Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:02:18.751Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Negative emotions in art reception: Refining theoretical assumptions and adding variables to the Distancing-Embracing model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2017

Winfried Menninghaus
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. [email protected]@[email protected]://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/prof-dr-winfried-menninghaus.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/dr-valentin-wagner.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/e-wassiliwizky.html
Valentin Wagner
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. [email protected]@[email protected]://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/prof-dr-winfried-menninghaus.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/dr-valentin-wagner.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/e-wassiliwizky.html
Julian Hanich
Affiliation:
Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Groningen, 9700 AB Groningen, The Netherlands. [email protected]://www.rug.nl/staff/j.hanich/
Eugen Wassiliwizky
Affiliation:
Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. [email protected]@[email protected]://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/prof-dr-winfried-menninghaus.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/dr-valentin-wagner.htmlhttps://www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/the-institute/people/e-wassiliwizky.html
Thomas Jacobsen
Affiliation:
Experimental Psychology Unit, Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, 22043 Hamburg, Germany. [email protected]://www.hsu-hh.de/allgpsychologie/index_FPDCF8Hp1Z8V4KmF.html
Stefan Koelsch
Affiliation:
University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway. [email protected]://www.uib.no/en/persons/Stefan.K%C3%B6lsch

Abstract

While covering all commentaries, our response specifically focuses on the following issues: How can the hypothesis of emotional distancing (qua art framing) be compatible with stipulating high levels of felt negative emotions in art reception? Which concept of altogether pleasurable mixed emotions does our model involve? Can mechanisms of predictive coding, social sharing, and immersion enhance the power of our model?

Type
Authors' Response
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, J. M. & Hershfield, H. E. (2012) Mixed emotional experience is associated with and precedes improvements in psychological well-being. PLoS ONE 7(4):e3563. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bartsch, A. (2007) Meta-emotion and genre-preference. What makes horror films and tear-jerkers enjoyable? In: Narration and spectatorship in moving images, ed. Anderson, J. D. & Anderson, N. Fisher, pp. 124–35. Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Bartsch, A. (2008) Meta-emotion: How films and music videos communicate emotions about emotions. Projections 2(1):4559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartsch, A., Appel, M. & Storch, D. (2010) Predicting emotions and meta-emotions at the movies: The role of the need for affect in audiences' experience of horror and drama. Communication Research 37(2):167–90. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1177/0093650209356441.Google Scholar
Bartsch, A. & Viehoff, R. (2003) Meta-emotion: In search of a meta-account for entertainment by negative emotions. SPIEL 22(2):309–28.Google Scholar
Brattico, E., Bogert, B., Alluri, V., Tervaniemi, M., Eerola, T. & Jacobsen, T. (2016) It's sad but I like it: The neural dissociation between musical emotions and liking in experts and laypersons. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9:676. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00676.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carrera, P. & Oceja, L. (2007) Drawing mixed emotions: Sequential or simultaneous experiences? Cognition and Emotion 21(2):422–41. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/02699930600557904.Google Scholar
Djikic, M., Oatley, K. & Peterson, J. B. (2006) The bitter-sweet labor of emoting: The linguistic comparison of writers and physicists. Creativity Research Journal 18(2):191–97. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1802_5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Djikic, M., Oatley, K., Zoeterman, S. & Peterson, J. B. (2009) On being moved by art: How reading fiction transforms the self. Creativity Research Journal 21(1):2429. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/10400410802633392.Google Scholar
Feldman Barrett, L. (2004) Feelings or words? Understanding the content in self-report ratings of experienced emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(2):266–81. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.266.Google Scholar
Fokkinga, S. F. & Desmet, P. M. A. (2012) Darker shades of joy: The role of negative emotion in rich product experiences. Design Issues 28(4):4256. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fokkinga, S. F. & Desmet, P. M. A. (2013) Ten ways to design for disgust, sadness, and other enjoyments: A design approach to enrich product experiences with negative emotions. International Journal of Design 7(1):1936.Google Scholar
Frijda, N. H. (1988) The laws of emotion. American Psychologist 43(5):349–58. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.43.5.349.Google Scholar
Frijda, N. H. & Sundararajan, L. (2007) Emotion refinement: A theory inspired by Chinese poetics. Perspectives on Psychological Science 2(3):227–41. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00042.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerger, G., Leder, H. & Kremer, A. (2014) Context effects on emotional and aesthetic evaluations of artworks and IAPS pictures. Acta Psychologica 151(1):174–83. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.06.008.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goncharov, I. (1859/2009) Oblomov, trans. Hogarth, C. J.. World Library Classics.Google Scholar
Gross, J. J. & Levenson, R. W. (1997) Hiding feelings: The acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 106(1):95103. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.106.1.95.Google Scholar
Hanich, J., Wagner, V., Shah, M., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2014) Why we like to watch sad films: The pleasure of being moved in aesthetic experiences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 8(2):130–43. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/a0035690.Google Scholar
Hoemann, K., Gendron, M. & Feldman Barrett, L. (2017) Mixed emotions in the predictive brain. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 15:5157. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.05.013.Google Scholar
Ishizu, T. & Zeki, S. (2017) The experience of beauty derived from sorrow. Human Brain Mapping 38(8):4185–200. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23657.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jakobson, R. (1973) Two aspects of language: Metaphor and metonymy. In: European literary theory and practice: From existential phenomenology to structuralism, ed. Gras, V. W., pp. 119–32. Dell.Google Scholar
Kantor-Martynuska, J. & Horabik, J. (2015) Granularity of emotional responses to music: The effect of musical expertise. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 9(3):235–47. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/a0039107.Google Scholar
Knobloch-Westerwick, S. & Keplinger, C. (2006) Mystery appeal: Effects of uncertainty and resolution on the enjoyment of mystery. Media Psychology 8(3):193212. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1207/S1532785xmep0803_1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knoop, C. A., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2016) Mapping the aesthetic space of literature “from below.Poetics 56:3549. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.02.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kracauer, S. (1995) The mass ornament: Weimar essays, trans. Levin, T. Y.. Harvard.Google Scholar
Kuehnast, M., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2014) Being moved: Linguistic representation and conceptual structure. Frontiers in Psychology: Emotion Science 5:1242. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01242.Google Scholar
Lambie, J. A. & Marcel, A. J. (2002) Consciousness and the varieties of emotion experience: A theoretical framework. Psychological Review 109(2):219–59. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.109.2.219.Google Scholar
Lange, K. (1901) Das Wesen der Kunst. Grundzüge einer realistischen Kunstlehre [The nature of art. Outline of a realistic theory of art]. Grote.Google Scholar
Larsen, J. T. & Green, J. D. (2013) Evidence for mixed feelings of happiness and sadness from brief moments in time. Cognition and Emotion 27(8):1469–77. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.790782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larsen, J. T., Hemenover, S. H., Norris, C. J. & Cacioppo, J. T. (2003) Turning adversity to advantage: On the virtues of the coactivation of positive and negative emotions. In: A psychology of human strengths: Fundamental questions and future directions for a positive psychology, ed. Aspinwall, L. G. & Staudinger, U. M., pp. 211–25. American Psychological Association.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen, J. T. & McGraw, A. P. (2011) Further evidence for mixed emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(6):1095–110. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/a0021846.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lazarus, R. S. (1991) Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion. American Psychologist 46(8):819–34. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.46.8.819.Google Scholar
Leder, H. & Nadal, M. (2014) Ten years of a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments: The aesthetic episode – Developments and challenges in empirical aesthetics. British Journal of Psychology 105(4):443–64. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12084.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindquist, K. A. & Feldman Barrett, L. (2008) Emotional complexity. In: Handbook of emotions, 3rd edition, ed. Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J. M. & Barrett, L. F., pp. 513–30. Guilford.Google Scholar
Martindale, C. (1984) The pleasures of thought: A theory of cognitive hedonics. The Journal of Mind and Behaviour 5(1):4980.Google Scholar
Maslow, A. H., Frager, R., Fadiman, J., McReynolds, C. & Cox, R. (1970) Motivation and personality, vol. 2. Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Hanich, J., Wassiliwizky, E., Kuehnast, M. & Jacobsen, T. (2015b) Towards a psychological construct of being moved. PLoS ONE 10(6):e0128451. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128451.Google Scholar
Menninghaus, W., Wagner, V., Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T. & Knoop, C. A. (2017) The emotional and aesthetic powers of parallelistic diction. Poetics. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2016.12.001.Google Scholar
Oatley, K. (1994) A taxonomy of the emotions of literary response and a theory of identification in fictional narrative. Poetics 23(1–2):5374. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422X(94)P4296-S.Google Scholar
Oceja, L. & Carrera, P. (2009) Beyond a single pattern of mixed emotional experience: Sequential, prevalence, inverse, and simultaneous. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 25(1):5867. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.25.1.58.Google Scholar
Oliver, M. B. (1993) Exploring the paradox of the enjoyment of sad films. Human Communication Research 19(3):315–42. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1993.tb00304.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, M. B. & Bartsch, A. (2010) Appreciation as audience response: Exploring entertainment gratifications beyond hedonism. Human Communication Research 36(1):5381. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01368.x.Google Scholar
Oliver, M. B. & Woolley, J. K. (2010) Tragic and poignant entertainment: The gratifications of meaningfulness as emotional response. In: The Routledge handbook of emotions and mass media, ed. Döverin, K., Scheve, C. von & Konijn, E. A., pp. 134–47. Routledge.Google Scholar
Oosterwijk, S., Lindquist, K. A., Adebayo, M. & Feldman Barrett, L. (2016) The neural representation of typical and atypical experiences of negative images: Comparing fear, disgust and morbid fascination. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 11(1):1122. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsv088.Google Scholar
Rimé, B., Delfosse, C. & Corsini, S. (2005) Emotional fascination: Responses to viewing pictures of September 11 attacks. Cognition and Emotion 19(6):923–32. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/02699930541000039.Google Scholar
Scherer, K. R. (2005) What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information – Sur Les Sciences Sociales 44(4):695729. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1177/0539018405058216.Google Scholar
Schindler, I., Hosoya, G., Menninghaus, W., Beermann, U., Wagner, V., Eid, M. & Scherer, K. R. (2017) Measuring aesthetic emotions: A review of the literature and a new assessment tool. PLoS ONE 12(6):e0178899. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178899.Google Scholar
Schubert, T. W., Zickfeld, J. H., Seibt, B. & Fiske, A. P. (2016) Moment-to-moment changes in feeling moved match changes in closeness, tears, goosebumps, and warmth: Time series analyses. Cognition and Emotion. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2016.1268998.Google Scholar
Shuman, V., Sander, D. & Scherer, K. R. (2013) Levels of valence. Frontiers in Psychology 4:261. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00261.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silvia, P. J. (2005a) What is interesting? Exploring the appraisal structure of interest. Emotion 5(1):89102. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.1.89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silvia, P. J. (2010) Confusion and interest: The role of knowledge emotions in aesthetic experience. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 4(2):7580. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017081.Google Scholar
Smidt, K. E. & Suvak, M. K. (2015) A brief, but nuanced, review of emotional granularity and emotion differentiation research. Current Opinion in Psychology 3:4851. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.02.007.Google Scholar
Tan, E. S. H. (2000) Emotion, art, and the humanities. In: Handbook of emotions, 2nd edition, vol. 3, ed. Lewis, M. D., pp. 116–34. Guilford.Google Scholar
Tokaji, A. (2003) Research for determinant factors and features of emotional responses of “kandoh” (the state of being emotionally moved). Japanese Psychological Research 45(4):235–49. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5884.00226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van de Cruys, S. & Wagemans, J. (2011) Putting reward in art: A tentative prediction error account of visual art. Iperception 2(9):1035–62. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1068/i0466aap.Google Scholar
Visch, V., Tan, E. S. H. & Molenaar, D. (2010) The emotional and cognitive effect of immersion in film viewing. Cognition and Emotion 24(8):1439–45. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930903498186.Google Scholar
Vuoskoski, J. K. & Eerola, T. (2017) The pleasure evoked by sad music is mediated by feelings of being moved. Frontiers in Psychology 8:439. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00439.Google Scholar
Wagner, V., Menninghaus, W., Hanich, J. & Jacobsen, T. (2014) Art schema effects on affective experience: The case of disgusting images. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 8(2):120–29. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036126.Google Scholar
Wassiliwizky, E., Jacobsen, T., Heinrich, J., Schneiderbauer, M. & Menninghaus, W. (2017a) Tears falling on goosebumps: Co-occurrence of emotional lacrimation and emotional piloerection indicates a psychophysiological climax in emotional arousal. Frontiers in Psychology 8:41. Available at: http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00041.Google Scholar
Wassiliwizky, E., Koelsch, S., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2017b) The emotional power of poetry: Neural circuitry, psychophysiology and compositional principles. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 12(8):1229–40. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx069.Google Scholar
Wassiliwizky, E., Wagner, V., Jacobsen, T. & Menninghaus, W. (2015) Art-elicited chills indicate states of being moved. Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts 9(4):405–16. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000023.Google Scholar