Ego defense and aesthetic distortion: experimenter effects.

The article discusses ego defense and aesthetic distortion. The "arousal-control" hypothesis of aesthetic representation states that the greater the arousal value of an object, the greater the degree of disguise required before a representation of the object can be called aesthetic. Four studies were conducted to find the personality correlates of subjects who by their behavior support the hypothesis. A strong experimenter effect was discovered in two male-run studies, supporters of the hypothesis were sensitizers, while in the two female-run studies, supporters were repressors. Evidence suggests that the differences may be attributed to the degree of homosexual anxiety evoked in the subjects. A product-moment correlation is then calculated for each subject across the ten stimuli, between the arousal values and the degrees of distortion found most aesthetic, this correlation is positive when the subject chooses greater distortions for the more arousing stimuli.