Who s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue? Need for Cognitive Closure Predicts Aesthetic Preferences

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1 Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 2011 American Psychological Association 2012, Vol. 6, No. 2, /11/$12.00 DOI: /a Who s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue? Need for Cognitive Closure Predicts Aesthetic Preferences Daphne V. Wiersema, Job van der Schalk, and Gerben A. van Kleef University of Amsterdam We investigated the relationship between need for cognitive closure (NFC), that is, the need for a clear, predictable and unambiguous world, and aesthetic preferences. Study 1, a correlational field study, reveals that individual differences in NFC are related to liking for a play with an open ending, such that individuals high in NFC liked the ending of this play less than their low-nfc counterparts. Study 2 demonstrates that high-nfc individuals prefer figurative paintings to abstract paintings. In Study 3, NFC was experimentally varied by means of a time-pressure manipulation. Participants who judged paintings under time-pressure (high NFC) showed a stronger preference for figurative rather than abstract paintings, compared with participants in the control condition (low NFC). We discuss implications and outline directions for future research. Keywords: need for cognitive closure, aesthetics, preferences Although trends, hypes, prêt-a-porter fashion, and mass production in general suggest that there is considerable agreement in our tastes and preferences, daily experience shows that this is often not the case. Consider the abstract painting Who s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue by the American painter Barnett Newman, a huge (8 18 ft.) canvas consisting of a red field surrounded by blue and yellow lines. After the Amsterdam Museum of Modern Art had proudly purchased the piece, it was demolished by a Dutchman (a painter, no less) who could not stand the minimalism. Where do such wildly differing preferences for artistic expressions come from? This question has inspired artists and scientists alike, and it has spawned a considerable amount of research. Scholars have taken different angles to investigate the sources of aesthetic preferences. Some studies have linked differences in aesthetic preferences to characteristics such as type of education (e.g., scientific vs. art), social class, and education level. For instance, individuals with a scientific education are less likely to go to museums relative to people with an art education (McManus & Furnham, 2006). Other studies have explored the predictive role of personality factors, such as the big five personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 1985, This article was published Online First October 10, Daphne V. Wiersema, Job van der Schalk, and Gerben A. van Kleef, Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Job van der Schalk is now at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom; Daphne V. Wiersema is now at the Department of Applied Psychology, University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We thank the Amsterdam Marionette Theatre for its assistance with the data collection for Study 1. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Job van der Schalk, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, United Kingdom. vanderschalkj@cardiff.ac.uk 1989, 1992). Still other research has adopted a combinatory approach, arguing that the nature of aesthetic experiences depends on a complex interplay among characteristics of the art object, the observer, the observer s focus, and the physical, social, and historical context in which the experience takes place (see Jacobsen, 2006). Although we realize that artistic preferences and experiences are thus determined by multiple factors, we limit our focus in this article to the role of personality. In doing so, we aim to extend previous research by addressing an individual difference variable that has not yet been linked to aesthetic preferences: need for cognitive closure (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). Before turning to this variable, we first provide a brief overview of previous research on personality and aesthetic preferences. Research on the relationship between personality and aesthetic preferences has uncovered several personality traits that are predictive of preferences for particular types of art forms. For instance, openness to experience is associated with liking for representative, abstract and pop-art paintings (Furnham & Walker, 2001, see also Child, 1965), and also with a preference for Japanese art, Renaissance art, and cubism (Chamorro-Premuzic, Reimers, Hsu, & Ahmetoglu, 2009). Furthermore, sensation seekers (Zuckerman, 1979) that is, individuals who habitually seek out novel, complex, and intense experiences and rely on their feelings also like abstract paintings better than representational paintings (Furnham & Bunyan, 1988; Rawlings, Barrantes-Vidal, & Furnham, 2000). They also expressed more liking for surreal paintings, while expressing somewhat less liking for representational paintings (Furnham & Avison, 1997). Furthermore, in a study of the personality of visitors of different museums, Mastandrea, Bartoli, and Bove (2009) found that visitors of a modern art museum scored higher on sensation seeking compared with visitors of an ancient art museum. Visitors of the modern art museum also listed more emotional reasons for visiting the museum (e.g., pleasure of seeing the paintings), while the ancient art museum visitors listed more cognitive reasons (e.g., cultural enrichment). 168

2 WHO S AFRAID OF RED, YELLOW AND BLUE? 169 Here we extend this line of research on personality and aesthetic preferences by exploring whether the appreciation of different types of art depends on individuals epistemic motives, in particular the need for cognitive closure (NFC). NFC (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994) refers to an individual s need or desire for an environment that is clear, defined, structured, and unambiguous as opposed to an environment that lacks these properties. At face value, NFC bears some resemblance to openness to experience. The NFC construct is composed of five subcomponents; preference for order, preference for predictability, decisiveness, discomfort with ambiguity, and closed-mindedness. The latter subcomponent, in particular, shows some overlap with openness to experience. The other components, however, are unique to NFC and do not appear in the conceptualization or operationalization of openness to experience. In addition, NFC differs from openness to experience in a number of other important ways. First, openness to experience is conceptualized as a stable characteristic that does not change as a function of the situation (Costa & McCrae, 1992). NFC, in contrast, is conceptualized both as a trait and as a situational tendency (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). This means that NFC can vary across situations, as we will see below. Second, NFC has a stronger motivational component. As Kruglanski and Webster (1996, p. 268) put it: The openness to experience construct depicts a general psychological syndrome (manifest, e.g., in artistic creativity, susceptibility to hypnosis, rich fantasy lives, and unconventional attitudes) rather than the effects of a specific motivation. The motivational part of the syndrome includes need for change, sensation seeking, and intellectual understanding, which are rather different from need for closure per se. Third, the Openness to Experience Scale directly assesses appreciation of the arts via its aesthetics subscale. In a sense, this renders empirical relationships between openness to experience and artistic preferences somewhat tautological, as both measures share an aesthetic component. The NFC scale does not directly measure aesthetic preferences but focuses mainly on information seeking behavior, information processing, and desire for order and clarity (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). In light of these differences, it is worthwhile to examine the relationship between NFC and artistic preferences. Demonstrating associations between the need for closure and artistic preferences can further illuminate the sources of aesthetic preferences, beyond what we know from previous research on factors such as openness to experience and sensation seeking. In addition to telling us more about which personality traits are relevant in determining aesthetic preferences, studying NFC opens up new opportunities to explore situational influences on aesthetic preferences as well. Besides being a stable personality trait, NFC may vary as a function of the situation. For instance, NFC tends to be reduced when a task is perceived as attractive (Webster, 1993), or when one is held accountable for one s judgments and decisions (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999; Tetlock, 1992). Conversely, NFC tends to increase under conditions of environmental noise (Kruglanski & Webster, 1991), mental fatigue (Webster, Richter, & Kruglanski, 1996), time pressure (Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004), and power (Fiske, 1993; Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni, & Manstead, 2006). In summary, NFC is both a stable trait and something that varies as a function of the situation. The bulk of research on need for closure has focused on various aspects of information processing (e.g., De Dreu, Koole, & Oldersma, 1999; Heaton & Kruglanski, 1991; Klein & Webster, 2000; Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993; Van Kleef et al., 2004; Dijksterhuis, Van Knippenberg, Kruglanski, & Schaper, 1996). In general, it has been found that individuals high in NFC prefer quick answers, which causes them to seize the first occasion that enables them to hit upon an (or any) answer, after which their information processing comes to a halt (see Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). We are not aware of any research that directly investigated NFCs relationship to individual preferences for certain art forms, yet suggestive evidence supports the possibility that variations in NFC are related to aesthetic preferences. Art forms that lack clear and immediate meaning (e.g., absurdist stories, or humor, and nonrepresentational art) can only be understood and appreciated when they are imbued with meaning (e.g., by means of a title or some frame of reference; Landau, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Martens, 2006) and/or when individuals are motivated to create meaning themselves (Prouxl, Heine, & Vohs, 2010). Such meaning-creation can be considered an effortful process that requires a certain level of epistemic motivation. Individuals with a high NFC should be less motivated to expend effort to create meaning themselves, and this should influence their aesthetic preferences and choices. For instance, individuals with high NFC can be expected to spend less time trying to think of ways to make sense of art forms that lack clear and immediate meaning, compared with those with a lower NFC. In short, we hypothesize that individuals high in NFC are less attracted to art forms that do not satisfy their need for clarity, meaning, and quick answers. Specifically, we expect high NFC individuals to show less liking for a play with an open ending (Study 1) compared with low NFC individuals, since the ending of the play does not allow them to gain closure. In Studies 2 and 3 we focus on the visual arts, more specifically paintings. We expect high relative to low NFC individuals to show less liking for abstract paintings compared with figurative paintings (i.e., portraits, still-lives, landscapes) because abstract paintings by definition represent a departure from and abstraction of visual reality. As a result of this, the meaning of abstract paintings cannot be grasped instantly (cf. Landau et al., 2006), and as such abstract paintings do not permit one to attain closure. Before data collection, all three reported studies were presented to the Ethical Committee of the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, and were approved as standard social psychological research. Study 1 In this study we set out to investigate whether need for closure affects people s liking for a play with an open ending. To this end, we administered questionnaires to people who visited the Amsterdam Marionette Theater to see Faust. Although there are various versions of the Faust-story, this particular one has an open ending, which allowed us to test the prediction that individuals with a higher need for closure would like this play less than those with a lower need for closure.

3 170 WIERSEMA, VAN DER SCHALK, AND VAN KLEEF Method Participants. In total, 40 participants took part in this study. By taking part in the study, they could win a voucher of 25 Euros. Participants were approached on three different occasions when Faust was performed in the Amsterdam Marionette Theater. Procedure. Before the play started, visitors were approached by the researchers and invited to participate in a study investigating people s appreciation of cultural events. Visitors that indicated interest were handed an envelope that contained a booklet with a questionnaire and were asked to fill this in at a later time after they had seen the performance. The questionnaire could be returned in the same envelope, which was already addressed and stamped. Addresses for the prize draw were collected separately from the other data to assure anonymity of responses of participants. Materials. The booklet contained the researchers contact information, a privacy statement, a short introduction to the study, and the questionnaire. The short introduction to the study said that the researchers were interested in people s liking for different kinds of cultural events. First, the 42 items measuring need for closure (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994) were presented on a scale ranging from 1 (does not apply to me at all) to5(totally applies to me). An example of an item is: I do not usually consult many different opinions before forming my own view. Subsequently, participants filled in the items assessing their evaluation of the play. We checked if participants perceived the ending of the play as being open-ended or not on a scale ranging from 1 (closed) to 5(open). We then asked them to evaluate the play as a whole on a scale ranging from 1 (extremely negative) to5(extremely positive), and to what extent they liked the ending of the play on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to5(very much). Finally, they were thanked for their participation, could fill in their contact information if they wanted to enter the prize draw, and could indicate if they would like to have more information about the study. Results Response rate. In total, 50 booklets were handed out, and 40 were returned to us (80%). The definite sample consisted of 14 men and 26 women. Their mean age was year (SD 13.82) ranging from 15 to 71. Besides 20% of the total sample not returning the questionnaire, people sometimes overlooked items in the booklet, leading to a few missing values (less than 1% of all data). Analyses. The reliability of the NFC scale was good (.76). The mean NFC score was 3.04 (SD.33). In general our sample perceived the ending of the play as being open-ended as opposed to closed-ended (M 4.26, SD.99). Furthermore, participants perception of the play as being open-ended did not depend on their NFC-score (r.13, ns). Next, we checked the correlations between NFC and the evaluation of the play as a whole and the evaluation of the ending of the play. NFC did not correlate with the evaluation of the play as a whole (r.08, ns), but did correlate with the evaluation of the ending of the play, r.37, p.02. This correlation shows that participants with high NFC liked the open ending of the play less compared with those with low NFC. A post hoc power analysis indicated that the study had reasonable statistical power to find this effect, (1 ).77. Discussion This first study supports our hypothesis that need for cognitive closure is related to aesthetic preferences. More specifically, the results suggest that NFC is related to the appreciation people have for an open-ended play. Interestingly, although participants high in NFC reported less liking for the ending of the play, this did not generalize to the play as a whole. This is in line with the idea that individuals high in need for closure prefer art that allows them to attain closure something that is more applicable at the end of a play than at the beginning or middle part. A limitation of this study was that our sample consisted of people who were already interested in going to the theater. Previous research has shown that there are individual differences between people that predict the amount of cultural activities they prefer to engage in (McManus & Furnham, 2006). Hence, our sample might be biased to include relatively many art-loving individuals. If anything, this would make our hypothesis test more conservative, as there might be less variance in responses compared with a more general sample. Another limitation of the study is that we have no comparison group that watched a play without an open end. Hence we have no baseline with which to compare the evaluations of high versus low NFC individuals. We aimed to remedy these limitations in the second study, in which we also sought to extend these findings to other domains of art (i.e., paintings). Study 2 NFC refers to a preference for a clearly defined environment compared with an ambiguous surrounding. In the art of modern painting, two distinct categories can be distinguished that seem to map on these contrasting dimensions: abstract and figurative art. In general, abstract painting avoids a clear correspondence between reality and what is portrayed, while figurative art depicts matters that are easily recognizable to the observer. In Study 2, we therefore investigated the relation between NFC and people s liking for abstract versus figurative paintings. We opted for an experimental study in a laboratory setting to rule out the possibility of a biased sample. Furthermore, this experimental set-up allowed for a within-person comparison between two different types of art (abstract vs. figurative), which was not possible in the previous study. Method Participants. In total, 59 undergraduate psychology students (16 male; 43 female) took part in this study in exchange for course credit. Their mean age was 20.1 year (SD 2.17). Materials and procedure. Up to eight participants were tested simultaneously. Participants were seated in separate cubicles and worked independently on a personal computer. The computer program guided them through the study and gave all instructions. First of all, the Need for Closure Scale was administered (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). The items were presented in a random order on scales ranging from 1 (does not apply to me at all) to5(totally applies to me). Subsequently, participants were asked to rate 40 paintings in terms of perceived abstractness and liking. Pictures of these paintings were found via the search engine Google with the keywords

4 WHO S AFRAID OF RED, YELLOW AND BLUE? 171 abstract art and figurative art and on Web sites of museums such as the Guggenheim Museum, Musée D Orsay, and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Paintings with varying degrees of abstractness were selected as stimulus material. Selection was done after visual inspection of the paintings according to the definition of abstract art as a departure of reality in depiction of imagery in art and figurative art as any form of modern art that retains strong references to the real world (Wikipedia, 2010). An example of a more abstract painting is Shimmering substance (1946) by Jackson Pollock ( ), Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York. An example of a more figurative painting is Raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Planers; 1875) by Gustave Caillebotte ( ), Musée D Orsay, Paris. For each painting, participants rated the perceived abstractness and the personal evaluation of the painting. Perceived abstractness was measured as the extent to which participants thought the painting was a clear depiction of reality. Personal evaluation was measured as liking of the painting. Both measures were taken on a Visual Analogue Scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 100 (very much). After participants had rated all paintings, they were thanked and debriefed. Results First, we calculated participants NFC score (see Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). The reliability of the scale was good (.81). The mean NFC score was 2.97 (SD.36). Next, we calculated the mean abstractness scores for the paintings. The highest 20% (M 19.75, SD 10.89; from this point onward called abstract paintings ) and lowest 20% (M 87.46, SD 13.22; from this point onward called figurative paintings ) in terms of perceived abstractness (reverse scored) were selected for further analyses. The selected abstract and figurative paintings differed significantly in terms of average perceived abstractness within participants, t(58) 29.63, p.001. The mean evaluation of the subset of abstract paintings was (SD 18.86) and that for the figurative paintings was (SD 15.27). These means did not differ significantly within participants (t 1, ns). Conform expectations, there was a negative correlation between NFC and liking for the abstract paintings, r.24, p.03 (one-tailed). For figurative paintings, there was a significant positive correlation, r.22, p.048 (one-tailed). The difference between these correlations was significant, z 2.48, p.001 (one-tailed) (Preacher, 2002). A post hoc power analysis revealed that the study had appropriate statistical power to find this effect, (1 ).80. Another way of analyzing these data is by investigating the correlation between perceived abstractness and evaluation, averaged across participants for each of the 40 paintings. When we distinguished between the ratings of participants low and high in NFC by means of a median split (Mdn 3.01, n low 29, n high 30), there was no correlation between perceived abstractness and evaluation for participants low in NFC, r.03, ns, while there was a negative medium correlation between perceived abstractness and evaluation for participants high in NFC, r.40, p.005 (one-tailed). We also analyzed the time participants took to judge the paintings. There was a significant negative correlation between NFC and time to judge the abstract paintings, r.24, p.037 (one-tailed). This indicates that individuals high in NFC spent less time looking at the abstract paintings than individuals low in NFC. There was no correlation between NFC and time taken to judge the figurative paintings, r.04, p.37. Taken together, these results suggest that participants high in NFC have less liking for abstract paintings and more liking for figurative paintings. For participants low in NFC liking of the paintings does not seem to be influenced by abstractness of the art. Discussion The results of Study 2 revealed a relationship between an individuals chronic need for closure and aesthetic judgments of abstract and figurative paintings, with high NFC individuals exhibiting a preference for figurative rather than abstract paintings. Furthermore, individuals with high NFC spent less time looking at abstract paintings than their low NFC counterparts. This finding corroborates our reasoning that individuals with high NFC are less motivated to exert effort to understand abstract art. While this study could address some of the limitations of Study 1 (i.e., an exclusive sample, no comparison condition), it does not allow for a firm causal conclusion. Even though aesthetic preferences could not have influenced chronic need for cognitive closure, it is possible that need for closure is correlated with some other personality variable that is responsible for our effect. To rule out this possibility, we aimed to replicate our finding in an experimental design. Thus, in Study 3 we experimentally induced a heightened need for closure in half of the participants by having them judge paintings under time pressure (see, e.g., De Grada, Kruglanski, Mannetti, & Pierro, 1999; Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Van Kleef et al., 2004), whereas participants in the control condition judged the paintings without time pressure. We expected that those participants who judged the paintings under time pressure would show a heightened preference for figurative paintings and a lower preference for abstract paintings, compared with participants in the control condition. Study 3 Method Participants. In total, 58 (20 male, 38 female) undergraduate psychology students from the University of Amsterdam participated for course credit. Their mean age was (SD 2.43). The design was a 2 (condition, between) 2 (type of painting, within) mixed factorial. Materials and procedure. Upon arrival in the lab, participants were seated behind a personal computer in separate cubicles. Up to seven participants were tested within each session. Participants were introduced to a study on personal taste and were asked to judge a series of paintings. Ratings were made on 100-point VAS-scales ranging from 1 (not at all attractive) to 100 (very attractive). Depending on condition, participants made these judgments under time-pressure or not. Prior research has shown that time-pressure induces a high need for closure (e.g., De Grada et al., 1999; Kruglanski, & Freund, 1983; Van Kleef et al., 2004). First, participants engaged in a series of three practice trials. After that, the actual test began. Participants who were asked to judge the paintings under time-pressure were given 3 s per painting. A clock was visible on the screen as a reminder. If participants

5 172 WIERSEMA, VAN DER SCHALK, AND VAN KLEEF did not judge the painting within the time-frame of 3 s, the program automatically presented a new to-be-judged painting. These trials were saved as missing values. There was a 1-s interval between trials. Participants judged a total of 18 paintings, half of which were abstract and half were figurative. 1 The paintings were presented in a random order. After participants had rated the paintings, they were administered the Need For Closure Scale (Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). Like in Study 2, the items were presented in a random order on a scale ranging from 1 (does not apply to me at all) to5(totally applies to me). Finally, participants were thanked and debriefed. Results Evaluation Control Time-pressure Abstract Figurative Figure 1. Mean evaluation of abstract and figurative paintings as a function of time-pressure. Descriptive analyses. The mean ratings for the abstract paintings and for the figurative paintings formed the two dependent variables in this study. Reliabilities of these scales were satisfactory (abstract:.80; figurative:.81). Only a very small subset of the data was not judged within the 3-sd time frame (less than 1%). In general, participants rated abstract paintings as somewhat less attractive (M 40.96, SD 16.24) than figurative paintings (M 50.43, SD 15.66), t(57) 3.14, p.01. Reliability of the NFC scale was good (.87). The mean NFC score was 3.06 (SD.42). NFC did not differ between time pressure conditions, t 1, ns. Hypotheses testing. We performed a mixed-method ANOVA with time-pressure as between-subjects variable and the mean ratings for abstract and figurative paintings as repeated measures. We entered the scores on the Need for Closure Scale as a continuous moderator in the design, to test whether the effect of the manipulation would be different for people high and low in dispositional NFC. The results are depicted in Figure 1. First, there was a significant main effect of time pressure, F(1, 54) 5.11, p.028, Participants in the time pressure condition gave higher ratings to the paintings (M 48.91, SE 2.01) than participants in the control condition (M 42.49, SE 2.01). Second, there was a significant main effect of type of painting, F(1, 54) 10.79, p.002, Overall the figurative paintings received higher ratings (M 50.43, SD 15.66) than the abstract paintings (M 40.96, SD 16.24). The expected interaction between time pressure and type of paintings did not reach standard levels of statistical significance, F(1, 54) 1.89, p.18, However, follow-up simple effects analyses revealed that the difference between liking of abstract versus figurative paintings was only significant in the timepressure condition, F(1, 56) 9.80, p.003. Participants whose need for closure was temporarily heightened by means of a timepressure manipulation showed increased liking for figurative (M 55.57, SD 14.11) compared with abstract paintings (M 42.29, SD 15.58), while participants in the control condition liked both types of paintings equally well (for figurative paintings: M 45.29, SD 15.66; for abstract paintings: M 39.64, SD 17.06; F(1, 56) 1.77, p.19). There also was a significant interaction between dispositional NFC and type of painting, F(1, 54) 5.31, p.03, Simple effects analyses showed a similar pattern of results for trait NFC as for the time pressure manipulation. For participants high in dispositional NFC there was a significant effect of type of painting on liking (for figurative paintings: M 52.83, SE 2.85; for abstract paintings: M 36.30, SE 3.03; F(1, 54) 15.55, p.001. For participants low in NFC, however, there was no significant effect of type of painting (for figurative paintings: M 48.06, SE 2.87; for abstract paintings: M 45.62, SE 3.05; F 1, ns). There was no main effect of NFC on liking of the paintings, nor were any of the other higher-order interactions with NFC significant. These results indicate that trait NFC and time pressure had independent effects on liking of the paintings. Discussion This pattern of results confirms our hypothesis that a high need for closure increases relative liking for figurative paintings compared with abstract paintings. The pattern of results of the dispositional measure of NFC was similar to the results of the contextual manipulation of NFC: Individuals high in dispositional NFC showed differential liking for figurative and abstract paintings compared with individuals low in dispositional NFC. Notably, the effects for time pressure and trait NFC were independent, which indicates that the contextual factors that temporarily raise appreciation for figurative art are not a byproduct of dispositional levels of NFC. It is interesting that the pattern of results for the time pressure manipulation was weaker than the pattern of results for dispositional NFC. Indeed, a post hoc power analysis revealed that the study had insufficient statistical power to find effects of the contextual manipulation of need for closure (1 ).42. However, the pattern of results of the follow-up simple effects analyses does indicate that contextual factors that influence need for closure can influence appreciation for art. General Discussion Why is one person a big fan of Who s Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue, while another person abhors it? And why can some people fully appreciate a book or film with an open ending while others cannot? The present research identified need for closure as 1 The paintings were selected based on a pilot study in which 50 participants rated a series of 40 paintings (the same 40 paintings as used in Study 2) in terms of perceived abstractness (reverse scored). The nine lowest-rated paintings (M 20.88, SD 11.84; abstract paintings) and the nine highest-rated paintings (M 86.48, SD 13.96; figurative paintings) differed significantly in terms of perceived abstractness, t(49) 24.87, p.001, and were selected for Study 3.

6 WHO S AFRAID OF RED, YELLOW AND BLUE? 173 a predictor of aesthetic preferences. In our research, the need for a clear-cut world that characterizes individuals high in NFC was related to less liking for a play with an open ending (Study 1). Furthermore, the vague and unrealistic reality of abstract paintings was not endorsed by people high in need for closure. They preferred the clear-cut world of figurative artworks (Study 2). The same was true for participants who judged figurative and abstract paintings under time-pressure (Study 3). All in all, the results of these three studies show that there is a link between need for closure and aesthetic preferences. Most interesting, these findings are not confined to people s chronic levels of need for closure but also depend on circumstances. People fluctuate in their need for closure, and these fluctuations shape momentary preferences for certain types of art. It would be interesting to further investigate how perceptions of art differ between individuals high and low in NFC. Study 1 revealed that individuals high in NFC have less liking for the open ending of a play. Future research could investigate whether individuals low versus high in NFC differ in the type of endings that they would prefer to a play that is not yet complete. Furthermore, Study 2 revealed that high NFC individuals spent less time looking at abstract paintings compared with low NFC individuals. This might mean that low NFC individuals take more time in trying to understand the meaning of abstract paintings. One way to further investigate this premise would be to ask low and high NFC individuals to give (meaningful) titles to the paintings and record the time they take. Each of the studies reported here had its own strengths and weaknesses. Strong points of Study 1 are that this study involved respondents from a general population and that evaluations were obtained in a naturalistic context (i.e., the theater where the play had been performed). This advantage came at the expense of reduced experimental control and the lack of a direct comparison condition. This disadvantage was remedied in Study 2, where participants provided ratings of both figurative and abstract paintings, so that the two could be compared and shown to differ as a function of need for closure. Finally, Study 3 lends additional credence to the internal validity of our findings, as we replicated our finding with an experimental manipulation of need for closure, thus ruling out alternative explanations in terms of third variables. Altogether, the studies thus provide consistent support for our hypothesis that need for closure increases individuals preference for art expressions with a clear end and/or meaning. 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