Arts engagement and mental health: a social psychological framework

Research on arts engagement and mental health has expanded rapidly in recent years, and a growing body of evidence suggests that participation in artistic and cultural activities is associated with improved well-being, reduced psychological distress, and stronger social connectedness. However, theoretical explanations remain insufficiently integrated. Existing studies identify a wide range of possible mechanisms, including emotional expression, stress reduction, social interaction, identity formation, and meaning-making, yet these processes are often discussed in parallel rather than synthesized within a coherent explanatory framework. In addition, the literature frequently conflates everyday arts engagement with community-based programmes and formal therapeutic interventions, making it difficult to determine what is distinctive about arts engagement as a mental health resource in ordinary social life. In response to these limitations, this article offers a conceptual review and develops a social psychological framework for understanding how arts engagement may influence mental health. It focuses primarily on everyday and community-facing forms of arts engagement in ordinary social life, while drawing selectively on therapeutic and programme-based literature to clarify conceptual boundaries and mechanisms. The article argues that arts engagement should be understood not merely as a leisure activity or cultural exposure, but as a socially organized practice through which individuals gain access to psychosocial resources. To advance this argument, it proposes a four-layer framework comprising socially scaffolded affect regulation, connectedness and belonging, social identity, collective meaning, and the social cure, and agency, recognition, and narrative repair. By integrating these processes within a single conceptual model, the article clarifies how arts engagement may influence mental health, under what conditions these effects are most likely to emerge, and why a social psychological perspective provides a valuable framework for understanding these associations.