Art Elevates the Mind by Increasing Empathy, Critical Thinking and Tolerance — PsyBlog
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Study of school trips to a museum provides evidence that art
can elevate the mind.
A new large-scale
experiment on over
10,000 students finds that
a one-hour tour of an art
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museum can increase
empathy, tolerance and
critical thinking skills.
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The study took advantage
of a new museum opening
in the US state of
Arkansas, which many
schools applied to visit (Greene et al., 2014).
http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/12/art-elevates-the-mind-by-increasing-empathy-critical-thinking-and-tolerance.php[8/7/2014 3:18:30 PM]
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Art Elevates the Mind by Increasing Empathy, Critical Thinking and Tolerance — PsyBlog
Children
By carefully timetabling when they visited, the researchers were able to
create an experiment on the effects of art on the students’ mind.
Each school was randomly assigned to visit the museum earlier, or delayed
until later. Each school that visited earlier was demographically matched with
a similar school that had to wait–this provided the control group.
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The museum tour itself was pretty simple. It was one hour long and they
viewed and talked about five paintings. The entire trip was around half a day.
After the early museum visits, all the students, including those that hadn’t
been, were asked to write about a painting they hadn’t seen before to
assess how they thought about art. They were also tested for historical
empathy and tolerance.
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The results showed that, compared with those who had not been to the
museum, students who had visited:
Thought about art more critically.
Displayed greater empathy about how people lived in the past.
Expressed greater levels of tolerance towards people with different
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The museum had clearly been a mind-expanding experience for the young
people.
Interestingly, the improvements were larger when the students were from
more deprived backgrounds.
Visiting the museum also made students more likely to want to visit art
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museums again in the future. This could create a cascading effect over their
lifetime, continuing to boost critical thought, empathy and tolerance.
What is art for?
Field trips are often seen by teachers and students as purely for pleasure,
rather than for educational purposes.
http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/12/art-elevates-the-mind-by-increasing-empathy-critical-thinking-and-tolerance.php[8/7/2014 3:18:30 PM]
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Art Elevates the Mind by Increasing Empathy, Critical Thinking and Tolerance — PsyBlog
But the authors point out that museums are about more than that:
“We don’t just want our children to acquire work skills from their
education; we also want them to develop into civilized people who
appreciate the breadth of human accomplishments. The school field trip
is an important tool for meeting this goal.” (Greene et al., 2014)
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Image credit: Henry Bloomfield
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About the author
SeaRch
Dr Jeremy Dean is a psychologist and the author of
PsyBlog. His latest book is "Making Habits, Breaking
Habits: How to Make Changes That Stick". You can
follow PsyBlog by email, by RSS feed, on Twitter and
Google+.
PUBLISHED: 16 DECEMBER 2013
Text: © All rights reserved.
Images: Creative Commons License
http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/12/art-elevates-the-mind-by-increasing-empathy-critical-thinking-and-tolerance.php[8/7/2014 3:18:30 PM]