People differ: Individual differences in aesthetics

4P Room, Psychology Building 2, via Venezia 8, Padova

25.10.2019

Perhaps the most quoted maxim about aesthetics is the Latin phrase, De gustibus non est disputandum. The implication is that tastes differ so much between people that there is no point in arguing about them. For experimental aesthetics, however, the impression is sometimes that the precise opposite applies. Just as with many other areas of psychology the emphasis in aesthetics is often primarily on the commonalities, the similarities, across people, on what statistically are main effects, rather than exploring the differences between people that are found statistically in variances. This talk will consider approaches to answering the difficult question for aesthetics, of why people differ in their tastes.