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Preferences for Ancient and Modern Art Museums: Visitor Experiences and
Personality Characteristics

Article  in  Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts · August 2009

DOI: 10.1037/a0013142

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Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts © 2009 American Psychological Association
2009, Vol. 3, No. 3, 164 –173 1931-3896/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0013142

Preferences for Ancient and Modern Art Museums: Visitor Experiences

and Personality Characteristics
Stefano Mastandrea, Gabriella Bartoli, and Giuseppe Bove
University of Roma Tre

This research has two main purposes. The first is to replicate and possibly to extend the results obtained
in a previous study, where the authors found that visitors to the ancient art museum conducted their visit
with the primary aim of acquiring understanding and knowledge, while modern art museum visitors
conducted their visit with an approach that was primarily emotional and pleasure-seeking. The second
purpose relates to studies showing that people who prefer abstract art present higher levels on personality
traits like “Openness to Experience” and “Sensation Seeking,” compared to people who prefer realistic
art. This study investigates these two personality traits for people who favor visiting museums of ancient
rather than modern art. Results confirmed previous findings that emotional aspects related to the visit
were relevant for modern art museum visitors, while a more cognitive approach based on learning
characterized ancient art museum visitors. Concerning personality traits, no difference was found
between the two museum groups on the “Openness to Experience” dimension; differences were found on
the “Sensation Seeking” trait; modern art museum visitors attained higher scores as compared to ancient
art museum visitors.

Keywords: museums, ancient and modern art, personality traits, preference

Among the consistent number of researches dedicated to the
arts, there are no studies that compare visitors’ experience in
museums of different art genres. In a recently concluded study
(Mastandrea, Bartoli, & Bove, 2007), we compared the experience
of the museum visit in two different art museums, differentiated
for the art styles of the collections hosted: the Borghese Museum
of ancient art1 located in Rome and the Peggy Guggenheim Col-
lection of contemporary art located in Venice. The Borghese
Museum of Rome was built in 1612 by the architects Flaminio
Ponzio and Girolamo Rainaldi, with the special aim of realizing a
museum as well as a cultural space. The museum hosts a collection
of paintings and sculptures dating back to the Renaissance, Ba-
roque, and Neoclassicism eras. The collection includes, among
many artworks, masterpieces like the paintings “Sacred and pro-
fane love” by Tiziano (1514 ca.) and “Madonna of the Palafre-
nieri” by Caravaggio (1605) and like the sculptures “Apollo and
Daphne” by Bernini (1622–1625) and “Pauline Bonaparte” by
Canova (1805-1808). The Peggy Guggenheim Collection (built in
1748 by the architect Lorenzo Boschetti) is the most important
Stefano Mastandrea, Gabriella Bartoli, and Giuseppe Bove, University
of Roma Tre, Rome, Italy.
The research in this article was supported by grant funding from the
Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Roma Tre, Rome,
Italy.
We wish to thank Nicoletta Bufacchi (Braschi Museum), Maria Vittoria
Marini Clarelli, and Maria Mercede Ligozzi (National Gallery of Modern
and Contemporary Art) who enabled us to carry out the research in the two
museums. We also thank Noemi Bellafiore, Roberta Paris, and Raffaele
Cannovo for collecting the data.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Stefano
Mastandrea, University of Roma Tre, Via del Castro Pretorio, 20, 00185
Rome, Italy. E-mail: s.mastandrea@uniroma3.it
museum in Italy for European and American contemporary art
from the first half of the 20th century. It is located on the Grand
Canal in Venice in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, the former home
of Peggy Guggenheim. It was opened as a museum to the public in
1951. The collection includes, among many other works, paintings
by Picasso, Pollock, Malevich, and De Chirico and sculptures by
Calder and Brancusi.
The choice of these two museums was based also on the fact that
some characteristics of the collections and their visit conditions
were similar. In fact, both museums display pictorial and sculp-
tural works, even if, comparatively, the Borghese has a quantita-
tively richer collection with a prevalence of sculptures compared
1
We would like to clarify the meaning of the term “ancient art,” which is
continuously used throughout the text. The problem is how to group different
styles of art from the past and assign them to a single category, in this case
“ancient.” The formal definition of the term “ancient art,” according to history of
art handbooks, refers to artistic products created during the times of the great
ancient civilizations, such as those cultures of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman. The
term “ancient” is very often used in a more extensive manner to describe art also
from Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassic period. There are also museums called
“Museum of Ancient Art” which host collections of artworks dating back from, for
example, the Renaissance period. One crucial point of the study is the diversity in
which two different art museums are assessed by two groups of visitors. Terms
frequently used to describe different styles of art are “realistic,” “representative,” or
“figurative” versus “abstract”; but not all the art of the 1900s is abstract; these
two antonyms sound like two categories used in experimental studies by the
researcher to divide the two styles between “realistic” and “abstract.” We
believe the most appropriate terms to use are “ancient” and ”modern.” The
museum that in this work can be defined as “ancient” is the Braschi Museum,
which mainly contains artworks from the 1500s to the middle of the 1800s.
The term “ancient” refers therefore not to art belonging to the great ancient
civbut to art belonging to a past, art” because it belongs unquestionably to the
past. This so defined meaning of “ancient art” can also be found in art books,
exhibition catalogues, articles in journals, and also in the name of a museum.

164
 PREFERENCES FOR ANCIENT AND MODERN ART MUSEUMS
to the Guggenheim. Additionally, the Borghese limits visits to two
hours while the Guggenheim does not impose visitation limits, but
the average time spent in the museum is an hour and a half.
Five-hundred Italian visitors were administered a questionnaire
(with questions of various format, from multiple choice to Likert
scale) with the intention to explore various thematic concepts like
the level of likableness for different kinds of art, the likableness
and satisfaction with the visit, and the motivations, reasons for
enjoyment, and modalities of conducting the visit and future mu-
seum behavior.
The main differences that we found between the two groups of
visitors can be summarized as follows. The profile of the Borghese
visitor showed a person with not much interest in museums in
general, who was visiting mainly because of the fame of the
museum rather than because of a genuine interest in art. However,
visitors to the Borghese museum conducted their visits with mo-
tivation for, expectations of, and interests in acquiring understand-
ing and knowledge, thereby referring to a more general kind of
cognitive approach. The Borghese visitor had a strong desire to
learn and only as a second option seems to take into consideration
the enjoyment and the pleasure that can be derived from the visit.
The Guggenheim visitors were very different: they were familiar
with museums and art galleries; about 50% attend more than six
museums and galleries per year, as compared to 19% of the
Borghese participants. Moreover, the great majority of Guggen-
heim visitors (about 60%) make a precise cultural choice by
selecting mainly modern and contemporary art museums. The way
in which the Guggenheim visitor conducted his or her visit and
approach to the works in the collection was primarily emotional
and pleasure-seeking. The cultural competencies that appeared to
be already present in these visitors potentially allowed them to be
able to stabilize a more affecting and perhaps even hedonistic
relationship with the works in the collection.
One of the purposes of the current research is to replicate and
extend these results to two other museums of smaller scale than the
Borghese and the Guggenheim, but still differentiated for the kind
of artistic collections hosted (ancient vs. modern). Possible con-
firmation of the two visit approaches (cognitive/emotional) to
these two minor museums will give more strength to the findings
obtained in the previous research demonstrating a more stable
approach to the fruition and appreciation of different art museums.
Another purpose addressed in this study comes from a long
tradition of research on art preference and personality. One of the
first authors to study art preferences and personality traits was
Eysenck (1940). He demonstrated the presence of a “K” bipolar
factor, which distinguished colorful, complex, impressionistic, and
expressionistic art styles normally preferred by extroverted people
from the more simple, symmetrical, less colored, realistic art style
positively rated by introverted people. Eysenck (1941) found also
that the personality trait psychoticism correlated with the prefer-
ence for complex visual stimuli. Related to that early research,
Cardinet (1958) found that aesthetic preference will mirror internal
personality characteristics: independent and creative people tend to
prefer abstract art; convergent and dependent individuals are likely
to appreciate realistic art.
Two constructs of personality, “Openness to Experience” (Costa
& McCrae, 1992) and “Sensation Seeking” (Zuckerman, 1979),
have been extensively used to investigate preferences for these
different art styles. Recently, there have been wider examinations
165
of these personality characteristics as they relate to abstract and
modern art as compared to representational and traditional art
(Furnham & Walker, 2001).
Furnham and Avison (1997) found that sensation seekers were
more likely to appreciate surreal art as compared to traditional or
representational art. Furnham and Walker (2001) found that
“Openness to Experience” was associated to positive ratings of
abstract, pop, and representational art. Rawlings, Vidal, and Furn-
ham (2000) confirmed the link between “Sensation Seeking” and
preference for abstract art; whereas, regarding “Openness to Ex-
perience,” results showed a preference only for one group of the
sample investigated. Feist and Brady (2004) demonstrated that
participants with high levels of “Openness to Experience” and
“Sensation Seeking” gave higher preferential evaluations to ab-
stract rather than representative art images, compared to people
with lower levels in these traits.
All of these studies have dealt with this particular topic by the
means of laboratory research. In most cases, participants were
asked to express their preferences for different types of art (real-
istic vs. abstract, cubist vs. modern, etc.) presented either through
the use of slides, computer screens, or sheets of paper and were
assessed along various personality dimensions. While the impor-
tance of these laboratory studies is largely recognized, we have to
consider that participants in these studies are in most cases stu-
dents who may have no knowledge or interest in art; indeed some
of them may not have even set foot in an art museum. We believe
that additional research involving people with an authentic interest
in art, such as museum visitors, should be conducted due to the fact
that they can think of art with a more open mind and have a deeper
knowledge of what art is. Moreover, this approach would allow
psychology of the arts to get closer to the world of art, even though
it may run the risk of losing some internal validity for the sake of
ecological validity.
For all these reasons, we thought that it would have been
interesting to investigate personality traits like “Openness to Ex-
perience” and “Sensation Seeking” for people who favor visiting
museums of different kind of arts, ancient and modern. Concerning
the “Sensation Seeking Scale” (Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck,
1978), from the four subscales (Thrill and Adventure Seeking,
Disinhibition, Susceptibility to Boredom, Experience Seeking), the
only Experience Seeking one was used: the need for varied, novel,
complex, and intense sensations and experiences. Furnham and
Bunyam (1988) showed the strong predictive validity of this
dimension with aesthetic preference.
We chose two museums located in Rome, not particularly fa-
mous or internationally known such as the Borghese and Venice
Guggenheim of the previous research. The first was the Braschi
Museum (Museo di Roma – Palazzo Braschi) for ancient art, while
the second was the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary
Art (Galleria Nazionale d⬘Arte Moderna e Contemporanea,
GNAM) for modern and contemporary art.
The Braschi Museum, built in 1802 by the architect Cosimo
Morelli, contains a collection (paintings, sculptures, drawings,
etchings, furniture, and frescos) connected in many ways to the
evolution of the city of Rome from the Middle Ages to the first
half of the 1800s. The principal nucleus of the museum, as said
before, collects artworks from the 1500s to the middle of 1800s,
including mainly Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassicism art
styles. Among many artworks, paintings by Pietro Da Cortona and
166 MASTANDREA, BARTOLI, BOVE
Andrea Sacchi and sculptures by Francesco Mochi and François
Duquesnoy are exhibited.
The National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary art
(GNAM), built in 1915 by the architect Cesare Bazzani, hosts
modern and contemporary art from the late XIX century up to the
second half of the XX century. The XIX century collection com-
prehends works by artistic movements like Divisionism, Symbol-
ism, Neo-Renaissance, Decandentism, Italian Verism, and Seces-
sionism. The XX century collection starts with the Italian artistic
movement of the Futurism (Balla and Boccioni) and continues
with other well famous international artists such as Mondrian,
Kandinsky, Pollock, Moore, and Calder, as well as Italian artists
like Burri, Colla, Capogrossi, Fontana, and Manzoni.
Visitors are assumed to have a genuine interest in art if they
have chosen to attend these two museums. During the period of the
research beyond the permanent collections of both museums, at
Braschi there was the temporary exhibition “Caffi: Mediterranean
Light” by the Italian artist Ippolito Caffi (1809-1866). Caffi was
defined a romantic artist, one of the most important and original
landscape painter of the Italian 1800s. He traveled along the
Mediterranean and he was admired by the brilliant effects of light
of his paintings representing several cities encountered during his
journeys, not only Venice, Rome, Naples, but also Greece, Egypt,
and Turkey. At GNAM, there was the temporary exhibition, “The
Environments of the Group T: The Origins of the Interactive Art,”
by an Italian team of artists called “Gruppo T” of the 1950s
belonging to the movement of kinetic, interactive, and op art. The
exhibition was constituted by 30 artworks and 10 environments
that created an active and mobile space where the visitors were
invited to live a sort of a multisensorial experience.
Regarding the differences between visitor approaches to these
two different kinds of art museums, we expect to replicate the
findings of our previous research (Mastandrea et al., 2007): Visi-
tors to the ancient art museum would be more interested in ac-
quiring understanding and knowledge, while visitors to the modern
art museum would be more driven by experiencing emotion and by
an hedonic pleasure from the visit.
Concerning personality traits, we expect to confirm results ob-
tained in the previous studies on the appraisals of different art
genres, representative versus abstract (Feist & Brady, 2004; Furn-
ham & Walker, 2001). We hypothesize that modern art museum
visitors would reach higher levels on “Openness to Experience”
and “Sensation Seeking” as compared to ancient art museum
visitors.
Method
Participants
Our sample consisted of 137 Italian participants, ranging from
19 to 69 years; 83 from Braschi (Mdn ⫽ 37, M ⫽ 40.5, SD ⫽ 14.2)
and 54 from GNAM (Mdn ⫽ 27, M ⫽ 30.9, SD 12.7). Overall,
42.3% respondents were males and 57.7% were females.
Regarding the educational level of the participants, there was no
significant difference between the two groups. The responses were
up to high school (51.2% for Braschi and 54.7% for GNAM),
university graduates (48.8% for Braschi and 45.3% for GNAM);
␹2(1) ⫽ .15; p ⫽ .69.
Regarding profession, we counted a majority of white collars at
Braschi (30.1%) and a majority of students at GNAM (46.3%);
␹2(5) ⫽ 23.60; p ⬍ .001.
Measures
We prepared a questionnaire with 18 questions articulated in
four topics:
1) Sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, educa-
tion, profession);
2) Art knowledge and art preferences (questions of various
formats regarding art related training; preference for
representative, abstract, and contemporary art; type and
number of museums visited);
3) The visit collection experience (motivation, visit like-
ableness, emotional appraisal);
4) Personality measures (Big Five “Openness to Experi-
ence” and Zuckerman scale “Sensation Seeking”). Par-
ticipants completed the “Openness to Experience” factor
of the Big Five questionnaire (Costa & McCrae, 1992).
This factor measures interest for culture and knowledge,
and openness to new experiences and novelties. We
used the BFQ Italian version (Caprara, Barbaranelli, &
Borgogni, 1993). From the longer form of the question-
naire, we used the 12-item reduced version. Two items
example are “I am always informed on what happen in
the world” and “I am a person that always look for new
experiences.” Evaluation of items was expressed on a
5-point Likert scale (1 ⫽ completely false, 3 ⫽ neutral,
5 ⫽ completely true).
The first three points of the survey were similar to those em-
ployed in the previous study except for the question concerning the
emotional appraisal (point 3). The aim of this new question was to
deeply investigate the specificity of the emotions experienced
(from a pool of 10 emotions to evaluate on 7-point Likert scale)
during the visit of the two museums. The point 4, on personality
measures, is completely new and, as far as we know, has never
been investigated before with people who prefer to attend different
kinds of art museums.
Concerning the “Sensation Seeking” scale (Zuckerman et al.,
1978), as said before, the only Experience Seeking subscale (the
need for varied, novel, complex and intense sensations and expe-
riences) has been used because of the good predictive validity of
this measure with the aesthetic preference (Furnham & Bunyam,
1988). An example item is the choice between A) “I like to explore
on my own a city or a part of it even if I can get lost” and B) “I
prefer to have a guide when I am in a place that I do not know very
well”; or A) “The essence of the true art is the clarity, the
symmetry of shapes and the harmony of colors” and B) “I always
find beautiful bright and contrasting colors and irregular shapes of
modern art.” Participants had to choose one of the two dichoto-
mous statements, in a forced choice response format.
 PREFERENCES FOR ANCIENT AND MODERN ART MUSEUMS
Procedure
The questionnaire was administered during all the days of the last
two weeks of the opened period of the exhibitions. All visitors coming
out from the museum were approached at the end of the visit by a
research collaborator and asked to respond to a questionnaire about
the museum visit experience. People who accepted were given in-
structions on how to complete the questionnaire. Instructions were
also written on the first page, and the collaborator remained present
(in an unobtrusive way) while the questionnaires were filled out,
ready to respond to potential questions. Participants were not given
any compensation for responding to the questionnaire. About 30% of
visitors at each museum declined to participate.
Results
The results of the research are provided in the following three
sections. In section 1, visitors of Braschi and GNAM are compared
respect to items concerning art knowledge and art preference (see
Table 1). Besides the comparison of item mean scores of the two
museums, a series of regression analyses have been performed (see
Table 2) with knowledge items and preferences for representative,
abstract, and contemporary art as dependent variables and selected
demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, and profes-
sion) as predictors, along with a dummy variable representing
museums (Braschi ⫽ 0, GNAM ⫽ 1). These regression models
allow the evaluation of the influence of the museum choice (Bra-
schi vs. GNAM) taking also into account the effect of demographic
differences between the two samples. In section 2, the museums
are compared by exploring motives, likeableness, and emotions of
the visit experience. Motives for the visit are considered in Table
3, where differences between response percentages are analyzed.
In this section, item mean scores regarding likeableness and emo-
tions are also compared (see Table 4 and Figure 1). In addition, a
principal component analysis was run on emotion appraisal items
to summarize correlations between different emotional dimensions
considered (see Table 4 and Figure 2) and their relationships with
visitors’ demographic characteristics (see Figure 3). Finally, in
section 3, the role of the Big Five scale “Openness to Experience”
and Zuckerman scale “Sensation Seeking” are analyzed comparing
the mean scores of the two groups of visitors and through regres-
sion analyses to investigate if art preference depends on the two
personality measures (see Table 5).
Table 1
Comparison Between Braschi and GNAM Museum Visitors on Education and Art Preferences
M and (SD)
How much art education have you
received?
How able are you about identifying
paintings by famous artists?
How much do you like representative art?
How much do you like abstract art?
How much do you like contemporary art?
(videos, performances, and installations)
ⴱⴱⴱ
Note. n.s. p ⬎ .05. p ⬍ .001.
167
Section 1. Art Knowledge and Art Preferences
Visitors rated the following five questions on art knowledge and
art preference on a 7-point Likert scale. Means, standard devia-
tions, and t test significance levels are reported in Table 1. The
comparison between the two groups of visitors (Braschi vs.
GNAM) regarding the first three questions (artistic educational
level, recognizing artworks by famous artists, and likeableness of
representative art) did not show any significant differences;
t(133) ⫽ ⫺.94, p ⬎ .05; t(134) ⫽ ⫺.96, p ⬎ .05; t(135) ⫽ 1.00,
p ⬎ .05; respectively. Regarding the questions “How much do you
like abstract art” and “How much do you like contemporary art
(videos, performances, and installations)”, significant differences
between the two groups of museum visitors were found; t(135) ⫽
⫺4.52, p ⬍ .001; t(134) ⫽ ⫺5.71, p ⬍ .001; respectively.
There were no differences between the two groups regarding art
training and art knowledge; moreover, they both liked representative
art, but they differentiated on abstract and contemporary art. These
data confirmed stable results according to which, in general, peo-
ple prefer representative arts (Boselie & Cesaro, 1994; Feist &
Brady, 2004). In fact, both museum groups liked representative art
at the same level, while only people from GNAM liked abstract
and contemporary art in general.
Participants of both museums were frequent museum visitors;
about 60% of the participants from each museum visited more than
six museums or galleries in the last 12 months. But there was a
difference in the choice of the typology of museum attended:
Braschi visitors’ first choice was ancient art museums (39.2%),
followed by modern/contemporary art museums (35.4%). These
preferences are inverted for GNAM respondents: they prefer first
visiting modern/contemporary art museums (53,3%) and second
ancient art museums (17,8%).
Differences between visitors to the two museums referring to art
knowledge and art preferences can also be analyzed taking into
account the influence of characteristics, such as age, gender, edu-
cation, and profession. These differences were examined through
multiple regression analyses, where the museums were represented
by a dummy variable (Braschi ⫽ 0, GNAM ⫽ 1). The results of
these analyses are summarized in Table 2. The overall regression
was significant in four cases. The exception was when the depen-
dent variable was preference for representative art, which had
low variability caused by the general consensus felt for this
Braschi GNAM
M and (SD) t test
4.5 (1.6) 4.8 (1.7) ns.
4.5 (1.5) 4.8 (1.5) ns.
5.4 (1.4) 5.2 (1.5) ns.
ⴱⴱⴱ
3.9 (1.8) 5.2 (1.6)
ⴱⴱⴱ
3.6 (1.9) 5.4 (1.7)
168 MASTANDREA, BARTOLI, BOVE

Table 2
Results of Regression Analyses for Art Knowledge and Preferences

Dependent variable Overall regression Age Gender Education Profession Museum

ⴱ ⴱ ⴱ
How much art education F(5, 124) ⫽ 3.13 n.s b ⫽ 0.71, SE ⫽ 0.30 b ⫽ 0.72, SE ⫽ 0.29 n.s. n.s.
have you received?
How able are you about F(5, 125) ⫽ 2.50ⴱ n.s. n.s. b ⫽ 0.77, SE ⫽ 0.26ⴱⴱ n.s. n.s.
identifying paintings
by famous artists?
How much do you like n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s.
representative art?
How much do you like F(5, 126) ⫽ 9.12ⴱⴱⴱ b ⫽ ⫺0.04, SE ⫽ 0.01ⴱⴱⴱ n.s. b ⫽ 0.74, SE ⫽ 0.29ⴱ n.s. b ⫽ 1.19, SE ⫽ 0.31ⴱⴱⴱ
abstract art?
How much do you like F(5, 125) ⫽ 8.31ⴱⴱⴱ b ⫽ ⫺0.03, SE ⫽ 0.01ⴱⴱ n.s. n.s. n.s. b ⫽ 1.39, SE ⫽ 0.33ⴱⴱⴱ
contemporary art?
(videos, performances
and installations)
ⴱ ⴱⴱ ⴱⴱⴱ
Note. n.s. p ⬎ .05. p ⬍ .05. p ⬍ .01. p ⬍ .001.

artistic form. Museum influence was significant when prefer-
ence for abstract and contemporary art were dependent vari-
ables (last two models in Table 2); the positive regression
coefficients in these two cases confirmed that GNAM visitors
liked abstract and contemporary art more than Braschi visitors,
even when sociodemographic characteristics were taken into
account in the model. It is also interesting to notice the negative
influence of age in these two cases and the positive influence of
education on the preference for abstract art.
Section 2. Visit Collection Experience
This part of the questionnaire concerned motives, likeableness,
and emotions aroused by the visit experience.
Regarding the question, “What are your motives for visiting
this museum”, participants had to order the four answer options
from the most to the least important. We took into consideration
only the most important answer (the first choice option) whose
percentages are reported in Table 3. The first most common
answer for Braschi visitors was The interest for the artist/s
(28.9%), followed by The desire of cultural enrichment
(26.3%). Regarding GNAM visitors, the first answer was To see
the artworks in the original (39.2%), and the second choice was
The pleasure that I feel during the visit (29.4%). The chi-square
calculated for Table 3 results significant, ␹2(3) ⫽ 8.88, p ⬍ .05.
More GNAM visitors expressed the desire to see artworks in the
original and the pleasure that they felt during the visit, compared
to Braschi visitors whose most frequently chosen option concerned
the interest for the artist/s and the desire of cultural enrichment.
These results confirmed previous findings (Mastandrea et al.,
2007). We can observe a common interest by both groups related
to the particular experience offered by the museum visit: the
interest for the artist and for the artwork is very close. The data
showed that the most frequently chosen option by the two groups
concerned the “interest for the artist/s” (28.9%, Braschi) and “to
see the artwork in the original” (39.2%, GNAM). The difference
may reflect the fact that the Braschi temporary exhibition was by
a single author while at GNAM was by a team of artists.
We asked also how much participants liked their visit, on a
7-point Likert scale. The mean for visitors to the Braschi museum
was 5.5 (SD ⫽ 1.2), while the mean for visitors to GNAM was 5.8
(SD ⫽ 0.9), t(135) ⫽ ⫺1.83, p ⬎ .05. Whether ancient or modern
art museum, they liked their visit very much.
The last question of this section regarded the appraisal of the
visit experience referring to 10 different emotions (on a 7-point
Likert scale). GNAM mean scores were always higher compared
to Braschi (see Figure 1), with a significant difference in the items
anxiety, t(129) ⫽ ⫺4.05, p ⬍ .001; excitement, t(130) ⫽ ⫺3.17,
Table 4
Museum Mean Scores and Component Loadings Matrix for the
Appraisal of the Ten Emotions
Component
Museums loadings

Braschi GNAM Comp1 Comp2

Table 3
Emotions M (SD) M (SD)
Principal Motives for Visiting Braschi and GNAM
Museums (Percentages) Interest 5.7 (1.3) 5.8 (1.3) .752 .125
Aesthetic enjoyment 5.2 (1.6) 5.2 (1.6) .769 .157
Braschi GNAM Pleasure 4.9 (1.5) 5.3 (1.1) .806 .061
Wellbeing 4.5 (1.7) 4.5 (1.7) .739 .184
The interest for the artist/s 28.9% 9.8% Fun 4.1 (1.5) 4.8 (1.5) .614 .100
The desire of cultural enrichment 26.3% 21.6% Amazement 3.4 (1.9) 4.5 (1.5) .402 .344
To see the artworks in the original 23.7% 39.2% Excitement 2.9 (1.9) 3.9 (2.0) .397 .542
The pleasure that I feel during the visit 21.1% 29.4% Melancholy 2.4 (1.8) 2.6 (1.8) .003 .821
Total 100% 100% Anxiety 1.6 (1.2) 2.6 (1.8) ⫺.085 .762
N 76 51 Boredom 1.4 (1.0) 1.8 (1.4) ⫺.507 .296
 PREFERENCES FOR ANCIENT AND MODERN ART MUSEUMS 169

Figure 1. Mean scores of the 10 different emotions referring to the visit experience at Braschi and GNAM
museums (7-point Likert scale).

p ⬍ .01; amazement, t(127) ⫽ ⫺3.81, p ⬍ .001; and fun, t(131) ⫽
⫺2.53, p ⬍ .05.
Since this question was submitted to visitors of both museums,
we wondered whether the same set of latent dimensions (or com-
ponents) could summarize the correlations between the emotion
items observed in the two museums. In the psychometric literature,
several methods were proposed to deal with this factorial invari-
ance problem. Following an explorative approach (Bove, 1994),
we first compared the Braschi correlation matrix with the GNAM
correlation matrix by computing Pearson correlation coefficient

1,00
Melancholy

Anxiety
Excitement
0,50
Amazement
Boredom
Second Component

Wellbeing
Aesthetic enjoyment Interest

0,00 Fun
Pleasure

-0,50

-1,00
-1,00 -0,50 0,00 0,50 1,00

First Component

Figure 2. Principal component analysis of the 10 emotions referring to the visit experience at Braschi and
GNAM museums (variable loadings on the first two rotated components).
170
0,40
0,20 <26years
Second_Component
0,00
low_art_educat
26-29years
-0,20
Up to high school
-0,40
-0,60
-0,40 -0,20
Figure 3. Principal component analysis of visitor demographic characteristics referring to the visit experience
at Braschi and GNAM museums (categories mean scores on the first two rotated components).
that showed a good similarity (r ⫽ .63). Furthermore, the assump-
tion of a common latent space was also suggested by the two-
dimensional INDSCAL model (Carroll & Chang, 1970), that pro-
vided a Stress-1 ⫽ 0.26 and very similar individual dimension
weights.
For computing latent components and corresponding subject
scores, we performed a Principal Components Analysis (followed
by a Varimax rotation; see last two columns in Table 4) of the
matrix obtained, superimposing the two museum data matrices
separately standardized (i.e., for each museum all items were
transformed to have null mean and unit variance).
In Figure 2, we show the bidimensional component representa-
tion obtained by separate standardizations. Coordinates represent
item-components correlations (loadings) reported in Table 4 (last
two columns).
The first component (33.1% explained variance) was positively
correlated with items like pleasure, fun, aesthetic enjoyment, in-
terest, and wellbeing, and it is negatively correlated with the item
boredom. This component could be interpreted as a quantification
of the participants’ levels of global pleasure for the visit. The
second component (18.4% explained variance) was positively cor-
related with items melancholy, anxiety, excitement, and amaze-
ment, so this component seems more related with subject level of
negative and arousing emotions.
Another important advantage of the two components is that
they allow a summary of the relationships of the 10 emotions
with visitor characteristics in a bidimensional representation
(plane). In fact, in Figure 3, category labels representing com-
ponent mean scores of the corresponding visitor groups are
MASTANDREA, BARTOLI, BOVE
Graduates
Professionals
Students 30-39years Teachers
Males
high_art_educat
Females
mean_art_educat 40-49years
White-collars >49years
Artists
0,00 0,20 0,40 0,60
First_Component
depicted. We can observe that the first and the second component
mean scores increased when education varies from up to high
school to graduates; this shows that the visit was more pleasant
and emotionally involved for graduates. The first component fol-
lows the same pattern for gender, but the two gender categories are
not very different respect to the second component. Respect to
occupation categories, students, professionals, and white collars
have lower first component mean scores compared to artists and
teachers; for the second component, professionals seems more
emotionally involved respect to the others, especially white collars
and artists.
Section 3. Personality Measures
Regarding the Big Five “Openness to Experience,” visitors of
both museums reached high scores without any significant differ-
ence: Braschi visitors, M ⫽ 4.02 (SD ⫽ .46) and GNAM visitors,
M ⫽ 3.96 (SD ⫽ .53); t(132) ⫽ .63, p ⬎ .05.
We found a significant difference in Zuckerman “Sensation
Seeking” scale between the two groups: GNAM visitors reported
higher levels on average on this feature (M ⫽ 6.61; SD ⫽ 2.42) as
compared to Braschi participants (M ⫽ 5.46; SD ⫽ 2.32); t(133) ⫽
⫺2.78, p ⬍ ⫽ .01.
Regarding this topic, the hypotheses were not entirely confirmed.
The only difference found was on the Zuckerman “Sensation Seek-
ing” scale, between ancient and modern art museum visitors.
To investigate if art preference depend on the two personality
measures, multiple regression analyses were performed adding the
 PREFERENCES FOR ANCIENT AND MODERN ART MUSEUMS 171

measures as independent variables at the last three models of Table

b ⫽ 0.25, SE ⫽ 0.06ⴱⴱⴱ

b ⫽ 0.15, SE ⫽ 0.07ⴱ
2; the results of these analyses are summarized in Table 5.

Zuckerman
The regression model with preference for representative art
as the dependent variable is significant, with the Big Five

n.s.
measure being the only predictor with a significant regression
coefficient. This result indicated that “Openness to Experience”
is an important factor in determining preference for represen-
tative art, irrespective of the type of museum. The two regres-
ⴱ

sion models for preference for abstract and contemporary arts as

b ⫽ 0.63, SE ⫽ 0.26

dependent variables yielded significance only on the Zucker-

man measure.
BFQ

n.s.

n.s.
In conclusion, the positive regression coefficients obtained in
the three models indicated that for this sample, higher levels on
openness to experience increased the preference score for repre-
sentative art while higher level on sensation seeking increased the
preference score for abstract and contemporary arts.
b ⫽ 1.27, SE ⫽ 0.33ⴱⴱⴱ
b ⫽ 0.96, SE ⫽ 0.30ⴱⴱ
Museum

Discussion
n.s.

Regarding sociodemographic characteristics between the two

samples of visitors we found a difference in age, with visitors
being about 10 years younger at GNAM as compared to Braschi.
This aspect reflects a general finding according to which people
Profession

who go to contemporary art museums are younger than visitors of

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

more classical museums; it is easy to see parents with very young

children visiting contemporary art museums, which you may not
see so often in ancient art museums. Additionally, a majority of
b ⫽ 0.68, SE ⫽ 0.28ⴱ

females were present in both museums.

Both groups reported similarities on their overall educational
Education

level and on their training in art. We counted many more

n.s.

n.s.

students at GNAM and white collars at Braschi. People from

both museums are frequent museum visitors; about 60% visit
more than six museums or galleries per year. They differentiate
in their choice of museums for visitation: GNAM visitors
Gender

tended to frequent more modern art museums, while Braschi

Results of the Regression Analyses Including Two Personality Measures

n.s.

n.s.

n.s.

more ancient art museums.

Both groups expressed similar appreciation for representative
art, while they differentiated on the appraisal of abstract and
b ⫽ ⫺0.02, SE ⫽ 0.01ⴱ

b ⫽ ⫺0.03, SE ⫽ 0.01ⴱ

contemporary art. GNAM visitors liked these two types of art more
than Braschi visitors did. This finding remained significant even
p ⬍ .001.
Age

n.s.

when the influence of age, gender, education, and profession on art

preferences was taken into account in multiple regression analyses,
confirming previous research (Boselie & Cesaro, 1994; Feist &
ⴱⴱⴱ

Brady, 2004). An important difference between the two groups is

the art typology of museum visited (Braschi visitors prefer attend-
p ⬍ .01.

ing ancient art museums while GNAM visitors modern and con-
Overall regression

F(7,121) ⫽ 9.87ⴱⴱⴱ

F(7,120) ⫽ 7.17ⴱⴱⴱ
ⴱ
F(7,121) ⫽ 2.20

temporary art museums): it seems that the knowledge of arts

acquired through visits to museums and galleries and a specific
ⴱⴱ

interest for the art style produce a process of aesthetic fluency

p ⬍ .05.

(Smith & Smith, 2006) that may have led the GNAM group to a
higher level of appreciation of modern art.
One aim of the research was to replicate the findings obtained in
ⴱ
How much do you like

How much do you like

How much do you like

our previous study (Mastandrea et al., 2007) according to different

p ⬎ .05.
(videos, performances
Dependent variable

representative art?

contemporary art?

and installations)

visiting strategies: ancient art/cognitive approach and modern art/

emotional approach. The first most frequent answers at the mul-
abstract art?

tiple question regarding the motive of visiting the museum were

n.s.

“the interest for the artist/s” and “to see the artworks in the
Table 5

original” for Braschi and GNAM visitors respectively. Even

Note.

though different, they expressed the desire to go to museums for a

172 MASTANDREA, BARTOLI, BOVE
specific interest in the artists and for the possibility to see the real
artworks, which is a unique opportunity offered by the museum.
The differences on this answer (artists vs. real artworks) by the two
museum groups can be explained by the fact that at Braschi the
temporary exhibition, linked to the permanent collection, was by a
single artist while at GNAM the temporary exhibition was by an
artistic movement. Therefore, the stress for Braschi was on the single
artist while for GNAM it was on the artworks. It is more interesting
to note, confirming our previous results, the second most frequent
answers: for GNAM respondents, it was “the pleasure they feel during
the visit,” while for Braschi respondents, it was “the desire for cultural
enrichment.” The hedonic aspect related to the visit appears to be
relevant for GNAM group, while a more cognitive approach based on
learning characterizes Braschi visitors.
A further confirmation on the different approaches comes
from the appraisal of the emotions elicited by the visit experi-
ence. GNAM visitors gave consistently higher scores on the 10
emotions considered, compared to the scores given by Braschi
visitors. More deeply, an impact for the GNAM group was
elicited by a negative emotion like anxiety, by two arousing
emotions like amazement and excitement, and by a peculiar
positive emotion that usually is not experienced with ancient
art, such as fun. It can be stated that the constellation of
emotions experienced seem wider for GNAM visitors; modern
art appear to be better characterized not only by experiencing
positive emotions but also by negative and arousing ones.
Visitors’ emotional experiences are well summarized by two
latent components: a) the level of global pleasure for the visit, and
b) the level of negative and arousing emotions. The pleasure for
the visit increases according to high educational levels, females,
artists, and teachers. Negative and arousing emotions seem more
evident for graduates and professionals.
There were no differences on the enjoyment of the visit between
the two groups. Either ancient or modern art, both groups enjoyed
very much the museum visit. It seems that the knowledge of arts
acquired through education (both groups have high educational
levels) and museums and galleries visits (they are both good
museum goers) lead the two groups to a high level of appreciation
for both typologies of arts.
Concerning personality traits (“openness to the experience”
and “sensation seeking”), no difference between the two groups
on the “openness to experience” dimension was found (both
groups reported high scores). It seems reasonable that people
who go to museums do so with an open mind, an interest in
culture, and the desire of acquiring new experiences, no matter
the type of museum. The difference, on this topic, is probably
more between people that go and that do not go to museums
(DiMaggio, 1996), instead of the difference between people
who choose museums with different kinds of artistic expres-
sions. Differences on the two typologies of visitors taken into
consideration is rather on the “sensation seeking” characteristic.
People who go to modern art museums are willing to go in
search of sensation more than people who go to ancient art
museums. This finding can be related to what Feist and Brady
(2004) found between preference for abstract versus represen-
tative art; we can apply it also to visitors of art museums of the
two types considered. As confirmation of this result, emotions
aroused by GNAM visitors reached higher scores compared to
Braschi visitors. At the same time, results indicated that the
influence of the museum choice (Braschi vs. GNAM) on ab-
stract and contemporary art preference ratings was not com-
pletely explained by differences in “sensation seeking” between
the two groups; in fact, the museum role remains significant
even when effects of personality traits are taken into account.
Stating that the context in this case has changed, the differ-
ences in personality traits between the two groups of visitors
seem to confirm only partially previous results on personality
and preference of realistic versus abstract art (Feist & Brady,
2004; Furnham & Walker, 2001). The different contexts of
observation (lab studies of previous researches vs. ecological
museums settings of the present research) might explain the
results obtained.
We encourage and anticipate conducting more studies in
artistic and museum environments. It would be worthwhile to
replicate the study on personality dimensions in other museums,
still differentiated for the collection art styles, to see whether
the obtained results, limited so far to two museums, will be
confirmed. We believe it is from these associate contexts that
we can get more interesting insights on how people feel and
respond to art.
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