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There Are No Aesthetic Emotions: Comment on Menninghaus Et Al

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There Are No Aesthetic Emotions: Comment on Menninghaus Et Al Psychological Review © 2020 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 127, No. 4, 640–649 ISSN: 0033-295X http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rev0000187 COMMENTARY There Are No Aesthetic Emotions: Comment on Menninghaus et al. (2019) Martin Skov Marcos Nadal Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark, University of the Balearic Islands and Copenhagen Business School Menninghaus and colleagues (2019) have recently argued that aesthetic emotions constitute a distinct class of emotions. They claim that aesthetic emotions are distinct because they involve an aesthetic evaluation, they are tuned to specific aesthetic virtues, they involve subjectively felt pleasure or displeasure, and predict liking or disliking. Here we examine the theory in the light of psychological and neurobiological empirical findings. We show that Menninghaus and colleagues failed to provide evidence that aesthetic emotions are different than other kinds of emotions in terms of psychological components or neurobiological underpinnings. We present empirical evidence that strongly suggests that affective states observed during aesthetic appreciation events are not distinctly different from affective states observed during other forms of sensory valuation. We conclude that it may be time to retire the idea that aesthetic emotions constitute a special class of human emotions. Keywords: aesthetic emotion, aesthetics, emotion, liking, pleasure Aesthetic emotions have puzzled psychologists for over a cen- The very concept of aesthetic emotions entails that they can be tury (Bain, 1883; Dewey, 1893; James, 1890; Külpe, 1895; Ribot, distinguished from nonaesthetic emotions. To accept the concept 1897; Sully, 1892). It seemed obvious to early psychologists that of aesthetic emotions is to accept that the adjective aesthetic aesthetic emotions were part of the human emotional repertoire. denotes a meaningful class of emotions that are defined by distinct But the task of identifying what defines them was far from properties. But what exactly does aesthetic mean? In what way straightforward: Is it that they are elicited by fine art (Bain, 1883) does the adjective aesthetic modify the noun emotion? What or beauty (Sully, 1892)? Is it that they lack the physiological quality does aesthetic confer to emotion? Psychologists and neu- changes that accompany other emotions (James, 1890)? Is it that roscientists have taken the following three positions in answer to they lack clear social or adaptive functions (Ribot, 1897; Sully, these questions. 1892)? Decades of subsequent theoretical and empirical work have returned no consensus on what aesthetic emotions are, nor on what makes them distinctive. There is even no general agreement that Position 1: There Are No Distinct Aesthetic Emotions they exist in the first place. Nonetheless, the notion of aesthetic The human brain includes emotion systems that evolved be- emotions is clearly alluring because, despite the disagreement and cause they favored survival: they promoted behaviors that contrib- uncertainty, it continues to hold sway (e.g., Carbon, 2018; Leder, uted to homeostatic regulation, to locating mates and resources, Markey, & Pelowski, 2015; Makin, 2017; Oatley, 2003; Pelowski and to avoiding danger and harm. These same systems, in Homo & Akiba, 2011; Pelowski, Forster, Tinio, Scholl, & Leder, 2017; sapiens, also regulate complex behaviors that are not directly tied This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its alliedPelowski, publishers. Markey, Forster, Gerger, & Leder, 2017; Schindler et to survival, as well as our experience of nature and cultural objects. This article is intended solely for the personal use ofal., the individual user and is 2017 not to be disseminated broadly. ; Silvia, 2005b). Emotions in response to landscapes, art, design, or interior archi- What makes aesthetic emotions—if they indeed exist—difficult tecture, are the result of neurochemical processes that evolved to pin down is their unsettled relation to other classes of emotions. serving other, nonaesthetic, biologically adaptive functions. Re- searchers who subscribe to this position are interested in such questions as: How it is possible for music to induce states of X Martin Skov, Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Co- sadness even though music pieces have no social consequences in penhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Hvidovre, Denmark, and Decision and of themselves (Brattico et al., 2016; Eerola, Vuoskoski, Pel- Neuroscience Research Cluster, Copenhagen Business School; Marcos tola, Putkinen, & Schäfer, 2018; Sachs, Damasio, & Habibi, Nadal, Human Evolution and Cognition Group, University of the Balearic 2015)? How does the human brain use neurobiological processes Islands. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Martin associated with adaptive hedonic valuation to determine the aes- Skov, Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Copenhagen Uni- thetic value of objects with little discernible biological relevance, versity Hospital Hvidovre, Section 714, Kettegaards Alle 30, DK-2650 such as symmetrical facades, abstract paintings, iPhones, or pop Hvidovre, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected] songs (Skov, 2019b)? 640 THERE ARE NO AESTHETIC EMOTIONS 641 Position 2: Aesthetic Emotions Are Everyday are they related to the human brain’s other emotional Emotions in a Different Presentation systems? Researchers who endorse this position, like those endorsing Advocates of Position 3 have rarely addressed these questions. Position 1, believe that human emotions evolved because they Rather, they usually simply assume that such a distinct class of promoted biological functions. But they also believe that certain emotions exists. This is why Menninghaus and colleagues’ (2019) experiential contexts, which they refer to as “aesthetic,” modulate thorough account of aesthetic emotions as a distinct class is such some aspects of those emotions. Specifically, aesthetic emotions a welcome contribution. In contrast to other existing theories of are seen as general emotions that have lost their motivational or aesthetic emotions (e.g., Konecˇni, 2005; Perlovsky, 2014; Silvia, behavioral relevance because they occur in the safety of an aes- 2005a), Menninghaus and colleagues try to define what makes an thetic context. For instance, these researchers suggest that, when in emotion aesthetic, outlining their constitutive components in con- response to art, negative emotions such as sadness or fear are crete terms, and providing an explanation for how they come about attenuated or even can be accompanied by feelings of pleasure and how they relate to other classes of emotion. Menninghaus and (Andrade & Cohen, 2007; Eerola et al., 2018; Mocaiber et al., colleagues’ proposal, therefore, allows for a systematic assessment 2010; Van Dongen, Van Strien, & Dijkstra, 2016). From this of the case for aesthetic emotions as a special category and of how perspective, aesthetic pleasure is different from the pleasure of well it fits with empirical findings in current psychology and primary reinforcers, such as food or sex (Christensen, 2017), neuroscience. because it involves the hedonic component of emotions (liking), In the following text, we examine this case by assessing to what but not their motivational component (wanting; Chatterjee, 2013, degree Menninghaus et al. (2019) succeeded in answering the 2014; Chatterjee & Vartanian, 2016. But see Nadal & Skov, 2018; preceding two questions. Our conclusion is that they did not Skov & Nadal, 2018). succeed and that their theory fails to make a convincing case for the existence of a special class of aesthetic emotions. We show Position 3: Aesthetic Emotions Are a Distinct Class how current empirical evidence strongly favors a view of aesthetic of Emotions emotions that aligns better with either Position 1 or Position 2. We also find that there is little reason to believe that the conceptual This position advocates that aesthetic emotions are different structure of Menninghaus and colleagues’ definition will find from other nonaesthetic emotions in fundamental aspects, either by support in future experimental findings. being special in nature or by having special functional properties. For example, some researchers have argued that aesthetic emotions refer to distinct emotional states, such as beauty, awe, the sublime, Menninghaus and Colleagues’ (2019) Conception of being moved, or elevated (Carbon, 2018, 2019; Makin, 2017; Aesthetic Emotions Pelowski, 2015; Schindler et al., 2017; Vessel, Starr, & Rubin, Menninghaus and colleagues (2019) conceived of aesthetic 2012). Such distinct aesthetic emotions are thought to arise when emotions as “a special class of discrete emotions” (p. 172)—that is, humans experience art or when we engage in aesthetic apprecia- emotions that differ in important ways from nonaesthetic emo- tion of objects. These aesthetic emotions are portrayed as intense, tions. What makes aesthetic emotions distinctive, according to leading in certain circumstances to states of rapture or insight Menninghaus et al., is the fundamental role they play in aesthetic (Carbon, 2019; Makin, 2017; Pelowski & Akiba, 2011). They are appreciation events: “They are appreciative of specific aesthetic also often considered to be rare: Pelowski and colleagues’ (2019) virtues, such as the power of an artwork to move, fascinate, and survey revealed that about 40% of people have never experienced surprise us, and predictive of overall liking”
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