Abstract
Beauty experiences are common in our daily lives. A recent study in beauty perception found that when asked to recall an intense beauty experience, people often mentioned being with friends or family (Brielmann, Nuzzo & Pelli, 2021). Does sharing an experience with someone affect the perceived beauty, particularly in viewing visual art? Our research compares beauty ratings for viewing alone vs. with someone else, and whether any difference correlates with how close one feels to that person. To address this question, we recruited participants (N = 66) to come to the Brooklyn Museum and view 9 paintings there. Each person viewed 3 paintings alone (individual trial), and 6 paintings with another participant (shared trial). Using a Qualtric Survey, participants rated the beauty of each painting on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). For shared trials, they also rated how emotionally close they were to their co-viewer on a scale from 1 (I don’t know him/her) to 7 (very close). We recruited NYU undergrads and asked each to bring two more participants, including friends, family, acquaintance, or strangers. Closeness of co-viewers varied greatly (mean±sd: 4.83±2.05, N=66 pairs). A two-sample t-test showed no significant difference (p = 0.6) in beauty rating between individual trials (4.54±1.23, N=198) and shared trials (4.39±1.14, N=396). No correlation was found between the beauty rating and the rated emotional closeness between the two viewers. This indicates that bringing a friend will not affect how much pleasure you get from the art when you go to a museum.