Seeing the Subjective as Objective: Naive Realism in Aesthetic Judgments

Abstract

Naïve realism, or the belief that one is privy to a knowable, objective reality (Robinson, Keltner, Ross, & Ward, 1995), represents a significant barrier to cooperation, conflict resolution, and effective communication. This research represents a novel contribution to the naïve realism literature in demonstrating for the first time that naïve realistic beliefs, and attributions about others based on those beliefs, are pervasive even in domains typically thought of as subjective, such as in aesthetic preferences. In this series of studies, participants made aesthetic judgments about various paintings and saw an alleged subject's preferences that either agreed with the participant or with another person who had supposedly been in the study. Participants believed another "participant's" preferences to be more objective when they matched those of the self, and were more likely to make negative dispositional attributions about the other (e.g., about individuality or leadership potential) when they possessed preferences opposite those of the self. These attributions crucially depend on the preferences and not the person being agreed with, are not predicated on witnessing a specific act of agreement, and emerge regardless of the ostensible source of bias. Implications for interpersonal perception and group cooperation and conflict are discussed.