Aesthetic Education to Psychological Protection: A Bayesian Network Analysis of Aesthetic Experience and Social Anxiety

Aesthetic experience, viewed in positive and educational psychology as a source of pleasure and a regulator of emotion and social adaptation through flow, may protect adolescents from social anxiety. Using data from 1,541 junior high students in Yunnan Province, this study employed Bayesian network pseudo-causal modeling to explore links between aesthetic experience and social anxiety. Results showed a hierarchical structure of aesthetic experience (“culture → perception → understanding → flow”) with emotion as a downstream outcome; social interaction as the central node in the anxiety network; and a negative pseudo-causal path between flow and social interaction anxiety. Moderation analyses indicated that moderate and sustained program participation (13–24 months) and low-frequency, regular extracurricular training (≤2 h/week) strengthened flow's protective effect, whereas excessive or brief participation reduced it. Findings highlight balanced aesthetic education as a feasible path for promoting adolescent mental health.