The Predictive Role of Aesthetic Experience on the Emotional States of Higher Vocational Art Students: An Empirical Study Based on Qingyuan Higher Vocational Education City

Abstract

Although the predictive role of aesthetic experience in emotional states has been examined among general university populations, empirical evidence remains notably scarce for Chinese higher vocational art students — a group marked by both the intensity of studio-based artistic training and heightened emotional vulnerability. The current study recruited a convenience sample of 520 art majors from the five higher vocational colleges of the Qingyuan Higher Vocational Education City cluster and examined the differential prediction between aesthetic experience and positive/negative affect using the Aesthetic Experience Scale (AES) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Hierarchical multiple regression was used as the primary statistical method with demographic information included at Step 1. Findings showed that the five AES dimensions added an additional 30% variance to the prediction of positive affect (ΔR² = .30, p < .001) and 13% of variance to negative affect prediction (ΔR² = .13, p < .001). Specifically, Cognitive Synergies and Elaboration (β = .29), Paratelic Mode (β = .24), and Expressive Perception (β = .21) were found to be the most prominent predictors of positive affect, while Emotional Closeness (β = −.22), Experiential Emotional Distancing (β = −.18), and Paratelic Mode (β = −.11) were significant negative predictors of negative affect. These findings indicate that the cognitive-motivational approach to processing of aesthetic stimuli accounts for substantially more variance in positive affect than the empathic-affective approach, which is associated only with lower negative affect. Collectively, this pattern extends knowledge of the aesthetic experience-affect relationship to the less-studied population of higher vocational art students.