User:Dalia Arafat5221/Color psychology

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Color psychology is the study of hues as a determinant of human behavior. Color influences perceptions that are not obvious, such as the taste of food. Colors have qualities that can cause certain emotions in people. How color influences individuals may differ depending on age, gender, and culture. For instance, heterosexual men tend to report that red outfits enhance female attractiveness, while heterosexual females deny any outfit color impacting that of men. Many studies have been published in support of Color Psychology, including studies that have analyzed the effect of colors on mood, behavior, cognition, and mental processes.

Although color associations can vary contextually between cultures, color preference is to be relatively uniform across gender and race. Colors can also enhance the effectiveness of placebos. For example, red or orange pills are generally used as stimulants.

Color psychology is also widely used in marketing and branding. Marketers see color as important, as c Color can influence a consumers' emotions and perceptions about goods and services. Logos for companies are important, since the logos can attract more customers. This happens when customers believe the company logo matches the personality of the goods and services, such as the color pink heavily used on Victoria's Secret branding. Colors are important for window displays in stores. Research shows that colors such as red tended to attract spontaneous purchasers, despite cool colors such as blue being more favorable. Red and yellow, as a combination, can stimulate hunger, which may help to explain, in part, the success of fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's, Burger King, and In-N-Out Burger. The phenomenon has been referred to as the "ketchup & mustard" theory.

While marketing makes lucrative use of color psychology's principles, the applications of the field touch many other domains such as in medical therapies, sports, hospital settings, and even in game design. Carl Jung has been credited as one of the pioneers in this field for his explorations into the properties and meanings of colors in our lives. Jung is quoted for saying, "colours are the mother tongue of the subconscious"

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History

Before color psychology became a field of its own, color was used for centuries in treatment methods as early as 2000 BC. The ancient Egyptians documented color "cures" using painted rooms or sunlight shining through crystals as therapy. One of the earliest medical documents, the Nei Ching, documents color diagnoses associated with color healing practices.

In 1810, German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published Theory of Colors, a book explaining his beliefs on the psychological nature of color. In his book, von Goethe describes the color yellow as "serene" and blue as a mixture of "excitement and repose." In 1942, Kurt Goldstein, a German neurologist, conducted a series of experiments on various participants to determine the effects of color on motor function. In one experiment, Goldstein claims that a woman suffering from a cerebral disease was prone to frequently falling over, and wearing red significantly increased this. However, wearing the colors green or blue calmed these symptoms. Other researchers were unable to prove Goldstein's studies to be true, therefore, his hypothesis is considered inaccurate. While Goldstein's hypothesis was never proven, his work encouraged further research into the physiological effects of color.

Carl Jung is most prominently associated with the pioneering stages of color psychology in the 20th century. Jung was most interested in colors' properties and meanings, as well as in art's potential as a tool for psychotherapy. His studies and writings on color symbolism cover a broad range of topics, from mandalas to the works of Picasso to the near-universal sovereignty of the color gold, the lattermost of which, according to Charles A. Riley II, "expresses... the apex of spirituality, and intuition". In pursuing his studies of color usage and effects across cultures and time periods, as well as in examining his patients' self-created mandalas, Jung attempted to unlock and develop a language, or code, the ciphers of which would be colors. He looked to alchemy to further his understanding of the secret language of color, finding the key to his research in alchemical transmutation. His work has historically informed the modern field of color psychology

Model of color psychology[edit]

The general model of color psychology relies on six basic principles:

1. Color can carry a specific meaning.
2. Color meaning is either based in learned meaning or biologically innate meaning.
3. The perception of a color causes evaluation automatically by the person perceiving.
4. The evaluation process forces color-motivated behavior.
5. Color usually exerts its influence automatically.
6. Color meaning and effect has to do with context as well.

Embodied and Referential Meaning of Color Model[edit]

According to the embodied and referential meaning of color model, color can convey two types of meaning that uniquely stimulate and shape consumer preferences and behaviors.

• Referential meaning arises from the network of semantic associations that emerge through exposure to color stimuli. As such, referential meaning is learned and often dependent on contextual cues. For example, the referentialmeaning conveyed by the use of the color brown in effervescent beverages can evoke notions of cola taste, which are drawn from the learned association of prominent cola brands adding caramel color to their products.
• Embodied meaning results from attributes embodied in the aesthetic stimulus, independent of context and the semantic content it may evoke. This meaning is evoked from properties within the stimulus itself; that is feelings and other responses are activated simply from exposure to the color. For example, long wavelength colors like red may stimulate arousal and increase attention. This model proposes that biological responses to color (e.g., physiological responses such as increased heart rate or attention) are driven by color's embodied meaning
• The model also considers that influencers of color experience do not act in isolation. For instance, some learned color associations may represent a cognitive reinforcing or alteration of biologically based phenomena. Moreover, color associations may vary by culture and learned color associations may also influence some cultural aspects.

Influence of color on perception[edit]

Multiple researchers propose that one factor in the evolution of primate trichromatic color vision is to allow for better perception of others' emotions or condition which can prove highly useful for complex social interaction. For example, flushed or pale skin can non-verbally communicate whether they are excited or sickly. Besides its use for social situations, color has an impact in multiple facets of our perceptions.

Taste[edit]

Color also affects how people perceive the edibility and flavor of foods and drinks. Not only the color of the food itself but also that of everything in the eater's field of vision can affect this. This extends beyond just the color of the food itself. The packaging of the food and its placement among other foods and objects also affect how people perceive it. For example, in food stores, bread is normally sold in packaging decorated or tinted with golden or brown tones to promote the idea of home-baked and oven-baked freshness. People can mistake a cherry-flavored drink for being lime or lemon flavored if that drink was a green color. Additionally, a flavor can be intensified by a color. People can rate a brown M&M as more chocolate flavored than a green M&M based on color. This interaction can be mediated by our perceptions as well, especially depending on cultural expectations. Research in the UK demonstrated that individuals receiving a brown drink would have different expectations for the taste (i.e. expecting a Cola) while someone from Taiwan may expect a grape-flavored drink because popular brown colored drinks in their culture are typically grape-flavored.

Time[edit]

Recent results studies showed that the perceived duration of a red screen was longer than was that of a blue screen. The results reflected sex differences; men, but not women, overestimated the duration of the red screen. Additionally, the reaction times to a red screen were faster than those to a blue screen. Participants who reacted quickly to a red screen overestimated its duration. In a demo with 150 people chosen at random, it was found that inside a pod bathed in blue color the average perceived duration of a minute was 11 seconds shorter than in a pod bathed in red color. However, another study looking at perceived duration found opposite results regarding blue and red stimuli.

Light[edit]

The color of a light source affects the apparent color of an object the light shines on. For example, the color of an object might appear different in the light from the sun versus from an incandescent (tungsten) light bulb. With the incandescent light bulb, the object might appear more orange or "brownish", and dark colors might look even darker. Light and the color of an object can affect how one perceives its positioning. If light or shadow, or the color of the object, masks an object's true contour (outline of a figure) it can appear to be shaped differently from reality. Objects under a uniform light-source will promote better impression of three-dimensional shape. The color of an object may affect whether or not it seems to be in motion. In particular, the trajectories of objects under a light source whose intensity varies with space are more difficult to determine than identical objects under a uniform light source. This could possibly be interpreted as interference between motion and color perception, both of which are more difficult under variable lighting. Blue lights (R) at the Woodside LIRR train station

Blue light causes people to feel relaxed, which has led countries to add blue street lights in order to decrease suicide rates. In 2000, the city of Glasgow installed blue street lighting in certain neighborhoods and subsequently reported the anecdotal finding of reduced crime in these areas. A railroad company in Japan installed blue lighting on its stations in October 2009 in an effort to reduce the number of suicide attempts, although the effect of this technique has been questioned.

Medicine[edit]

The color of placebo pills is reported to be a factor in their effectiveness, with "hot-colored" (red, yellow, etc.) pills working better as stimulants and "cool-colored" (blue, purple, etc.) pills working better as depressants. This relationship is believed to be a consequence of the patient's expectations and not a direct effect of the color itself. Consequently, these effects appear to be culture-dependent.

One study found that changing the original color of an antiepileptic pill increased the risk of in-adherence to the medication in patients diagnosed with a seizure disorder.

Model of color psychology

The general model of color psychology relies on six basic principles:

1. Color can carry a specific meaning.
2. Color meaning is either based in on learned meaning or biologically innate meaning.
3. The perception of a color causes automatic evaluation automatically by the person perceiving the color.
4. The evaluation process forces color-motivated behavior.
5. Color usually exerts its influence automatically.
6. Color meaning and effect has have to do with context as well

Influence of color on perception

Multiple researchers propose that one factor in the evolution of primate trichromatic color vision is to allow for better perception of others' emotions or condition which can prove highly useful for complex social interaction. For example, flushed or pale skin can non-verbally communicate whether they are excited or sickly. Besides its use for social situations, color has an impact in multiple facets of our perceptions.

Light

The color of a light source affects the apparent color of an object the light shines on. For example, the color of an object might appear different in the light from the sun versus from an incandescent (tungsten) light bulb. With the incandescent light bulb, the object might appear more orange or "brownish", and dark colors might look even darker. Light and the color of an object can affect how one perceives its positioning. If light or shadow, or the color of the object, masks an object's true contour (outline of a figure) it can appear to be shaped differently from reality. Objects under a uniform light-source will promote better impression of three-dimensional shape. The color of an object may affect whether or not it seems to be in motion. In particular, the trajectories of objects under a light source whose intensity varies with space are more difficult to determine than identical objects under a uniform light source. This could possibly be interpreted as interference between motion and color perception, both of which are more difficult under variable lighting.

Blue light causes people to feel relaxed, which has led countries to add blue street lights in order to decrease suicide rates. In 2000, the city of Glasgow installed blue street lighting in certain neighborhoods and subsequently reported the anecdotal finding of reduced crime in these areas. A railroad company in Japan installed blue lighting on its stations in October 2009 in an effort to reduce the number of suicide attempts, although the effect of this technique has been questioned. In 2000, the city of Glasgow installed blue street lighting in certain neighborhoods and subsequently reported the anecdotal finding of reduced crime in these areas.

Lighting color could have a strong effect on perceived experience in stores and other situation. For example, time seems to pass more slowly under red lights and time seems to pass quickly under blue light. Casinos take full advantage of this phenomenon by using color to get people to spend more time and hence more money in their casino. However, a presumed influence of colored light (red vs. blue) on risk behavior could not be demonstrated.

Brand meaning

Color is a very influential source of information when people are making a purchasing decision. Customers generally make an initial judgment on a product within 90 seconds of interaction with that product and about 62–90% of that judgment is based on color. People often see the logo of a brand or company as a representation of that company. Without prior experience to a logo, we begin to associate a brand with certain characteristics based on the primary logo color.

Color mapping provides a means of identifying potential logo colors for new brands and ensuring brand differentiation within a visually cluttered marketplace.^{[failed verification]}

A study on logo color asked participants to rate how appropriate the logo color was for fictional companies based on the products each company produced. Participants were presented with fictional products in eight different colors and had to rate the appropriateness of the color for each product. This study showed a pattern of logo color appropriateness based on product function. If the product was considered functional, fulfills a need or solves a problem, then a functional color was seen as most appropriate. If the product was seen as sensory-social, conveys attitudes, status, or social approval, then sensory-social colors were seen as more appropriate. Companies should decide what types of products to produce and then choose a logo color that is connotative with their products' functions.

Company logos can portray meaning just through the use of color. Color affects people's perceptions of a new or unknown company. Some companies such as Victoria's Secret and H&R Block used color to change their corporate image and create a new brand personality for a specific target audience. Research done on the relationship between logo color and five personality traits had participants rate a computer-made logo in different colors on scales relating to the dimensions of brand personality. Relationships were found between color and sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. A follow up study tested the effects of perceived brand personality and purchasing intentions. Participants were presented with a product and a summary of the preferred brand personality and had to rate the likelihood of purchasing a product based on packaging color. Purchasing intent was greater if the perceived personality matched the marketed product or service. In turn color affects perceived brand personality and brand personality affects purchasing intent.

Although color can be useful in marketing, its value and extent of use depends on how it is used and the audience it is used on. The use of color will have different effects on different people, therefore experimental findings cannot be taken as universally true.

Meanings in cartography

This map of precipitation leverages the natural connotations of blue as wet and yellow as dry, but readers have to make a conscious effort to not interpret green as vegetation

In map design, additional color meanings are commonly employed to create intuitive map symbols, due to the natural colors of common geographic features. These correlations are commonly stylized and conventionalized, so that the color with the most intuitive meaning is often the nearest prototypical named color rather than that most similar to the real-world color (e.g., in very rare locations is water as deep and pure a blue as is commonly used in maps water depth is symbolized using various shades of the color blue, which is common in maps). Common, but by no means authoritative or exhaustive, examples include:

• Green: vegetation
• Blue: water (water bodies, precipitation), cold
• Yellow: dryness
• Brown: soil
• Red: heat, wildfire
• Purple: unnatural (contrasting with natural connotations of green, yellow, blue)
• Gray/Black: human structures (roads, buildings)

Other colors can have intuitive meaning due to their role in Gestalt psychology and other cognitive aspects of the map-reading process. For example, shades that contrast most with the background (i.e., dark on a white page, light on a dark screen) are naturally perceived as "more" (higher values of quantitative properties, more important in the Visual hierarchy) than shades with less contrast.

Color name

Although different colors can be perceived in different ways, the names of those colors matters as well. These names are often called visual color descriptors. Many products and companies focus on producing a wide range of product colors to attract the largest population of consumers. For example, cosmetics brands produce a rainbow of colors for eye shadow and nail polish, to appeal to every type of person. Even companies such as Apple Inc. and Dell who make iPods and laptops do so with a certain amount of color personalization available to attract buyers. Moreover, color name, not only the actual color, can attract or repel buyers as well. When asked to rate color swatches and products with either generic color names (such as brown) or "fancy" color names (such as mocha), participants rated items with fancy names as significantly more likable than items with generic names. In fact, the same paint color swatch with two different names produced different rating levels, and the same effect was found when participants rated the pleasantness of towels given fancy or generic color names, showing an overall pattern of preference for fancy color names over generic ones when describing exactly the same color.

In addition to fancy names being preferred for their aural appeal, they may contribute to the product they represent being liked more, and, therefore impacting sales. A yellow jelly bean with an atypical color name such as razzmatazz is more likely to be selected than one with a more typical name such as lemon yellow. This could be due to greater interest in atypical names, as well as curiosity and willingness to "figure out" why that name was chosen. Purchasing intent patterns regarding custom sweatshirts from an online vendor also revealed a preference for atypical names. Participants were asked to imagine buying sweatshirts and were provided with a variety of color name options, some typical, some atypical. Color names that were atypical were selected more often than typical color names, again confirming a preference for atypical color names and for item descriptions using those names. Moreover, those who chose sweatshirts bearing atypical color names were described as more content with their purchase than those who selected similar items bearing typical color names.

Store and display color

Warm colored window display

Color is not only used in products to attract attention, but also in window displays and stores. When people are exposed to different colored walls and images of window displays and store interiors they tend to be drawn to some colors and not to others. Findings showed that people were physically drawn to warm colored displays; however, they rated cool colored displays as more favorable. This implies that warm colored store displays are more appropriate for spontaneous and unplanned purchases, whereas cool colored displays and store entrances may be a better fit for purchases where a lot of planning and customer deliberation occurs. This is especially relevant in shopping malls where patrons could easily walk into a store that attracts their attention without previous planning.

Other research has confirmed that store color, not just the product, influence buying behaviors. When people are exposed to different store color scenarios and then surveyed on intended buying behavior, store color, among various other factors, are important for purchasing intentions. Blue, a cool color, was rated as more favorable and produced higher purchasing intentions than orange, a warm color. However, all negative effects to orange were neutralized when orange store color was paired with soft lighting. This shows that store color and lighting actually interact.

Lighting color could have a strong effect on perceived experience in stores and other situation. For example, time seems to pass more slowly under red lights and time seems to pass quickly under blue light. Casinos take full advantage of this phenomenon by using color to get people to spend more time and hence more money in their casino. However, a presumed influence of colored light (red vs. blue) on risk behavior could not be demonstrated.

Use in hospitals

Red is perceived as a strong and active color which may influence both the person wearing it and others perceiving it. An evolutionary psychology explanation is that red may signal health as opposed to anemic paleness, or indicate anger due to flushing instead of paleness due to fear. It has been argued that detecting flushing may have influenced the development of primate trichromate vision. Primate studies have found that some species evaluate rivals and possible mates depending on red color characteristics. Facial redness is associated with testosterone levels in humans, and male skin tends to be redder than female skin.

At the turn of the 20th century, white was widely used in hospitals. In 1914, a surgeon in a San Francisco hospital, Harry Sherman, adopted green, "the complementary colour to hemaglobin" to avoid dazzle. This was adopted by a number of other American hospitals in the following decades. At around the same time, architect William Ludlow began to advocate pale pastel blues and greens in hospitals for therapeutic purposes and advising that "white is negative". In 1930, Dr. Charles Ireland of Guy's Hospital in London wrote Colour and Cancer, a book advocating the use of concentrated doses of colored light for treating cancer. The practice of using color in hospitals became widespread in the 1930s, particularly promoted by Faber Birren, who established himself as an "industrial color consultant" in 1934 and advised that an environment of soft colors, especially green, would be soothing for patients.

Red is perceived as a strong and active color which may influence both the person wearing it and others perceiving it. An evolutionary psychology explanation is that red may signal health as opposed to anemic paleness, or indicate anger due to flushing instead of paleness due to fear. It has been argued that detecting flushing may have influenced the development of primate trichromate vision. Primate studies have found that some species evaluate rivals and possible mates depending on red color characteristics. Facial redness is associated with testosterone levels in humans, and male skin tends to be redder than female skin.

Sports performance

In particular, The color red has been found to influence sports performance. During the 2004 Summer Olympics the competitors in boxing, taekwondo, freestyle wrestling, and Greco-Roman wrestling were randomly given blue or red uniforms. A later study found that those wearing red won 55% of all the bouts matches which was a statistically significant increase over the expected 50%.[1] The colors affected bouts matches where the competitors were closely matched in ability, where those wearing red won 60% of the bouts matches, but not bouts matches between more unevenly matched competitors. In England, since WWII, teams wearing red uniforms have averaged higher league positions and have had more league winners than teams using other colors. In cities with more than one team, the teams wearing red outperformed the teams wearing other colors.

A study of the UEFA Euro 2004 found similar results. Another study found that those taking penalty kicks performed worst when the goalkeeper had a red uniform. More anecdotal is the historical dominance of the domestic honors by red-wearing teams such AFC Ajax, FC Bayern Munich, Liverpool F.C., and Manchester United F.C. Videos of taekwondo bouts matches were manipulated in one study so that the red and blue colors of the protective gears were reversed. Both the original and the manipulated videos were shown to referees. The competitors wearing red were given higher scores despite the videos otherwise being identical. A study on experienced players of first-person shooters found that those assigned to wear red instead of blue won 55% of the matches.

Not only can color influence the players themselves in sports, but it can also influence other people's perceptions of the players. For example, one study demonstrates the effects of wearing various colored boxer trunks on the referees perception of the boxers. The results of the study indicated that competitors who wore red and black-colored trunks appeared stronger, more aggressive, and more dominant to the referee observing the match.

Gaming

Since color is such an important element in how people interpret their environment, color psychology can enhance the feeling of immersion in people that play video games. By using color psychology to cause immersion in players, players can have less fewer errors playing video games and feel more a part of the game they were playing in comparison to a game that did not have utilize color psychology immersion.

Color psychology can even effect affect someone through the avatars they choose to use. A recent study from 2016 assessed the impact of avatar color on the gaming experience for educational games. The research compared two different color avatars; blue and red. They then measured the players using the avatars in terms of competence, immersion and flow. The study found that the players with the red avatar performed poorly compared to those with blue avatars. Another study on experienced players of first-person shooter games found that those assigned to wear red instead of blue won 55% of the matches.

Research also shows that color in video games can elicit various emotions in the player. Feelings of joy and sadness were strongly associated with the brightness, value, saturation, chroma and lightness of the game being played. The greater the color saturation was in the video game, the more strongly felt these emotions were among the players. Less color saturation in the video game predicted higher feelings of fear.

References

I addressed MoonRabbit1992's comment about underlining new additions to the article. I addressed her comment about sentence order (blue light section) and I switched the order that the sentences were displayed in (light section). I addressed her comment about biased language and removed (strikethrough) the biased sentence. I flipped paragraph order in “use in hospitals” section.

I did not address Lagg0515’s comment about adding more recent/current uses of color in the “use in hospital” section because I feel like that would better fit in the history section. I would like to address his comment about using a more recent source, however, I have been struggling to find a source within 10 years that conveys the same information as my original source.

I addressed Apollo1997's comment and added a citation in the “sports performance” section. I do plan on adding more citation throughout the section later on. I did not address his comment on adding more paragraphs on historical background. I plan on only adding relevant history that was important in the development of color psychology because I don’t want the section to contain information that may seem unnecessary. I would like to expand the history section more but I’m not sure that I’ll be adding one or two more paragraphs.