The Findings
Beauty in Work
Beauty matters immensely to scientists and shapes their work profoundly. In fact, most scientists regularly experience wonder, awe, and beauty at work, and consider such experiences important for science. In addition, more frequent aesthetic experiences at work are associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and better mental health.
Of key importance to research institutions is the deeper understanding of the motivations for scientific work discovered in the study. These include new insights into key drivers of scientific inquiry, and the factors that shape job satisfaction, retention, and burnout in career paths of scientists. Could beauty at work be a powerful antidote to workplace woes such as burnout and attrition?
Explore the Findings
The Beauty of Understanding
The study also found a distinct type of beauty, which Vaidyanathan refers to as “the beauty of understanding,” experienced in moments of delight in discovering the hidden order or inner logic of things. This kind of beauty can sometimes be experienced as the “a-ha” moments of science, when surprising experimental results produce evidence that requires scientists to ask new questions. Sometimes these results also require them to change their prior assumptions—and when they do, they prefer this new understanding of reality over reinforcing those prior assumptions.
The Big Question: Can we prefer truth over our own assumptions?
These findings raise the question of whether this posture of science—this preference for grasping the truth of what’s really going on over one’s prior assumptions—could be translated beyond the realm of science to provoke new questions in other realms, like law, business, or education. Imagine the possibilities if truth is something we can love even more than our own opinions.
That's a place where the public can look to scientists to try to understand how we can cultivate this kind of aesthetic of understanding that comes from appreciating surprise, changing one’s prior assumptions in the face of evidence, and learning from the collective efforts of the community of inquiry.
Exploring this question has led Vaidyanathan into dialogue with researchers and various experts across a range of professions who share how beauty drives their work. From neuroscience and physics to art, design, and food, these conversations are captured in Vaidyanathan’s Beauty at Work podcast, also funded by the Templeton Religion Trust.
