Transience and Emotional Style

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K24683
• Research Category: Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Home-Returning Researcher Development Research)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Humanities and Social Sciences
• Research Institution: Hitotsubashi University
• Principal Investigator: MIYAMOTO Yuri 一橋大学, 大学院社会学研究科, 教授 (60794641)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-03-12 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 文化 / 感情 / 無常観 / はかなさ / 美的感情

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this project, we examined the relationship between transience and aesthetic emotions. Those who perceived transience when viewing images of potentially fleeting scenes were more likely to experience aesthetic emotions such as being moved, and feelings of sadness mediated such an association. Furthermore, in a multi-nation experimental study in which transience was experimentally manipulated, we found that, especially in East Asia, feelings of sadness and aesthetic emotions increased when transience was evoked. In addition to subjective self-reports, we also showed the physiological correlates of perceiving transience and the association between the tendency to perceive transience and sleep quality. These findings illuminated multilevel bases of the effects of transience on sadness and aesthetic emotions.

Free Research Field

社会心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまでの心理学の研究においては、不安や悲しみといった「否定的な感情」は精神的・身体的健康に悪影響を及ぼすとされ、人はそのような「否定的な感情」を最小化しようとするとされてきた。一方で、「無常観」が歴史的に根付いてきた日本においては、一見否定的である「はかなさ」や「悲しみ」の中に、肯定的な意味を見出す感情様式があると論じられてきたものの、実証研究は乏しかった。本研究は、「はかなさ」や「悲しみ」に美的感情を感じる感情様式があることとその文化的、心理的、生理的基盤、また、そのような感情様式と健康との関連を実証的に解明した点で、学術的・社会的意義がある。