ASEBL Journal – Volume 11 Issue 2, Spring 2015
(forthcoming)). Exposure as importance is an evolutionary priming to give importance to what is around you. The selective reasons for such a disposition should
be pretty clear. In large part, if something is of attention to everyone around you,
you should pay attention to it. This has resulted in various psychological phenomena, including the bandwagon effect, availability cascades and the truth effect
(Hasher, Goldstein, and Toppino 1977) (Weaver, Garcia and Schwarz 2007). The
bandwagon effect is understandable from an evolutionary point of view because of
the benefits of conforming socially in same groups during the Pleistocene against
the dangers of irking one’s group members. One of the most startling aspects of
this development psychologically is how the brain sends the same signals to the
body as it does when you think you have done something right, as when you conform to a strongly-formed social opinion even when you disagree. And, the brain
undergoes the same chemistry as when you think you have done wrong, as when
you go against the social majority with a negative consequence to yourself
(Klucharev et al. 2009) (Izuma 2013). Cost and benefit socially are likely the
strongest reasons for the formation of psychologies that produce availability cascades and the truth effect, where exposure to, and popularity of, certain claims
makes them seem more plausible. The effects of the truth effect are enhanced by
the ease by which the information can be processed and understood, which is
called processing fluency. Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman have suggested that
the processing fluency of popular claims about artworks plays a huge cognitive
role in aesthetic pleasure (2004). The easier it is to understand concepts in artworks, the more striking and outstanding themes in artworks, it is likelier people
will enjoy the artworks. There may be literary reasons of originality and depth why
connoisseurs prefer James Joyce to other writers, but the low, time-requiring processing fluency of his work is one of the main reasons why the majority of people
don’t finish reading his texts.
This is of interest in evaluating concepts like New Zealandism in art because it
suggests first, that the prominence of Angus and McCahon as two of New Zealand’s most famous painters was not because of their expression of New Zealandism, but both this and the belief that their work expresses New Zealandism.
Second, that critical discussion of concepts like New Zealandism is influenced
heavily by the impact that ideas and arguments have on general opinions and beliefs in society. Evolutionary aesthetics explains a strong element of social constructivism in a