Are Artists Hardwired To Be Poor?

Research shows that artists' brains don't respond to monetary motivation the way that other people's do. Learn why this might be -- and whether it means we create types are doomed to poverty -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain
Stuff Lauren vocal bomb here. The image of the starving
artist is a well known cultural stereotype. But is it
simply a stereotype or could the brain chemistry of artists
actually be responsible for their tendency towards poverty. An experiment
conducted in Germany raises this question and probably the eyebrows

(00:26):
of many artists. As reported in the April issue of
the Creativity Research Journal, the researchers sat down twelve artists
and twelve non artists and gave them colored images to
choose from on a screen, including green images that provided
a cash reward. When the green images popped up and
were chosen, the non artists brains showed a great deal

(00:47):
of activity in the pleasure area that releases dopamine. Brain
scans of the artists showed less activity in that dopamine
producing area. The researchers concluded that the artists were less
responsive to monetary rewards than other people. It's admittedly a
small sample size, but still an interesting result. The authors
wrote in the paper. These results support the existence of

(01:08):
characteristic neural traits and artists. But do these neural traits
mean that all but the most successful artists in fact
have low earning potential. First of all, the poverty of
artists may be culturally exaggerated. As a group, artists in
the United States have higher incomes than the average American worker.
According to census figures analyzed by the National Endowment for

(01:29):
the Arts, in the medium income for craft and fine
art artists in seventeen was a little over forty dollars
per year, or about twenty four dollars per hour, a
livable wage by most standards. And second, the nature of
the art market makes the life of an artist a
bit less fundamentally secure. This is explained well in the
book Art and Value Arts Economic Exceptionalism in Classical, Neoclassical

(01:54):
and Marxist Economics by painter and professor Dave Beach. He
described how the art market is different from the market
for most other goods. Art is not a standard commodity.
He wrote, the creation of art, as well as the
marketing and purchase of art, are outside the bounds of
the regular market. Art is not usually made as a
result of corporate investment. Artists do not generally get an

(02:16):
hourly wage for their labor, and the price of art
is not set through competition in the same way that
other products prices are determined. The art market is different
and it shapes the prices artists can set and expect
for their labor. Dutch painter and sociologist Hans Ebbing explored
the mindset as well as the socioeconomic forces that lead
to what he called the admiseration of artists, immiseration meaning

(02:39):
economic impoverishment. He said that for one thing, the art
market has a winner take all attitude, and in addition,
artists may not have other skills and so remain in
the work that they are drawn to. He said that
artists also find non monetary creation based rewards in their work.
By the way, a bit of perspective, if you earn

(02:59):
more than you one thousand dollars a year, you are
part of the richest four percent of the planet. Today's
episode was written by Still Simonton and produced by Tyler Clang.
If you enjoy our show and want to support us
in return for some brainy housewares or people wears, visit
our online shop at t public dot com slash brain stuff,

(03:21):
and of course, for more on this and lots of
other rich topics, visit our home planet, How stuff Works
dot com,