TY  - EJOU
AU  - Zhang, Teng 
AU  - Wang, Kunpeng 

TI  - Self-concept and aesthetic experience in young adult students: A sequential mediation model of creativity and spirituality
T2  - Journal of Psychology in Africa

PY  - 
VL  - 
IS  - 
SN  - 1815-5626

AB  - Given the increasing emphasis on holistic development in arts education, understanding how individual psychological factors shape aesthetic perception has become a critical area of inquiry. This study examined the relationship between self-concept and aesthetic experience, focusing on the sequential mediating roles of creativity and spirituality in young adults. A total of 744 art students (aged 17–25 years) completed measures of self-concept, creativity, spirituality, and aesthetic experience. The results of the sequential mediation model showed that: higher self-concept is associated with higher aesthetic experience. Creativity plays a mediating role between self-concept and aesthetic experience to be lower. Spirituality plays a mediating role between self-concept and aesthetic experience to be higher. Creativity and spirituality had a masking effect on the relationship between self-concept, which is explained because the indirect effects via creativity and spirituality operating in opposite directions in the overall predictive pathway, thereby suppressing the direct association between self-concept and aesthetic experience. These findings support Self-Consistency Theory by demonstrating that individuals tend to maintain coherence between internal self-evaluations and experiential engagement, and they extend this theory by showing that such consistency is expressed through psychological resources such as creativity and spirituality in shaping aesthetic experience. The implications for student support suggest that enhancing creativity and spirituality in educational settings may help students translate self-concept into more meaningful aesthetic engagement, thereby supporting psychological and experiential outcomes in academic and artistic contexts.
KW  - Self-concept; creativity; spirituality; aesthetic experience; chain mediation model

DO  - 10.32604/jpa.2026.077584