Effects of Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation on Aesthetics: A Theoretical Model from Hedonic Perspective of Processing Fluency

Abstract

Research has shown that processing fluency positively impacts perceived aesthetics, with pleasure mediating the relationship. Considering the important role of pleasure, we propose studying the role of emotion regulation in moderating the mediated relationship from processing fluency to perceived aesthetics. Based on our hypotheses, individuals’ emotion regulation strategies are expected to have moderating effects on the relationship between processing fluency and perceived aesthetics such that cognitive reappraisal positively moderates the relationship from processing fluency to pleasure, and expressive suppression negatively moderates the relationship from pleasure to perceived aesthetics. Trait mindfulness is also expected to influence perceived aesthetics through emotion regulation by increasing cognitive reappraisal and reducing expressive suppression. Overall, we propose a theoretical model that focuses on affective processes through the hedonic perspective to understand how users perceive aesthetics from IT artifacts and AI-generated art that have different levels of processing fluency.