We appreciate beautiful things not for their practical purposes, but for what they are in themselves.

We tend to prefer stimuli that are neither too easy nor too difficult.

Aesthetic experiences can contribute to mood regulation.

The psychology of aesthetics is the study of how a viewer interacts with artworks. It is naturally more focused on the response of the perceiver, and less on the object causing the response, such as a piece of art. The psychology of aesthetics explains why something is liked or disliked, and what concepts people associate with aesthetics (Tinio & Smith, 2014).

Aesthetic experiences can arise from the appreciation of artworks, such as music, poetry, sculpture, visual arts, nature, and the built environment. The perception and interaction with art can evoke a strong feeling, usually a sense of pleasure.

In the presence of beautiful things, we feel a broad range of emotions, such as fascination, awe, wonder, admiration, chills, goosebumps, and crying. When astronauts see Earth in its entirety from space, they report feelings of awe and self-transcendence. Aesthetic emotions motivate prolonged and repeated experiences (you never get tired of watching a beautiful sunset). We also desire to possess aesthetically pleasing objects.

A distinctive feature of aesthetic experience is that it is not goal-directed but focused more upon the activity itself. Most of the objects of........

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