New study sheds light on the mysterious psychological appeal of sad art

A new study published in the journal Cognitive Science helps explain why people often find themselves drawn to sad art forms like movies, music, and literature. Researchers discovered that when expressions of sadness are presented as art, people tend to appreciate them more, not because they believe the sadness is fictional, but because they connect with it on a personal level, seeing it as a reflection of their own emotions. This feeling of personal connection, or “appropriation,” appears to be a key reason why we find enjoyment in art that expresses sadness.

For many, experiencing sadness is something to be avoided in everyday life. When confronted with someone else’s unhappiness in a real-world situation, our typical reaction is often discomfort or a desire to alleviate the negativity. Yet, paradoxically, many people actively seek out and enjoy art that is explicitly sad. We listen to melancholic songs, watch tragic films, and read novels filled with sorrow, often finding these experiences deeply moving and even pleasurable.

This raises a fundamental question: why do we willingly engage with sadness in art when we generally avoid it elsewhere? Researchers have long been puzzled by this phenomenon, exploring various explanations from the cathartic release of emotions to the comfort of feeling understood. The new study aimed to examine specifically how framing something as “art” influences our appreciation of sadness expressed within it, and to test competing ideas about why this might be the case.

“I am also an opera singer. I’ve always been curious about why people are so drawn to sad music and, more generally, sad paintings, movies, etc.,” said study author Tara Venkatesan, a Honorary Research Fellow at the University of London, who conducted the research while a PhD student at Oxford University.

The researchers designed a series of experiments focused on how people react to sad texts presented in different contexts. Across four studies, they recruited nearly 2,000 participants online via Prolific Academic.

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In the first study, participants were asked to read short pieces of writing that expressed sadness. Crucially, for each piece of writing, some participants were told they were reading a work of art, such as a monologue from a play, song lyrics, a short story, or a movie script. Other participants, reading the exact same text, were told it was something not considered art, like a diary entry, a tweet, a blog post, or everyday conversation.

For example, everyone might read the same passage of text expressing feelings of loneliness and despair, but some would be told it was from a play monologue, while others were told it was from a personal diary entry. After reading the text, participants were asked to rate how much they liked it, how much they enjoyed it, and how pleasurable they found the experience. This allowed the researchers to measure if simply labeling a sad text as “art” made people like it more, even when the words themselves were identical.

In the second study, the researchers wanted to explore a common explanation for why people enjoy sad art: the idea of fictionality. The thinking is that we can appreciate sadness in art because we know it’s not real. Like enjoying a scary movie knowing it’s just a film, perhaps we enjoy sad art because we recognize the sadness is not actually happening to us or anyone we know.

To test this, the researchers repeated the first study’s setup, again having participants read sad texts labeled as either art or non-art. However, this time, in addition to rating how much they liked the text, participants were also asked to what extent they believed the events and emotions described in the text were based on reality. This allowed the researchers to see if the increased liking for sad art was linked to a belief that it was fictional.

The third study shifted focus to a different explanation, rooted in philosophical ideas about art. This idea, called “appropriation,” suggests that when we experience art, especially art expressing emotion, we don’t just observe someone else’s feelings. Instead, we connect with it in a way that makes it feel like an expression of our own inner world. To investigate appropriation, the researchers once again used the same sad texts and art versus non-art labels.

This time, after reading the texts and rating their liking, participants answered questions designed to measure appropriation. They were asked to what extent they felt the text expressed their own thoughts and feelings, gave voice to their own emotions, and felt like the words were coming from themselves. This helped determine if the increased liking of sad art was associated with a stronger feeling of personal connection and appropriation.

Finally, in the fourth study, the researchers directly manipulated the perception of fictionality. This time, all participants were presented with works of art – paintings, poems, and song lyrics – that expressed sadness. However, for some participants, they provided extra information emphasizing that the sadness expressed in the artwork was rooted in the real-life experiences of the artist.

For example, when showing a painting by Francis Bacon, they explained the tragic real-life event that inspired it. Other participants, the control group, received only basic descriptive information about the artist, without any mention of the real-life basis of the sadness in the art. By comparing how much participants liked the art and how much they appropriated it in these two conditions, the researchers could see if making sad art seem more “real” or less “fictional” affected appreciation and personal connection.

The results across these four studies consistently pointed to an interesting conclusion. As predicted, the first study confirmed that people did indeed show a greater liking for sad texts when they were described as art compared to when they were described as non-art, even though the texts were exactly the same.

However, the second study challenged the fictionality hypothesis. Surprisingly, the researchers found that the increased liking for sad art was not explained by people believing it was fictional. In fact, they found the opposite trend: people actually tended to like the sad texts more when they believed the emotions and events described were real, regardless of whether it was labeled as art or not.

“Researchers have previously suggested that we enjoy sad art because the emotions are experiences are fictional,” Venkatesan told PsyPost. “And, much like scary movies or rollercoaster, we enjoy it because it’s fake. Our study found the opposite. We found that while people believe that art is more likely to be based on fictional events and experiences and people prefer real things to fictional things, people still prefer sad art! So, there has to be another explanation.”

The third and fourth studies provided support for the appropriation hypothesis. The researchers found that people experienced a stronger sense of appropriation – feeling the sadness as their own – when the text was presented as art. When researchers manipulated fictionality by making sad art seem more or less real, they found that while manipulating fictionality did influence liking, this influence was entirely explained by appropriation. In other words, whether people perceived the sad art as real or fictional didn’t directly change how much they liked it; rather, it changed how much they felt they could appropriate it, and this sense of appropriation, in turn, affected liking.

“We like sad art because we experience it as giving voice to our own feelings, not as a reflection of the artist’s emotions,” Venkatesan explained. “We enjoy a Taylor Swift breakup song because it’s not about Taylor’s sadness – it’s about our own breakups, feelings of loneliness, and grief.”

But the study, like all research, has some limitations. While the studies consistently showed the effect of art framing and the role of appropriation, they also noted that the effect wasn’t equally strong across all types of texts they used. For example, the difference in liking between a short story and a blog post, both expressing sadness, was less pronounced than for other pairs, like song lyrics and tweets.

Future research could explore why certain art forms or types of sad content might be more or less susceptible to this “art effect.” Furthermore, the study opens up exciting directions for understanding the broader appeal of sad art. Future studies could investigate how appropriation relates to other emotions.

“We specifically found that people tend to appropriate sad art,” Venkatesan noed. “But there are also instances where we might appropriate happy or positive emotions in art. Consider all the songs out there about partying, living an extravagant, lavish lifestyle etc. It’s likely that they’re enjoyable because you’re supposed to appropriate the lyrics and imagine yourself doing those things. Think about the song Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO. You’re not supposed to think about Redfoo partying. You’re supposed to appropriate it and think about yourself having a great time!”

The study, “Sad Art Gives Voice to Our Own Sadness,” was authored by Tara Venkatesan, Mario Attie-Picker, George E. Newman, and Joshua Knobe.