Content Warnings Reduce Aesthetic Appreciation of Visual Art

Content warnings are alerts about upcoming content that might be related to upsetting or traumatic experiences. Such warnings are increasingly used by artists and art curators around the world. Though the psychological literature on content warnings suggests they are typically functionally inert, warnings have not yet been studied in the context of art or aesthetics. In this preregistered, within-persons, randomized-controlled experiment, we showed diverse art pieces to 213 participants (6 trials each). By random assignment, some art was prefaced with a content warning matching its specific content (e.g., “content warning: sexual assault” for Gerome’s Phryne before the Areopagus). We found that content warnings decreased aesthetic appreciation (Cohen’s d = -0.22, BF = 54, N = 1278). Content warnings also substantially increased negative emotional responses and decreased positive emotional responses (Cohen’s d = 0.44, BF = 9.6×10^9, N = 1278). Though we planned to test the effect of warnings on “opting out” of viewing art, we were surprised to find that none of the participants avoided viewing any of the art pieces regardless of whether they were prefaced with a warning.