Partisan aesthetics: political orientation modulates aesthetic judgments of propaganda posters

This study explores how aesthetic perceptions of WWII propaganda posters are modulated by cognitive processing of political information and viewers' Political Orientation, drawing on Redies's unified model of aesthetic experience. In an experiment involving 135 participants, each subject rated a series of randomly drawn Allied and Axis propaganda posters under two exposure conditions: Restricted Exposure (RE) and Unrestricted Exposure (UE). We analyzed ratings in each exposure condition in addition to the between-exposure change in aesthetic appeal, focusing on effects of stimulus-level political context and participant-level political orientation (Left, Center, Right) and gender. With Linear Mixed Modeling, we analyzed key factors within the wider context of stimulus- and participant-level variables. Our findings show that Axis posters lose appeal with extended exposure, suggesting that prolonged engagement tends to lower subjective aesthetic appeal-specifically for these stimuli. Political Orientation and Sex further influenced perception: Left-wing and centrist participants exhibited significant rating shifts between RE and UE conditions, while right-wing individuals did not. Notably, we observed a marked difference in how appeal changed between males and females. Overall, our study provides evidence that political orientation, gender and semantic image content influence subjective ratings of aesthetic appeal.