Beauty is in the eye of the psychologically fulfilled: How need satisfying experiences shape aesthetic perceptions of spaces

Individuals perceive beauty as a function of physical attributes paired with the subjective experience of an object or a space.
Yet, little or no research has investigated how either relational or emotional experiences shape perceptions of the physical
world. Four studies were conducted to address this question using self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci in Psychol Inq
11:319–338, 2000) as a guiding framework. Studies 1 and 2 indicated that satisfaction of the needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy
in one’s childhood home was linked to perceptions of beauty directly and indirectly through emotions of the past (recollections
of happiness) and present (nostalgia). Two additional studies focused on present-day spaces. In Study 3, we found that need
satisfaction impacted perceptions of the university campus as beautiful. In a final study, we manipulated needs in the lab
to identify a causal model of aesthetic perceptions. Findings are contextualized within the self-determination theory and
perceived beauty literatures.