Peripheral Factors Affecting the Evaluation of Artworks

The goal of the research was to determine whether artworks said to be created by famous artists were appreciated more than the same artworks attributed to nonfamous artists. Analysis indicated that the works attributed to famous artists were more appreciated than the identical works attributed to nonfamous artists: The works were liked more and judged more interesting and beautiful (all p values <.001). Participants (N = 309), all art nonexperts, also were willing to pay more to see the works if described as created by famous artists (p <.001); importantly, however, no differences were found in ratings of the works’ comprehensibility. This pattern of results suggests that judgmental variations were attributable to participants’ peripheral processing of factors not intrinsic to the work itself. Dual process models of attitudes, popular in social psychology, were invoked to provide a framework for understanding the findings.