Presentation by Dr Nicola Holt Senior Lecturer in

Presentation by Dr Nicola Holt Senior Lecturer in Psychology Does ‘altered consciousness’ mediate the relationship between art-making and wellbeing? An experience sampling study Date 7 th September 2018

Overview of talk Aims: To describe a study using the experience sampling method to measure the immediate impact of art-making on conscious experience Rationale for the study What is the experience sampling method? Analysis of changes in conscious experience following art-making Conclusions: Art-making has both immediate and longer-term associations with well-being, a process in which altered states of consciousness may play a mediatory role.

Rationale for the study 1. Health benefits of participatory arts has a growing evidence base (Chatterjee, Camic, Lockyer & Thomson, 2017; Clift, 2012; Stuckey & Nobel, 2010) 2. Nevertheless, it is important to improve understanding of the mechanisms by which art-making may improve health and well-being 3. Existing psychological ‘models’: i. iii. iv. Catharsis (and decreased cortisol) (Pennebaker, 1997; Fancourt et al. , 2016) Cognition (Ullrich & Lutgendorf, 2002) Self-esteem, self-regulation (Camic, 2008; King, 2001) The flow state? (Reynolds & Prior, 2006) 4. The current paper focuses on art-making as a personal resource in everyday life and its associations with psychological indices of wellbeing (both ‘in the moment’ and longer-term) and conscious experience in order to explore the psychological mechanisms by which art-making promotes well-being in this context.

Background: Art-making and ‘absorbed altered states’ 1. Altered states may accompany intense creative involvement: i. ‘Creative participation’ (Milner, 1950) ii. Peak experience or ‘creative attitude’ (Maslow, 1971; May, 1975) iii. Flow state (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996) 2. Correlational support for a link between involvement in the arts and peak experiences and positive mystical experiences (e. g. , Ayers et al. , Taft, 1969; Holt, 2012) 3. Neurofeedback studies (e. g. , Gruzelier, 2014) suggest that the ‘flow state’ may enhance artistic performance

The process always seems to be accompanied by a feeling that the ordinary sense of self had temporarily disappeared, there had been a kind of blanking out of ordinary consciousness; even the awareness of blanking out had gone, so that it was only afterwards when I had returned to ordinary consciousness that I remembered that there had been this phase of complete lack of self-consciousness.

What is the Experience Sampling Method (ESM)? Participants carry a handheld device for a set period and are triggered at random times to complete an Experience Sampling Questionnaire (ESQ) • • • Repeated Random ‘Real’ • Tracks experience over time (rather than at one or two arbitrary points) Reporting ‘now’ (reducing retrospective errors/reporting artefacts) Ecological validity (and complexity) • •

Method 1. 41 artists (Bristol based) 2. Tracked experience: i. Ten ‘beeps’ a day (random points within ten intervals) ii. Over seven days 3. Experience Sampling Questionnaire (ESQ): i. iii. iv. v. vi. How much time have you spent making art? Mood (PANAS, Thompson, 2007) Cognition (PCI, Pekala, 1991) Altered state (PCI, Pekala, 1991) Conditions for ‘flow’ (Engeser & Rheinberg, 2008) Self-esteem (Barrantes-Vidal, Chun, Myin-Germeys & Kwapil, 2013) 4. Well-being measures: Experience Sampling Questionnaire 1. When you were beeped, where were you? 2. When you were beeped, who were you with? 3. When you were beeped, what was the main thing that you were doing? 4. 5. Since you were last beeped how much time have you spent making art? ESQ Since you were last beeped how much time have you spent thinking about creative projects? 6. Since you were last beeped have you had any creative ideas or moments of inspiration? At the time of the beep: 7. 8. 9. … I was feeling |Happy|Sad|Satisfied|Low-spirited|Inspired 10. … I was feeling |Hostile|Ashamed|Determined|Angry|Annoyed|Afraid 11. … I felt my body greatly expanded beyond the boundaries of my skin … time seemed to greatly speed up or slow down 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. … I was feeling |Tense|Nervous|Relaxed|Calm|Upset. . . I was feeling |Active|Sluggish|Sleepy|Energetic|Alert|Attentive … the world around me became extremely different in colour or form … I experienced very profound and enlightening insights of certain ideas or issues … I experienced no or very few images … my imagery was as clear and vivid as objects in the real world … my attention was completely inner-directed (vs. outer-directed) … I was distracted and unable to concentrate on anything … I lost consciousness of myself … I was silently talking to myself a great deal … my thinking was clear and understandable … I relinquished control and became passive and receptive to what I was experiencing (vs. wilfully controlling what I was experiencing) … I felt just the right amount of challenge in what I was doing … I knew what I had to do each step of the way … I felt good about myself i. Happiness (hedonic, eudemonic, engagement) (Peterson, Park & Seligman, 2005) ii. Self-determination theory (competence, relatedness, autonomy) (Gagne´, 2003) iii. Self-efficacy and self-regulation (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995; Schwarzer, Diehl & Schmitz, 1999)

Analysis 1. Hierarchical Linear Modelling i. Nested data ii. 2495 sampled experiences (level one), nested within: iii. 41 artists (level two) … +38 Mood, cognition, state x 70

Results: Conscious experience (level one) 1. Participants described themselves as in the process of art making ‘right now’ 9. 4% of the time (235 occasions). The mean response (on a scale from 0 to 100) to having recently been art-making (since the ‘last beep’) was 25. 18. 2. Recent art-making was significantly associated with: i. Mood – increases in positive affect ii. Cognition – vivid imagery and internal dialogue iii. State of consciousness – conditions for flow, altered state and loss of self-awareness Parameter Estimates for Multilevel Model of Level One Stimulus Variables as Predictors of Recent Art-making Experiential variables Estimates (and p-values) Flow . 005 (<. 001) *** Altered experience . 001 (. 028) * Self-consciousness (reduced) . 003 (. 050) * Imagery . 005 (<. 001) *** Attention (inward) <. 001 (. 949) Distractibility <. 001 (. 943) Clarity of cognition -. 002 (. 299) Volitional control -. 002 (. 211) Internal dialogue . 003 (. 004) ** Self-esteem . 002 (. 379) Positive affect . 165 (<. 001) *** Negative affect -. 106 (. 057) *** p ≤. 001, ** p ≤. 01, * p ≤. 05

Results: Global wellbeing (level two) 1. Frequency of art-making is significantly associated with: i. Eudemonic happiness (‘a meaningful life’) ii. Self-regulation (being able to organise oneself in order to meet goals) iii. Note, the directions of these effects are known. Parameter Estimates for Multilevel Model of Level Two person-level Variables as Predictors of Art-making Well-being variables Estimates (and p-values) Engagement (happiness) -. 016 (. 588) Hedonic (happiness) . 019 (. 487) Eudemonic (happiness) . 073 (. 011) * Autonomy -. 023 (. 344) Relatedness -. 002 (. 256) Competence -. 002 (. 953) Self-efficacy -. 011 (. 600) Self-regulation . 005 (. 042) * *** p ≤. 001, ** p ≤. 01, * p ≤. 05

Results: Cross-level interactions 1. Does experience following artmaking depend upon global indices of well-being? i. Those with lower levels of eudemonic happiness had a greater improvement in hedonic tone following art-making (γ =. 016, p =. 002) ii. Those with higher levels of wellbeing were more likely to enter an altered state (γ <. 001 p =. 031) and experience inner speech (γ = -. 001, p =. 002) while art-making (and less likely in other contexts)

Results: Conscious experience (level one) 1. The mean response (on a scale from 0 to 100) to having had a moment of inspiration (since the ‘last beep’) was 42. 23. 2. Recent inspiration was significantly associated with: i. Wellbeing – self-esteem and positive mood ii. Cognition – vivid imagery and internal dialogue iii. Altered state of consciousness Parameter Estimates for Multilevel Model of Level One Stimulus Variables as Predictors of Recent Moments of Inspiration Experiential variables Estimates (and p-values) Flow . 012 (. 430) Altered experience . 135 (<. 001) *** Self-consciousness (reduced) . 002 (. 927) Imagery . 135 (<. 001) *** Attention (inward) . 002 (. 926) Distractibility . 024 (. 252) Clarity of cognition . 033 (. 212) Volitional control -. 003 (. 205) Internal dialogue . 011 (<. 001) *** Self-esteem . 141 (<. 001) *** Positive affect 4. 735 (<. 001) *** Negative affect -. 013 (. 886) *** p ≤. 001, ** p ≤. 01, * p ≤. 05

Results: Conscious experience (level one) 1. Mean response (on a scale from 0 to 100) to having recently been thinking about creative projects (since the ‘last beep’) was 50. 38. 2. Thinking about creative projects was significantly associated with: i. Wellbeing – increases in positive affect and self-esteem ii. Cognition – vivid imagery and internal dialogue iii. State of consciousness – conditions for flow and altered state of consciousness Parameter Estimates for Multilevel Model of Level One Stimulus Variables as Predictors of Thinking About Creative Projects Experiential variables Estimates (and p-values) Flow . 068 (<. 001) *** Altered experience . 026 (. 024) * Self-consciousness (reduced) . 017 (. 489) Imagery . 177 (<. 001) *** Attention (inward) . 004 (. 949) Distractibility . 044 (. 104) Clarity of cognition . 004 (. 886) Volitional control . 005 (. 884) Internal dialogue . 016 (<. 001) *** Self-esteem . 105 (. 003) ** Positive affect 4. 97 (<. 001) *** Negative affect -. 182 (. 859) *** p ≤. 001, ** p ≤. 01, * p ≤. 05

A note on schizotypy 1. Subclinical expression of experiences and behaviours analogous with symptoms of schizophrenia (Mason, Linney & Claridge, 2015): Positive (perceptual-cognitive aberrations, e. g. apophenia, déjà vu, magical beliefs) Negative (social and physical anhedonia, e. g. , withdrawal from Disorganised (difficulties with attention, concentration and decision- intimacy, flat affect, lack of aesthetic pleasure) making) 2. Positive schizotypy high in sample (but not negative schizotypy) 3. Positive schizotypy alone significantly predicted art-making and inspiration and a range of cognitive and perceptual experiences (altered states, flow, inspiration and daydream-like cognition), but not experiences indicative of poor functioning (e. g. , negative affect, low self -esteem, lack of rational cognition) 3. Supports construct of healthy schizotypy (Mohr & Claridge, 2015)

Conclusions 1. There may be multiple psychological ‘routes to well-being’ through artmaking: i. Affective – increasing subjective feelings of happiness/excitement in everyday life (Silvia et al. , 2014) i. Cognitive – increasing imagery and internal dialogue which may help to create a meaningful life that is understandable, healthy internal representations, crucial to well-being and a healthy sense of self (Mc. Carthy-Jones & Fernyhough, 2011) i. State of consciousness – enabling a self-rewarding absorbed state that is associated with feelings of accomplishment, fulfilment, and a sense of meaning in life (Bryce & Haworth, 2002)

Publications (from this data set) • Holt, N. J. (2018) Using the experience sampling method to examine the psychological mechanisms by which participatory art improves wellbeing. Perspectives in Public Health, 138 (1). pp. 5565. Available from: http: //eprints. uwe. ac. uk/33370 • Holt, N. (2018) The expression of schizotypy in the daily lives of artists. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts. http: //dx. doi. org/10. 1037/aca 0000176. Available from: http: //eprints. uwe. ac. uk/35006

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