beauty

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

psychologist

social psychologist

university professor

Harvard University

is a psychological phenomenon resulting from the rousing of tension followed upon by a sense of larger unity. This pleasurable reduction of arousal into unity we call 'beauty'.

Daniel E. Berlyne (1924-1976), one of the leading figures of experimental aesthetics in the twentieth century, sets the idea of happy medium in a psychological perspective. He describes the pleasure derived from beauty and good art as a reduction of arousal. The complexity of the object generates arousal in tension, and subsequently, when the unified whole is perceived, tension is reduced. According to Berlyne, experiments tend to confirm that some intermediate degree of complexity produces the most pleasing effect and that extremes of simplicity or complexity are distasteful (Conflict, Arousal, and Curiosity, 1960). ( http://science.jrank.org/pages/8444/Beauty-Ugliness-Definitions-Beauty.html#ixzz3uPP9G0ll)

Daniel Gilbert

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Daniel Gilbert