the Oxford–Liverpool Inventory of Feelings andExperiences (O-Life) of Mason et al. (1995)

The Unusual Experiences Scale (UnuExp) is one of the four scales of the O-Life, a ques-tionnaire developed on the basis of a multi-dimensional model of schizotypal traits. The 32-itemUnuExp scale includes items measuring ‘positive’ schizotypal characteristics such as unusualperceptual experiences and magical ideation.

2.3. Procedure

Participants completed the various tasks in two sessions.


2.3.1. Session 1In the first session, the 36 selected photographs, arranged in pseudo-random order, were pro-

jected individually onto a large screen at the front of a large lecture theatre in which all partici-pants were seated. Each photograph appeared for about 10 s, with an inter-stimulus delay ofabout 3 s. Participants rated each photograph on a 5-point scale, from ‘dislike the photo verymuch’ to ‘like it a lot’.

2.3.2. Session 2The second session took place about a week after the first session, and occurred in 10 small

groups, with the numbers in each group varying between 15 and 28. First, the 44 slides of selectedpaintings, arranged in pseudo-random order, were projected individually onto a screen at thefront of the small classroom. Each appeared for about 10 s with an inter-stimulus delay of about2 s. They were again rated by participants on a 5-point scale, from ‘dislike the painting verymuch’ to ‘like it a lot’. The questionnaire measures were then completed in the above order.

3. Results

Reliability analyses were carried out on the four painting and two photograph categories priorto employment of these categories in statistical analyses. The means and standard deviations werecalculated for each of the categories and these appear, with the alpha-coefficients, in Table 1.

A number of aspects of Table 1 might be noted. It can be seen that alpha levels vary con-siderably though, with the possible exception of Pleasant Abstract paintings, are satisfactory forscales of this type. T-tests were performed comparing pleasant and unpleasant measures of eachof the three stimulus types. All mean differences were highly significant using two-tailed tests(P<0.001), including that for representational paintings: t (187)=15.47; abstract paintings:t (187)=9.52; and photographs: t (185)=29.37. Formal comparisons are not made between thephotographic and painting stimuli because of the different origins of the stimulus sets and differ-ent ways in which data were collected. It is noteworthy, however, that the difference between theratings of pleasant and unpleasant photographs is much greater than the differences between the

Table 1Means, standard deviations, and alpha-coefficients for the preference ratings of the painting and photograph categories

Category Mean S.D. Alpha

Paintings

Pleasant–Representational 2.56 0.53 0.79Pleasant–Abstract 2.16 0.56 0.71Unpleasant–Representational 1.62 0.72 0.80

Unpleasant–Abstract 1.65 0.69 0.82

PhotographsPleasant 2.68 0.41 0.78

Unpleasant 0.85 0.53 0.85


ratings of pleasant and unpleasant paintings, due largely to the very low ratings obtained by theUnpleasant Photograph category.

Ratings of males and females on the six preference ratings were compared using t-tests. Malesobtained higher scores than females on all three categories involving unpleasant stimuli, the dif-ference in each case being highly significant (P<0.001). A highly significant difference in favourof females was found for the Pleasant Representational painting category, while females showeda barely significant preference for Pleasant Abstract paintings: t (186)=�1.96, P=0.05. A non-significant difference was obtained for the Pleasant Photograph category.

Table 2 shows the Pearson correlations of the mean ratings of the six categories with the majorpersonality scales and sub-scales; it also includes partial correlations when Sex (entered biseriallyas M=1, F=2) is controlled for.

Given the moderately large number of participants in the study, and the moderately sizablecorrelation matrix, we shall concentrate in our interpretation on correlations reaching the 1-percent

Table 2

Pearson correlations between personality measures and painting and photograph preference ratingsa

Paintings Photographs

PlRe PlAb UnRe UnAb Pleasant Unpleasant

SSS-V (total) �13 03 37*** 39*** �16* 25***(�06) (08) (31***) (33***) (�15*) (14*)

TAS �08 �09 27*** 21** 00 23***

(�01) (�05) (20*) (11) (02) (13)ES �13 31*** 25*** 44*** �14 27***

(�09) (33***) (22**) (43***) (�14) (24***)

BS �03 �11 23** 15* �21** 04(02) (�11) (22**) (13) (�21**) (02)

Dis �11 01 22** 25*** �10 09

(�05) (04) (16*) (20**) (�09) (�01)

EPQ-R

Psychoticism �13 �05 27*** 21** �16* 24**(�06) (�01) (20**) (14*) (�15*) (15*)

Extraversion �03 �02 �02 06 07 �06(�05) (�03) (01) (08) (07) (�02)

Neuroticism 07 �15* �06 �11 �22** �21**(00) (�19*) (03) (�05) (�24***) (�12)

Openness 17* 30*** 26*** 35*** 02 18*

(17*) (30***) (25***) (36***) (02) (19**)UnuExp (O-Life) 12 06 24*** 23** �01 12

(11) (05) (29***) (23**) (�01) (15*)

Abbreviations of stimulus categories: PlRe=Pleasant Representational; PlAb=Pleasant Abstract; UnRe=Unpleasant

Representational; UnAb=Unpleasant Abstract. Note: Decimal points have been removed.a Partial correlations controlling for sex (M=1, F=2) are given in italics.* P<0.05, using two-tailed tests.

** P<0.01.*** P<0.001.


significance level. Using this criterion, Table 2 includes numerous significant zero-order corre-lations, the strongest being with the unpleasant paintings. All major personality scales of interestexcept E and N, as well as three SSS-V sub-scales, showed positive correlations with bothUnpleasant Representational and Unpleasant Abstract categories. For the major personalityscales, each of the relationships retains some degree of statistical significance when Sex is par-tialled out, though the strength of the correlation is frequently substantially reduced and thepartial correlations between P and Unpleasant Abstract paintings fall below our 1% criterion.For Unpleasant Photographs, there is a similar pattern, though correlations are usually weaker,and the association with Unusual Experiences, and two SSS-V sub-scales, is not significant.Interestingly, Neuroticism is correlated negatively with both Unpleasant Photographs and Plea-sant Photographs, though partialling leads to a substantial reduction in the relationship withUnpleasant Photographs. In fact, there were relatively few significant correlations with the‘pleasant’ stimuli of all types, the strongest correlations indicating the tendency of both Opennessand Experience Seeking to be associated with liking for Pleasant Abstract paintings.

Six hierarchical regression analyses were carried out in which the stimulus categories served asdependent variables and the major personality scales in Table 2 were the independent variables.Sex was also included (coded M=1, F=2), and was entered first into the analysis. The person-ality variables were entered as a block on the second step. The highly inter-correlated SSS-V sub-scale scores were not included. Table 3 gives the F-values of the regression models following thesecond step, the adjusted R square values, and the t-values of all significant predictor variables.

The dominant predictor variable in Table 3 was Sex. Females clearly liked unpleasant visualstimuli less than males, as well as preferring pleasant paintings more than males. Of the person-ality measures, Openness made the most substantial general contribution across categories; it wasstrongly associated with liking for abstract paintings. SSS-V and UnuExp were both associatedwith liking for unpleasant paintings. Neuroticism was a (negative) predictor of both photographcategories, as well as Pleasant Abstract paintings.

Because the original painting and photograph categories were determined on a largely a prioribasis, it was decided at this point to identify the components appearing in the stimulus ratingsusing principal components analysis (PCA). A PCA was first carried out on the ratings of the fullset of 44 slides, followed by a similar analysis on the full set of 36 photographs. Scree-plots ofeigenvalues were somewhat ambiguous and the parallel analysis method of deciding the numberof factors was employed (Horn, 1965). This is the most consistently accurate method of deter-mining the proper number of factors (Zwick & Velicer, 1986), and suggested four factors for thepaintings and three for the photographs. The analyses will not be reported in detail, but thecomponents produced following orthogonal (Varimax) rotation will be briefly described, startingwith the paintings.

1. By far the strongest component included most of the items with highly unpleasant themes,such as cruelty and violence, death-scenes, or extreme ugliness. Paintings loading on thisfactor were of both representational and abstract styles. The component was labelled‘Unpleasant Paintings’. It had an eigenvalue of 7.89 and explained 17.93% of the variancein the correlation matrix.

2. The second component included paintings with pleasant or neutral themes, but did notinclude paintings with clearly ‘erotic’ content. The paintings in this factor were mostly


representational. This component was labelled ‘Pleasant Representational Paintings’. Ithad an eigenvalue of 4.33 and explained 9.84% of the variance.

3. The items loading highest on the third component included most of the modern/abstractpaintings which were not highly unpleasant. The component is labelled ‘Pleasant AbstractPaintings’. It had an eigenvalue of 4.05 and accounted for 9.19% of the variance.

4. Almost all the paintings with loadings on the fourth component involved nudity of somekind. They were mostly representational paintings. We label the component ‘Erotic Paint-ings’. The component had an eigenvalue of 2.29 and explained 5.19% of the variance.

In summary, the PCA indicated that the major source of variance in preference ratings was theunpleasantness of the theme of the painting. Factor 1 included items from both of the original‘unpleasant’ painting categories. A split then occurred among the remaining, mostly pleasant,paintings between representational (Factors 2 and 4) and more abstract painting styles (Factor 3).

Table 3Regression analyses employing painting and photograph category ratings as dependent variables, with Sex and majorpersonality indices as independent variables

Model Significant predictors Beta t

Pleasant Representational Paintings (Adjusted R square=0.11; F=4.37***)

Sex 0.20 2.56*Openness 0.24 3.07**

Pleasant Abstract Paintings (Adjusted R square=0.17; F=5.35***)Sex 0.19 2.37*Openness 0.32 4.24***

Neuroticism �0.26 �3.30***

Unpleasant Representational Paintings (Adjusted R square=0.23; F=9.05***)Sex �0.25 �3.38***

Unusual Experiences 0.21 3.06**Sensation Seeking 0.22 2.70**

Unpleasant Abstract Paintings (Adjusted R square=0.24; F=9.30***)Sex �0.23 �3.08**Openness 0.25 3.52***

Sensation Seeking 0.21 2.59**Unusual Experiences 0.16 2.27*

Pleasant Photographs (Adjusted R square=0.07; F=3.12**)

Neuroticism �0.23 �2.88**

Unpleasant Photographs (Adjusted R square=0.22; F=8.41***)

Sex �0.32 �4.20***Neuroticism �0.19 �2.60**

* P<0.05.** P<0.01.

*** P<0.001.


The traditional representational paintings further split on the basis of whether they containedclearly erotic content (Factor 4) or did not (Factor 2).

The three components emerging from the PCA of the photographs were similar to three of thefactors produced in the PCA of the paintings.

1. The first component included most of the photographs involving highly unpleasant themes,and was labelled ‘Unpleasant Photographs’. It had an eigenvalue of 6.53 and accounted for18.15% of the variance in the matrix.

2. While no highly-explicit erotic material was included in the photographic set, the secondcomponent included most of the pleasant or neutral photographs with mildly eroticthemes. Such photographs involved nudity or were suggestive of sexual relationships, and

Table 4Regression analyses employing factor scores following PCA of paintings and photographs as dependent variables, withSex and major personality indices as independent variables

Model Significant predictors Beta t

‘Unpleasant Paintings’ (Adjusted R Square=0.24; F=9.41***)

Sex �0.32 �4.33***Unusual Experiences 0.22 3.15**Sensation Seeking 0.20 2.47*

‘‘Pleasant Representational Paintings’ (Adjusted R square=0.08; F=2.26*)(No significant predictor variables)

‘Pleasant Abstract Paintings’ (Adjusted R square=0.08; F=3.34**)Sex 0.17 2.11*Openness 0.26 3.31***

Neuroticism �0.20 �2.50*

‘Erotic Paintings’ (Adjusted R square=0.16; F=6.09***)

Sex 0.18 2.28*Openness 0.39 5.09***

‘Unpleasant Photographs’ (Adjusted R square=0.29; F=11.95***)

Sex �0.40 �5.62***Neuroticism �0.18 �2.47*

‘Erotic Photographs’ (Adjusted R square=�0.00; F=0.94)(No significant predictor variables)

‘Pleasant Photographs’ (Adjusted R square=0.07; F=2.86**)Neuroticism �0.28 �3.38***Psychoticism �0.17 �2.01*

* P<0.05.

** P<0.01.*** P<0.001.


were labelled ‘Erotic Photographs’. The factor had an eigenvalue of 3.38 and accounted for9.39% of the variance.

3. Pleasant and neutral photographs with no sexual or erotic content comprised the thirdrotated factor in the PCA of photographs, called Pleasant Photographs. It had an eigen-value of 2.47, and accounted for 6.85% of the variance.

Factor scores were obtained for the four painting factors and three photograph factors descri-bed above. The factors were then correlated with the major personality variables of the study.Again using the 1% level as a cut-off for interpretation of correlations, we note that the‘Unpleasant Paintings’ factor was significantly correlated with SSS-V: r=0.36, P<0.001; EPQ-RP: r=0.25, P<0.001; and UnuExp: r=0.24, P<0.001. Painting Factor 2, ‘Pleasant Representa-tional Paintings’ was correlated only with SSS-V: r=�0.23, P<0.01; and ‘Pleasant AbstractPaintings’: r=0.24, P<0.001, with Openness. Openness was also correlated with ‘Erotic Paint-ings’: r=0.39, P<0.001. The two significant positive correlations between the ‘Unpleasant Pho-tographs’ factor and major personality variables were with SSS-V and P (r=0.27, P<0.001 inboth cases). The factor was correlated negatively with N: r=�0.22, P<0.01. The ‘Erotic Photo-graphs’ factor correlated significantly with none of the major personality scales, while ‘PleasantPhotographs’ correlated only with N: r=�0.24, P<0.001.

Multiple regression analyses were performed employing the painting and photograph factorsdescribed above as dependent variables, with the major personality dimensions as independentvariables. The results of these regression analyses are in Table 4. It can be seen that only thesecond photograph factor, ‘Erotic Photographs’, did not produce a significant model. As with theregression analyses using painting categories as dependent variables, Sex appeared as the majorpredictor variable, with females showing a strong tendency to dislike unpleasant paintings andphotographs, and a somewhat weaker tendency to like pleasant paintings. Again, UnuExp andSSS-V are independent predictors of liking for unpleasant paintings. Openness is of particularimportance in determining liking for paintings, especially ‘pleasant’ paintings; while Neuroticismis particularly associated with disliking of pleasant photographs.

4. Discussion

The general hypothesis that males, and participants who scored high on Sensation Seeking,Unusual Experiences and Psychoticism, would like ‘unpleasant’ paintings more than females andlow scorers on these dimensions was supported in relation to both representational and abstractpaintings. For photographs, the results were more ambiguous. Males clearly preferred unpleasantphotographs more than did females, but high-scorers on the relevant personality dimensionsshowed relatively weak tendencies to like this class of stimulus once Sex had been controlled for.The hypothesis that females and subjects scoring low on the above personality dimensions wouldlike the various categories of ‘pleasant’ visual stimuli more than males and low-scorers was sup-ported only by the tendency for females to like pleasant paintings. These results reinforce earlierstudies showing a sex difference in the tendency to prefer unpleasant paintings (e.g. Zaleski, 1984)and support studies relating the above or associated personality variables with such preferences(e.g. Rawlings, 2000).


The subsidiary hypothesis that participants scoring high on Openness would like modern,abstract paintings more than would low-scorers was clearly supported. The hypothesis that asimilar pattern would be shown by high-scorers on Sensation Seeking was not supported. How-ever, the predicted pattern of results was found for the Experience Seeking sub-scale of the SSS-V,the sub-scale most clearly linked to preference for abstract or surreal works of art in previousresearch. The results may therefore be interpreted to provide general support to earlier studiesrelating Openness and Sensation Seeking to liking for abstract, modern painting styles (e.g.Furnham & Avison, 1997; Rawlings, 2000; Rawlings et al., 2000).

A major focus of the study was the attempt to establish those variables which contribute inde-pendent variance to the prediction of liking for unpleasant paintings. The regression analyses ofunpleasant paintings using both painting categories (Table 3) and factor scores (Table 4) suggestthat the relationship between our independent variables and liking for unpleasant paintings ismediated by at least three separate sources of variance. It might be noted that Psychoticism didnot appear as a significant predictor in these analyses due to its correlation with the three sig-nificant predictor variables. In fact, these three variables, Sex, Sensation Seeking, and UnusualExperiences, show somewhat different patterns of results in this and earlier studies.

As noted above, Sex is the most pervasive variable in the study, and is related to liking forunpleasant photographs as well as paintings. In this context, we note the possibility that, whenmaking their responses, individuals reacted to the photographic stimuli as if they were more like‘real life’ situations, whereas the painting stimuli were interpreted as clearly ‘aesthetic’. As poin-ted out earlier, the photographs were selected for their emotion-inducing properties rather thantheir aesthetic qualities. On this interpretation, the sex differences found in our study are mani-festations of the same processes involved in explaining the commonly established differencesbetween young males and females in aggressive behaviours, such as violent crime or variousclasses of traffic offence.

On the other hand, both Sensation Seeking and Unusual Experiences are significant predictorsonly of liking for unpleasant paintings. As noted earlier, Sensation Seeking has a long history ofassociation with such aesthetic phenomena as ‘complex’ polygons, ‘surreal’ and ‘abstract’ paint-ings, ‘tension-inducing’ paintings, and ‘violent’ paintings. These diverse associations have gen-erally been explained (e.g. Rawlings et al., 1998; Zuckerman et al., 1993) with reference to thesensation seeker’s high optimal level of arousal. Recent interpretations have emphasised arousalof the brain’s catecholamine systems related to intrinsic reward, including a special responsive-ness to novel and intense stimulation (Zuckerman, 1987). While an association between Sensa-tion Seeking and abstract paintings is not unambiguously established in the present study, an‘arousal’ explanation of the data would seem appropriate in the light of previous findings in thisarea.

Much less previous aesthetic research has employed Unusual Experiences, or a related ‘schizo-typy’ construct. It is therefore more tentatively suggested that the observed relationship betweenUnuExp and liking for unpleasant paintings was due to the fantasy-proneness and tendency toimaginative involvement of the high UnuExp scorer. Thus, high scorers may use the unpleasantmaterial depicted in the paintings as a tool for fantasy; alternatively, their liking for it may reflectthe fact that this type of material forms part of their everyday fantasies.

Several additional aspects of the data are noteworthy. While previous studies of aesthetic pref-erence and personality have tended to emphasise stylistic qualities, our factor analyses of the


paintings and the photographs produced first rotated factors incorporating most of the unplea-sant stimuli of the respective stimulus types, which were clearly the strongest factors in therespective analyses. While it is likely that this was largely due to the fact that half the stimuli inthe present study were selected to be ‘unpleasant’, the finding points to the importance of theemotional content of stimuli in determining aesthetic preference, at least among non-experts. It isprobable that the effect would be weaker in more sophisticated artists or art-critics, whose judg-ments would likely be based on somewhat different criteria to the non-expert group employedhere.

An additional point concerns the pattern of results obtained for the Neuroticism scale. High Nscorers tended to dislike both pleasant and unpleasant photographs, and pleasant abstractpaintings, a finding which is not consistent with results of previous studies using the Neuroticismconstruct and is difficult to account for with a single, parsimonious explanation. The resultsclearly require replication. However, while there is a tendency for Neuroticism to be associatedwith dislike of both unpleasant and pleasant visual stimuli, the negative association with pleasantvisual stimuli does seem to be the more clear-cut result, particularly when independent effects areconsidered. Speculatively, this finding might be linked to studies in the clinical area, where indi-viduals experiencing negative mood (depression) frequently prefer contact with other relativelydepressed people more than with happy people (e.g. Rosenblatt & Greenberg, 1991). The pleasantpictures and photographs employed in the present investigation include many examples of happypeople or people engaged in positive personal interactions which, it might be argued, would bedisliked by individuals who are high on Neuroticism, and hence negative mood.

The finding that Sex was correlated with liking for photographic stimuli while the personalityvariables were not suggests the relevance of a body of aesthetic research reviewed by writers suchas Schubert (1996) which addresses the question of how it is possible for individuals to ‘enjoy’aesthetic stimuli producing unpleasant emotions. The very low mean score obtained in the presentstudy for the Unpleasant Photograph category implies that this category was particularly dislikedby our participants, suggesting that they were able to ‘suspend belief’ when viewing stimuli thatwere clearly ‘aesthetic’, but not when viewing the more unambiguously ‘real’ photographic sti-muli. Further research might systematically examine the question of whether personality is dif-ferentially related to liking for unpleasant aesthetic and unpleasant real-life stimuli.

Appendix. Paintings (listed by category)

Pleasant RepresentationalThe umbrellas (Renoir)La vendimia (Goya)La gallina ciega (Goya)Carnation, lily, lily, rose (Sargent)Horses in a landscape (Stubbs)Lovers spied upon by children (van der Werff)Paolo and Francesca da Rimini (Rosetti)


The wedding of Klaris and Roosje (Troost)Stoeiend paar (Steen)Mars and Venus (Giovane)The birth of Venus (Botticelli)

Pleasant AbstractMaya with a boat (Picasso)The bathers (Picasso)Happy figure (Dubuffet)Cow with parasol (Chagall)The embrace (Schiele)The blue circus (Chagall)Battle of lights (Stella)The mystic boat (Redon)The kiss (Klimt)Soldier on a horse (Larionov)Dog on a leash (Balla)

Unpleasant RepresentationalNastagio’s story, picture 1 (Botticelli)Kryspina and Kryspiniana (Dutch, c.1500)El aquelarre (Goya)Native sepulchre (Gill)Vanitas (Claesz)Ciervo acosado por la jauria (De Vos)Witches at their incantations (Rosa)Las Edades y la Muerte (Grien)Judith slayes Holofernes (Gentileschi)Mad Margo (P.Brueghal)Anguish (Schenck)

Unpleasant AbstractPremonition of civil war (Dali)The death-bed (Munch)A few little pricks (Kahlo)Crucifixion (Dali)Man of the road (Booth)The charge of the lancers (Boccioni)Weeping woman (Picasso)Woman seated in the underground (Moore)Glenrowan (Nolan)El loco (Picasso)The death of my father (Allen)


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Personality correlates of liking for ‘unpleasant’ paintings and photographs