Personality and art preferences

This study examined the relationship between sensation seeking and preference for paintings. Twenty paintings were classified into four categories: simple/complex and representational/abstract. It was hypothesized that total sensation seeking score and subscales scores would be positively correlated with preferences for simple and, especially complex, abstract art, and negatively correlated with simple, and, especially complex, representational art. Alpha coefficients demonstrated that satisfactory classification of the paintings into four groups. As hypothesized, high scores on total sensation seeking and subscales were positively correlated with abstract art preferences and negatively correlated with representational art preferences. The results are discussed in terms of the major determinants of preferences for art of different types.