The Impact of Viewing Art on Well-being—A Systematic Review of the Evidence Base and Suggested Mechanisms

Abstract

Art viewing has been increasingly seen as having benefits for well-being. However, research on these impacts is disparate, and our understanding of the processes that underlie the impact of art viewing is underdeveloped. We present a systematic review (CRD42022296890), which critically evaluates the evidence of the well-being effects of art viewing, summarizes the characteristics of art viewing experiences and study designs, and presents a thematic analysis of mechanisms. CINAHL, EBSCOhost, Scopus, and Pubmed were searched, and 38 papers were included, with a total of N = 5,092 participants. Quantitative synthesis revealed a diversity of schedules, components, and outcomes. Further, more rigorous methodology is needed, as less than a quarter included control conditions. However, eudemonic well-being emerged as understudied yet had convergent evidence of effect. The thematic analysis revealed affective, cognitive, social, self-transformative, and resilience-building mechanisms. We provide reporting guidelines and a detailed database of included articles for future researchers.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 8 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.