Ortlieb Stefan A, Carbon Claus-Christian
Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
Bamberg Graduate School of Affective and Cognitive Sciences (BaGrACS), Bamberg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2019 Jan 28;9:2437. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02437. eCollection 2018.
With the advent of modernity, change and novelty have become the core values of artistic production. At the same time the derogatory term "kitsch" was coined to contrast truly ground-breaking artistic achievements. In this article, we argue that kitsch and avant-garde art ideally represent two complementary types of aesthetic experience: a fluent one that allows for immediate emotional gratification (kitsch) and a disfluent one that requires cognitive elaboration (art). We make a case that preferences for the one or the other are dynamically related to a set of conflicting needs which constitute the basic dilemma of human attachment behavior: needs for safety and intimacy versus needs for arousal and autonomy. Based on the we hypothesize that social distance regulation and aesthetic liking are synchronized via notions of self-efficacy and autonomy: Whenever we feel safe and self-sufficient, an appetence for arousal (curiosity) is likely to arise that increases our interest in unfamiliar conspecifics as well as in innovative, cognitively challenging aesthetic stimuli (art). By contrast, when we feel vulnerable and dependent, a longing for safety and relatedness (nostalgia) attracts us not only to familiar and trustworthy individuals but also to conventional aesthetic stimuli charged with positive emotions (kitsch). This theoretical framework offers an integrative perspective on dynamics of aesthetic liking in that it unites a wide variety of phenomena from anthropology, developmental, and cognitive psychology with concepts and findings from art history, sociology of art, and empirical aesthetics.
随着现代性的到来，变化和新奇已成为艺术创作的核心价值。与此同时，贬义词“媚俗”被创造出来，以与真正具有开创性的艺术成就形成对比。在本文中，我们认为媚俗艺术和先锋派艺术理想地代表了两种互补的审美体验类型：一种流畅的体验，能带来即时的情感满足（媚俗），另一种不流畅的体验，需要认知加工（艺术）。我们提出，对这一种或另一种的偏好与一系列相互冲突的需求动态相关，这些需求构成了人类依恋行为的基本困境：对安全和亲密的需求与对刺激和自主的需求。基于此，我们假设社会距离调节和审美喜好通过自我效能感和自主感的概念同步：每当我们感到安全和自给自足时，对刺激（好奇心）的渴望就可能产生，这会增加我们对陌生同种个体以及对创新的、具有认知挑战性的审美刺激（艺术）的兴趣。相比之下，当我们感到脆弱和依赖时，对安全和亲密关系的渴望（怀旧）不仅会吸引我们去接近熟悉且值得信赖的个体，还会吸引我们去接触充满积极情感的传统审美刺激（媚俗）。这个理论框架为审美喜好的动态变化提供了一个综合视角，因为它将人类学、发展心理学和认知心理学中的各种现象与艺术史、艺术社会学和实证美学的概念及研究结果结合在了一起。
