The Relationship Between Need for Cognitive Closure and the Appreciation, Understanding, and Viewing Times of Realistic and Nonrealistic Figurative Paintings

Abstract

We assessed the relationship between Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) personalities and appreciation, comprehension, and viewing time for realistic paintings depicting objects/scenes and nonrealistic paintings that ambiguously depict objects/scenes. For both types of paintings, liking was positively correlated with degree of understanding. Realistic paintings were better understood, liked, and evaluated for less time than nonrealistic paintings. High and low NFC participants were equal in their liking and comprehension of realistic paintings. However, low NFC participants understood and liked nonrealistic paintings more than high NFC participants. High NFC participants also exhibited an urgency tendency, indicated by their shorter viewing times for both types of paintings as compared with low NFC. We suggest that high NFC is associated with intolerance of and lower appreciation for ambiguous, nonrealistic paintings. This may be due to unwillingness to spend sufficient viewing time to achieve the level of understanding needed to appreciate ambiguous art.