Sculpture preferences and personality traits

Factor analyzed the preference ratings of 70 male and 70 female undergraduates for 36 slides of sculpture. A principal factors solution with orthogonal rotations yielded 6 factors: ambiguous abstraction vs. controlled human realism, mildly distorted representation, emotional detachment, traditional portraiture vs. surrealism, highly distorted representation, and geometric abstraction. Some of these factors were similar to the Apollonian, the Dionysian, and the Pythagorean dimensions previously postualted by Nietzsche and Knapp. Preference scores for each factor were computed and correlated with scores on the 16 PF and with selected educational and physical variables. A few small, significant (p less than .05) correlations were found, supporting the hypothesis that artistic style preferences resemble the personality traits of the spectator.