How different colors affect people's mood

Color Research

The importance of color is undeniable. It is an essential part of daily life and it is prevalent in everything individuals perceive. Even at night, many people dream in color. Many studies have recognized that colors have also a strong impact on emotions and feelings (Ballast, 2002). Numerous studies conducted by those in the field of psychiatry have concluded specific facts about human color likes and dislikes. Clearly there is a close link between colors and emotions. When using the Rorschach test, for example, it is found that an emotionally responsive person will react quite freely to color overall. An individual who is emotionally inhibited may be shocked or embarrassed by a color intrusion. Such color correlations begin very early. Researchers have examined how colors affect mood. Lawler and Lawler (1965, cited in Hemphill) found that children used yellow crayons to color after listening to a happy story and a brown crayon to color with when hearing a sad story.

Similarly, in a study by Boyatzis and Varghese (1994), children's emotional association with colors was investigated. Thirty boys and thirty girls, who were equally divided into two groups of 5-year-olds and 6-1/2-year-olds, were asked their favorite color. They were then shown nine different colors, in random order one at a time. For each color, each child was asked, "How does this color make you feel?" All children were able to verbally express an emotional response to each color. Sixty-nine percent of the children's emotional responses were positive, such as showing happiness or excitement. The children's responses also demonstrated a distinct color-emotion association. They had positive reactions to the bright colors such as pink, blue, and red, and negative emotions for darker colors such as brown, black, gray. Children's emotional reactions to bright colors became increasingly positive with age; girls especially demonstrated a preference for brighter colors and a dislike for darker colors. Boys were more likely than girls to have positive emotional associations with the dark colors.

The study of color and emotion originated very early. Jaensch (1930) determined the distinction of red yellow vs. blue green. He concluded that all people can be grouped in a way that was the same as the red-green color blind subjects, that is, either into the more sensitive zone at the warm end of the spectrum or at the other end of the zone in the more sensitive cold end. The subjects at the warm color dominance end are characterized by an intimate relationship to the world of visual perception. They are receptive and open to outside influences. They appear to immerse themselves quite freely in their social environment. Emotionally, they are characterized by feelings of warmth, suggestibility, and strong concerns. In the subject-object relationship, the emphasis is on the object rather than the subject.

On the other hand, individuals who are on the cold color dominant end, according to Jaensch's studies (1930), have a detached and separate attitude to the external world. They have difficulty adjusting to change and new situations and even sometimes to express themselves clearly. They are distant and reserved emotionally. In the subject-object relationship, the emphasis is on the subject. In brief, the warm color dominant individual is extraverted and the cold color dominant more introverted. More recently, other studies have been conducted regarding color preference and personality traits such as introversion, extroversion and neuroticism (Choungourian, 1972).

Other color variations are shown to have their individual effects, most associated with preferences (Kaya & Epps, 2004). Hemphill (1996) questioned twenty men and twenty women regarding their favorite color, the color they most wear, their emotional reactions to colors and why they made their wearing decisions. He found that positive emotional associations were the result of bright colors and negative emotional associations the result of dark colors. Similarly, Ballast (2002) studied the wavelength of color as associated with the warm or cool temperature hues. Respondents thought of the cooler colors, such as the purples, blues and greens in such terms as restful, calm, and quiet. To the contrary, those individuals participating in the study who saw the warmer colors, such as the oranges, reds and yellows, felt that these were more active and stimulating.

Similarly, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Search&itool=pubmed_AbstractPlus&term=%22Valdez+P%22%5BAuthor%5DValdez and www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Search&itool=pubmed_AbstractPlus&term=%22Mehrabian+a%22%5BAuthor%5DMehrabian (1994) investigated how participants reacted emotionally to color hue, saturation and brightness by using the Munsell color system and Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance emotion model and found that effects caused by brightness were almost the same for chromatic and achromatic colors. Once again, the blue, blue-green, red, red-purple and purple-blue created the most pleasant emotional responses and the yellow and green-yellow the least pleasant.

Another line of study is the correlation between words and color. What specific color or set of colors does a certain word evoke? Interestingly, there were similarities between the word and color association and some among countries, as well. Word associations were studied by Hupka et. al (1997) between the concepts of color and emotions in the separate countries of Germany, Mexico, Poland, Russia, and the United States. In this case, 661 undergraduate students noted to what extent anger, envy, fear, and jealousy reminded them of twelve separate terms of color. In each of these nations, the colors of anger were black and red, fear was black, and jealousy was red. However, there were also some cross-cultural differences. These included that Poles connected anger, envy, and jealousy with purple, as well; Germans correlated envy and jealousy with yellow; and Americans associated envy with black, green, and red; however, the Russians associated this word with black, purple, and yellow.

Researchers who are analyzing business marketing and communication are also studying the impact of different color type and how the readers react. As noted in Jones (1997), Garcia and Bohle (1986) have found that advertisers recognize that communications in color have more of an impact than those in black and white. These colorful communiques more readily grab the interest of the reader and make them recall the information better. They also present a favorable lasting impression. The study by Garcia and Bohle found that readers like newspapers with one extra color more than they do black and white ones and full-color ones even more. The color pages were viewed by readers as easier to read, more modern, and slightly more important and believable.

These last studies based on marketing and communication led to the hypothesis of the present research, since they show the association between specific written color of words and reactions. By putting together information from this research and devising a control test of the same words using different colors one can see the relationship between the meaning of words, the emotions and color. It is predicted that a color will be more effective than the meaning of the word itself. The word "happy" in yellow will be more positive than the word "happy" in brown.

HYPOTHESIS

Hypothesized Results / Analysis

In theory, it is expected that the same word in different colors will yield different emotional reactions. The word in yellow will induce a greater emotional number and in brown will induce a lower emotional number.

METHOD

Participants

The sample consisted of 28 college students (16 men and 12 women) at a university institution in the Midwest. The mean age was 21 years (range = 18-25 years). None of the participants had defective color vision as tested by an independent optometrist.

Materials

The task was administered by having color words presented on a computer screen using Arial font, size 72. Thirty words were chosen that were consistent with the one emotion category of "happy" interspersed with fifty words from emotion-free, neutral words from 234 words classified as "affective conditions" (Clore, Ortony, & Foss, 1987, p. 765).

The following are the adjectives that will be used in both yellow and brown:

Surpised

Chipper

Astonished

Gleeful

Enthusiastic

Merry

Excited

Gay

Elated

Elevated

Pleased

Humorous

Delighted

Spirit

Eager

Playful

Happy

Genial

Contended

Carefree

Glad

Rosy

Cheerful

Zest

Exhilarated

Glowing

Bright

Sparkle

Sunny

Enliven

Procedure

Each person sat in a cubical with neutral grey walls with a computer and saw a word displayed on the screen for five seconds in either two different colors, bright yellow or brown. The words with the colors on them were mixed up to counterbalance for order effects. The neutral words were interspersed in a nonrandom way. The subjects were then asked to circle a number on the continuum next to each adjective representing an emotion rating. Each session lasted for ten minutes.

On the continuum, ten represented the highest feeling of that particular emotion or it evoked the strongest feeling of that word, and the number one represented that the color did not invoke that specific emotion at all. The number five was a neutral feeling. They were also asked to rank the neutral words as a control. For example, when the word "happy" was shown and the participant felt the color affected a strong feeling of happiness, then that person circled the number close to ten. When all the words were seen, the survey was collected.

RESULTS

Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software program. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data. The results revealed that participants had stronger positive feelings about the words that were in yellow vs. The same words that were in brown. The words in brown averaged a "4," so the respondents still recognized the word as somewhat positive. Both males and females scored the yellows similarly, and males scored the brown higher than girls.

DISCUSSION

The results of this study suggest that words read online or in print have different emotional responses based more on the color of the word than they do on the word itself.