The Distancing-Embracing Model of the Enjoyment of Negative Emotions in Art Reception
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BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2017), Page 1 of 63 doi:10.1017/S0140525X17000309, e347 The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception Winfried Menninghaus1 Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Valentin Wagner Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Julian Hanich Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Groningen, 9700 AB Groningen, The Netherlands [email protected] Eugen Wassiliwizky Department of Language and Literature, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, 60322 Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Thomas Jacobsen Experimental Psychology Unit, Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, 22043 Hamburg, Germany [email protected] Stefan Koelsch University of Bergen, 5020 Bergen, Norway [email protected] Abstract: Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability, and hence is precisely what artworks strive for. Two groups of processing mechanisms are identified that conjointly adopt the particular powers of negative emotions for art’s purposes. The first group consists of psychological distancing mechanisms that are activated along with the cognitive schemata of art, representation, and fiction. These schemata imply personal safety and control over continuing or discontinuing exposure to artworks, thereby preventing negative emotions from becoming outright incompatible with expectations of enjoyment. This distancing sets the stage for a second group of processing components that allow art recipients to positively embrace the experiencing of negative emotions, thereby rendering art reception more intense, more interesting, more emotionally moving, more profound, and occasionally even more beautiful. These components include compositional interplays of positive and negative emotions, the effects of aesthetic virtues of using the media of (re)presentation (musical sound, words/language, color, shapes) on emotion perception, and meaning-making efforts. Moreover, our Distancing- Embracing model proposes that concomitant mixed emotions often help integrate negative emotions into altogether pleasurable trajectories. Keywords: aesthetic enjoyment; aesthetic virtues; art schema; genre effects; interplays of positive and negative emotions; meaning making; mixed emotions © Cambridge University Press 2017 0140-525X/17 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 174.141.207.217, on 16 Dec 2017 at 17:39:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at 1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17001728 Menninghaus et al.: The Distancing-Embracing model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception WINFRIED MENNINGHAUS is the Director of the JULIAN HANICH is an Associate Professor of Film Studies Department of Language and Literature at the Max at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (Frankfurt first monograph entitled Cinematic Emotion in Horror am Main). He previously held professorships at Freie Films and Thrillers: The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Universität Berlin, University of Jerusalem, University Fear was published by Routledge in 2010. His second of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton Uni- monograph The Audience Effect: On the Collective versity, and Rice University. His fields of research are Cinema Experience was published by Edinburgh Univer- rhetoric and poetics, philosophical and empirical aes- sity Press in 2017. His articles have appeared in the jour- thetics, and literature from 1750 to the present. Publica- nals Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, tions include scientific articles on poetic and rhetorical Screen, Cinema Journal, Projections, NECSUS, Studia language and its cognitive, emotional, and aesthetic Phaenomenologica, Movie, Film-Philosophy, Jump Cut, effects, and monographs on the aesthetics of disgust and New Review of Film and Television Studies. and on Immanuel Kant, Ludwig Tieck, and Friedrich Hölderlin. He is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg STEFAN KOELSCH is a Professor at the Institute for Bio- Academy of Sciences and has received the "Premio logical and Medical Psychology at the University of Internazionale di Estetica" (2012) of the Società Italiana Bergen (Norway). He holds master’s degrees in di Estetica. Music, Psychology, and Sociology, and earned his Ph.D. and wrote his Habilitation thesis at the Max VALENTIN WAGNER is a Senior Research Fellow at the Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience (Leipzig), Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frank- where he also led the Independent Junior Research furt, Germany. After completing his M.A. in Philosophy, Group “Neurocognition of Music” after being a post- he enrolled in a Doctoral Program in Psychology and doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School (Boston, wrote a Ph.D. thesis on lexical access in sentence pro- MA). His research foci include the neurocognition of duction at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Since music, neural correlates of emotion, music therapy, sim- his postdoctoral tenure at the Cluster of Excellence ilarities and differences between music and language “Languages of Emotion” (Freie Universität Berlin), his processing, neural correlates of cognition and action, primary research interests have been aesthetics and emotional personality, and the unconscious mind. emotions, specifically, the aesthetics of language and speech, the processes of language production and com- prehension, mixed emotions, and the interplay of aes- thetics and emotions. 1. Introduction EUGEN WASSILIWIZKY has studied Psychology with the Enjoyment associated with negative emotions in art reception main emphasis on Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as has been a central issue in poetics and aesthetics ever since Classics and Musicology, at Philipps University in Aristotle’s theory of tragedy (1961). Many plays, operas, Marburg, McGill University in Montreal, and the Max fi Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sci- poems, and lms elicit feelings of sadness and melancholy, ences in Leipzig. His main research topics are aesthetic and horror movies are a very popular genre. Even the emotions – especially those experienced in response to emotion of disgust plays an important role in contemporary poetry and films, with a particular focus on neural and art and entertainment, from photography and installation art physiological correlates of such emotional processes. to teenage comedies. As these examples indicate, our model Wassiliwizky has worked at the Neuropragmatics and of art reception is not limited to the highbrow arts, but Emotion Lab (McGill University) and the Cluster of “ ” applies to a broad range of media products, as well. Through- Excellence Languages of Emotion (Freie Universität out this article, we use the term art in this broader sense. Berlin), and is currently a member of the research Exposure to artworks is widely believed to be driven by staff at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthet- ics in Frankfurt. hedonic expectations and actual hedonic reward (Arnold 1960;Berenbaum2002;Dubé&LeBel2003; Knobloch- THOMAS JACOBSEN is a Professor of Experimental and Westerwick & Keplinger 2006; Zillmann 1988). Moreover, Biological Psychology at Helmut Schmidt University/ only positive emotions or, put more generally, only positive University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, affect (for the distinction between emotion and affect, see Hamburg, Germany, is the author of publications in Russell [2003] and Scherer [2005]) is known to support (neurocognitive) psychology, including auditory pro- hedonic, or friendly, approach behavior, whereas negative cessing, language, empirical aesthetics, and executive affect primes avoidance, defensive action responses, or hostile function. He was a Visiting Scholar in Cognitive Neuro- approach behavior (Norris et al. 2010). Self-sought hedonic science at the University of California, San Diego, fellow exposure to negative emotions in art reception has therefore of two McDonnell Summer Institutes in Cognitive Neu- “ ” roscience, and a Visiting Professor at the University of come to be called a paradox (Hume 1757). This introduction Vienna and the Freie Universität Berlin, and received outlines the model we have developed to solve this paradox (see the Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Award of the Inter- Fig. 1). Previously proposed solutions are reviewed in detail national Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA) in throughout the pertinent sections of this article as we spell 2008. out the individual components of our model. In a nutshell, what distinguishes the model presented here from earlier efforts can be highlighted through three points: Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core2 BEHAVIORAL AND.BRAIN IP address: SCIENCES,