Personality correlates of esthetic judgment in college students.

Many hypotheses about esthetics, whether stated in philosophical or psychological terms, would suggest that esthetic judgment should be related to other personality characteristics. Observational test of these hypotheses should make an important contribution to scientific study of esthetic value. It is hard to imagine a plausible explanation of variation in esthetic judgment which would not lead one to expect that esthetic judgment would be positively correlated with amount of backs ground in art. The principal reason for measuring background in art, therefore, is to permit statistical control of it. Esthetic judgment is very substantially correlated with amount of formal education in art and with amount of experience look at art in galleries, books, and magazines. It is significantly correlated, but not very highly, with pursuit of art-related hobbies such as sketching, sculpturing, or photography with some art-related interest, and with family attitude toward art. The multiple correlation of esthetic judgment with all four background variables together is +59.