Faculty Mentor(s)

Dr. Austin Beattie, Communication

Document Type

Poster

Event Date

4-12-2024

Abstract

Whether people should, or can, separate the personal lives of artists and the arts that they create is a continuous debate in contemporary society. Such questions typically arise when topics within an artist's personal life, perhaps mired in controversy, are juxtaposed with that artists' ability to create significant and even masterful works. This study aims to experimentally test the extent to which people might be able to "separate" their perceptions of artists with their perceptions of their art. A between groups experiment featuring a musical artist was conducted which exposed participants to three (3) manipulations of an artist’s background (negative, neutral, positive) and a sample of the artist's work (a clip for all groups). Participants were asked to listen to sixty (60) seconds of a song by the artist and following exposure to the sample art, participants completed a brief survey. An ANOVA determined significant differences between how the three groups (negative, neutral, positive primes) rated the quality of the same creation, suggesting opinions on an artist’s art might vary in part due to pre-existing opinions and primes about the artist. In other words, the data in this project suggest that people struggle to "separate" artists from their art.

Comments

Title on poster differs from abstract booklet. Poster title: Art vs. The Artist: Can They Be Separated?

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Communication Commons

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