- Both VTS and guided visits produced short-term reductions in state anxiety and improvements in mood (ΔSAI = -5.55; d_av = -0.81; mood d_av = 0.72).
- No statistically detectable difference between activities after baseline adjustment; lack of control group and non-random allocation preclude causal attribution.
- Content analysis showed different experiential routes: VTS yielded cognitive and social-relational descriptions; guided visits yielded emotional and aesthetic descriptions; findings are preliminary.
Front Psychol. 2026 Oct 19;17:1904352. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1904352. eCollection 2026.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Museum visits are increasingly recognised as contributors to psychological well-being, but less is known about whether museum activities designed for educational purposes are associated with short-term affective changes. Within the ASBA (Anxiety, Stress, Brain-friendly museum, Approach) project, this study examined two educational (non-therapeutic) activities, a visual thinking strategies (VTS) session and a standard guided visit, conducted in two culturally distinct settings in Milan, Italy: the Modern Art Gallery (MAG) and the Natural History Museum (NHM).
METHODS: In a pre-post design with two between-subjects factors (activity and museum), 135 adults attending 11 group sessions (VTS: n= 85, 7 sessions; guided visit: n= 50, 4 sessions) completed the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI) and six Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) before and after the activity and briefly described their experience in an open-ended question. State anxiety was the primary, confirmatory outcome; all other analyses were exploratory. Changes were analysed with multilevel models including a random intercept for session, and the open-ended responses with a descriptive content analysis.
RESULTS: State anxiety decreased from pre to post (Δ = -5.55, 95% CI [-6.85, -4.26]; d_av = -0.81) and mood improved (Δ = +1.07, 95% CI [0.74, 1.40]; d_av = 0.72), with negligible dependence within sessions (ICC ≤ 0.04). In a multilevel ANCOVA adjusting for baseline anxiety, no statistically detectable difference emerged between activities (adjusted difference = 0.38 SAI points, 95% CI [-2.67, 3.42]). The content analysis suggested that participants reached these changes through different experiential routes: cognitive descriptions prevailed after VTS, emotional-aesthetic descriptions after the guided visit, and social-relational descriptions were reported only after VTS.
DISCUSSION: Both educational activities were followed by comparable short-term improvements in state anxiety and mood, although participants described them in different terms. Because the study did not include a non-museum control condition and allocation was not randomised, these changes cannot be causally attributed to the museum activities. The findings are preliminary and hypothesis-generating and warrant controlled studies of museum-based activities for wellbeing.
PMID:42973517 | PMC:PMC13724324 | DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1904352
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