Exploring the Relationship Between Anxious and Depressive Symptoms, Engagement with Beauty, and Life Satisfaction

A dispositional tendency to "engage with beauty" involves perceiving and appreciating beauty in art, nature, and others' virtuous behavior. While engagement with beauty has been associated with gratitude, spiritual transcendence, and life satisfaction, few studies have assessed engagement with beauty in clinical populations. This study explores the 1) link between engagement with beauty, anxiety, and depression, and 2) whether this trait influences the associations between anxiety/depression and life satisfaction. The sample included 930 participants, (55% male, Mage = 37.0, SD = 11.2). Self-report measures assessed depressive and anxiety symptoms and life satisfaction. The Engagement with Beauty Scale (Diessner et al., 2008) assessed three subscales of engagement with natural, artistic, and moral beauty. Moderation analyses examined whether engagement with beauty (M) impacted the relationship between depressive and anxiety symptoms (IVs) and life satisfaction (DV). Results showed a significant interaction with artistic beauty and depressive symptoms (B = 0.15, p = .002). Specifically, the negative association between depressive symptoms and life satisfaction was buffered by higher levels of engagement with artistic beauty. All interaction effects with moral and natural beauty were nonsignificant. These findings suggest appreciation of artistic beauty may act as a buffer between lower life satisfaction and depression; therefore, future work should expand this research to replicate and understand the mechanisms at play and investigate whether clinical populations could benefit from using engagement with beauty in the context of treatment.