Cultural and artistic activities extend beyond leisure pursuits by fostering individual creativity, self-expression, and emotional healing, while also serving as a medium through which individuals reconnect with society via symbolic meanings and aesth...
Cultural and artistic activities extend beyond leisure pursuits by fostering individual creativity, self-expression, and emotional healing, while also serving as a medium through which individuals reconnect with society via symbolic meanings and aesthetic values that are difficult to encounter in everyday life. In particular, community-based cultural and artistic activities play a critical role in restoring weakened senses of social connectedness within fragmented daily contexts.
Against this backdrop, the present study empirically examines the effects of community-based cultural and artistic activities on sense of community and subjective well-being, with a specific focus on the mediating role of psychological sense of belonging.
Data were collected through an online survey using convenience sampling from adults who had prior experience participating in community-based cultural and artistic activities, yielding a total of 342 valid responses. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS Statistics 25.0 and AMOS 20.0.
The main findings are as follows.
First, the structural model encompassing cultural and artistic activity experiences, psychological sense of belonging, sense of community, and subjective well-being demonstrated an acceptable level of model fit, confirming its adequacy in explaining the relationships among the variables.
Second, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experiences of cultural and artistic activities were found to have significant positive effects on psychological sense of belonging, whereas sensory experience did not exhibit a significant relationship.
Third, psychological sense of belonging showed significant positive effects on both sense of community and subjective well-being, highlighting its central role in linking individual experiences with collective consciousness and overall quality of life.
Fourth, analysis of the direct effects revealed that sensory, emotional, and cognitive experiences had significant positive effects on sense of community, while behavioral experience did not. This finding suggests that the formation of sense of community does not necessarily depend on active behavioral participation, but can be strengthened through shared emotions, collective interpretations, and accumulated meanings.
Finally, mediation analysis indicated that emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experiences exerted significant indirect effects on sense of community and subjective well-being through psychological sense of belonging.
Overall, the findings underscore the importance of psychological sense of belonging as a key mechanism through which community-based cultural and artistic activities contribute to both communal integration and individual well-being.