Beauty as an Emotion: The Exhilarating Prospect of Mastering a Challenging World

@article{Armstrong2008BeautyAA,
  title={Beauty as an Emotion: The Exhilarating Prospect of Mastering a Challenging World},
  author={Thomas Armstrong and Brian Detweiler-Bedell},
  journal={Review of General Psychology},
  year={2008},
  volume={12},
  pages={305 - 329}
}
Beauty has received sparse attention from emotion theorists, some of whom have argued that aesthetic pleasure is cognitive in nature and too “disinterested” to be emotional. This view is supported by research suggesting that aesthetic pleasure is based on processing fluency. The authors review recent findings in the psychology of aesthetics and present two arguments. First, processing fluency explains the mild pleasure associated with simple or familiar objects, but it cannot account for the… Expand
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