What makes people high in openness to experience happy? The mediating effect of arts engagement
Publication date
2024-08-08
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Organisational unit
Publisher
Sage
Series or journal
Empirical Studies of the Arts
ISSN
Periodical volume
43
Periodical issue
1
First page
565
Last page
583
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Abstract
Openness to experience is one of the least studied traits in relation to subjective well-being, despite its potential as a resource that enables flourishing. In this study, we therefore focused on this particular trait and examined whether its relation to subjective well-being is explained by receptive (Studies 1 and 2) and participatory arts engagement (Study 2) using data from the GESIS Panel ( N = 874) and the Swiss Household Panel ( N = 6336). In both studies, results indicated that the link between openness to experience and positive affect was explained in part by receptive arts engagement, whereas Study 2 showed that both receptive and participatory arts engagement served as partial mediators between openness to experience and life satisfaction. It follows, then, that the tendency to engage in the arts can lead to a happier life, which strengthens previous evidence for the potential of the arts as a means of flourishing.
Description
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Published version
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