Color Psychology: Preference

Introduction

Many people regard colour as merely cosmetic, believing it is only a question of how things appear. Color is Nature’s own powerful signaling system. Scientifically, it is the first thing we register when we are assessing anything: a very simple and obvious example of that is our reaction to a fly in a home: If it is black, we will likely find it to be a small annoyance, but if it has yellow stripes, we will likely find it to be more bothersome.

Color psychology studies how people’s behavior is influenced by various hues. Varied colours have varied connotations, ramifications, and psychological effects throughout civilizations. In addition to cultural differences, personal preference has a big impact on colour psychology. Researchers in colour psychology examine the numerous psychological consequences, connotations, and meanings that different colours have. Color therapy is a discipline that combines psychology with our understanding of color. The principle of color treatment, commonly referred to as chromotherapy, is that each color in the visible light spectrum has a particular wavelength and vibration.

Colour Meaning

Color preference

Colour preferences are important to manufacturers and have scientific value. According to U.S. research, 42% of people like blue, followed by 14% for green, 14% for purple, and 8% for red. According to evolutionary aesthetics, blue and green may be linked to a desire for specific habitats that were advantageous in the ancestral environment.

• According to an empirical test, people prefer colours strongly connected with things they enjoy (such as blues with blue skies and pure water) and detest colours strongly associated with things they detest (such as browns with feces and rotting food).
• Psychologist Andrew J. Elliot conducted experiments to see whether a person’s clothing hue could enhance their sexual allure. He discovered that red clothing made heterosexual men and women much more likely to receive amorous advances than ladies wearing any other hue.
• Humphrey proposed that the signals that colours send to organisms in nature are the source of colour preferences. Colours can sometimes send an “approach” signal (for example, the colours of a flower attract pollinating insects) and other times they can send a “avoid” signal (for example, the colours of a poisonous toad ward off predators).

In general, three factors influence colour preference.

• Biology/Evolution

Female brains are believed to have developed a preference for reddish tones because of their ancestral duties to gather fruit while their husbands hunted. According to colour psychologists, this is the origin of the gendered stereotype that pink is a feminine colour.

• Gender schema theory

Humans have reinforced gendered expectations and stereotypes like this by labeling colours according to gendered ideals. While many children grow up feeling that they should conform to gendered ideals, society is in the midst of upheaval, contradicting, questioning, and neutralizing colour stereotypes that attach meaning to items from all walks of life.

• Ecological valence theory

Ecological valence theory (EVT) explains why people favor particular hues. Despite having comparable biological make-ups, our emotional experiences cause us to have different preferences for colours. When nodes in the human brain encounter colour, they acquire semantic significance. This means that even while it happens gradually enough for you not to notice, your sense of colour is continually changing. Your connections change every time you see a hue because they are influenced by emotion, culture, environment, and sensory experience.

Conclusion

Either learned meaning or biologically intrinsic meaning underlies the meaning of a colour. A person’s automatic appraisal of a colour results from their perception of it. The evaluation process forces color-motivated behavior. It usually exerts its influence automatically and meaning and effect have to do with context as well. Red, a long-wavelength colour, may arouse and heighten attention. Some ingrained associations between colours may serve to reinforce or modify biologically based occurrences. Moreover, color associations may vary by culture, and learned color associations may also influence some cultural aspects.

~ Adrija Ghosh, KRSH Welfare Foundation