It’s not hard to find TikTok, IG, or webposts about a field called “color psychology.” It generally argues that different colors have specific effects on your mood, behavior, and energy. Put your critical thinking hat on while we take a look at some of its claims.

An article from VeryWellMind was titled, “How Color Psychology Affects Moods, Feelings, and Behaviors.” Here are some claims:

Why is color such a powerful force in our lives? What effects can it have on our bodies and minds? While perceptions of color are somewhat subjective, some color effects have universal meanings.

Cool colors: Colors on the blue side of the spectrum are known as cool colors and include blue, purple, and green. These colors are often described as calm, but can also evoke feelings of sadness or indifference.

Warm colors: Colors in the red part of the color spectrum are warm, including red, orange, and yellow. These warm colors evoke emotions ranging from warmth and comfort to anger and hostility.

The claims above could be considered causal claims, because the verb is “evoke.” Specifically, when it come to cool colors, the claim seems to be that “blue, purple, and green can evoke feelings of sadness or indifference.”

a) Following this model, state the causal claim associated with warm colors.

Let’s consider the “warm colors” claim you wrote above to be a hypothesis. Pull up the theory-data cycle from Chapter 1. Now:

b) Make a comment on the falsifiability of the warm color claim. That is, what kind of evidence would allow you to show that this hypothesis is false? How might you adapt this hypothesis to make it more falsifiable?

The VeryWellMind article, to its credit, attempts to cite some research (unlike the website colorpsychology.org). For example, the first research presented comes from a survey:

One 2020 study that surveyed the emotional associations of 4,598 people from 30 different countries found that people commonly associate certain colors with specific emotions. According to the study results:

Black: 51% of respondents associated black with sadness

White: 43% of people associated white with relief

Red: 68% associated red with love

Blue: 35% linked blue to feelings of relief 

Green: 39% linked green to contentment

Yellow: 52% felt that yellow means joy

Purple: 25% reported they associated purple with pleasure

Brown: 36% linked brown to disgust

Orange: 44% associated orange with joy

Pink: 50% linked pink with love

c) Do the results from this survey help support a causal claim about colors, including the warm and cold hypotheses above? Why or why not? Think about the difference between what people believe colors mean, compared to what the colors might actually do in a real-world setting.

Later in the article, the journalist lists a handful of studies on color from different domains.
d) Select one of the bullet points below. Click on the empirical article next to it. As you look through the empirical article, try to locate the result that the journalist included in the description.

(from the article): However, existing research has found that color can impact people in a variety of surprising ways:

• While-colored pills are associated with greater pain relief, while red pills are associated with having greater stimulant properties.
  ^{Amawi RM, Murdoch MJ. Understanding color associations and their effects on expectations of drugs’ efficacies. Pharmacy (Basel). 2022;10(4):82. doi:10.3390/pharmacy10040082})
• Red causes people to react more quickly and forcefully, which might be helpful during athletic activities, according to researchers.
  ^{(Hong X, Xu A, Shi Y, Geng L, Zou R, Guo Y. The effect of red and blue on gross and fine motor tasks: Confirming the inverted-u hypothesis. Front Psychol. 2022;12:744913. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.744913)}
• Black-uniformed players are more likely to receive penalties in competitive sporting events.
  _{(Krenn B. Does uniform color affect offside in association football? Color Research & Application. 2018;43(2):268-275. doi:10.1002/col.22184)}

Despite citing a few examples of research, the journalist, to her credit, included some dissenting voices:

Zena O’Connor, a faculty member in the Department of Architecture, Design, and Planning at the University of Sydney, suggests that people should be wary of many claims about the psychology of color.

Many of these claims lack substantiation in terms of empirical support, exhibit fundamental flaws (such as causal oversimplification and subjective validation), and may include factoids presented as facts.”

e) What do you think Dr. O’Connor means by the difference between factoids and facts? Have you seen a social media post that makes a claim about the psychology of color but that does not provide evidence, or that might overstate the research that does exist?
f) Now imagine that you are a TikTok or IG influencer. How might you irresponsibly hype up the article you picked and make it into a clickable message?

While there have been some studies on color in reputable psychology journals, they have not always been replicated in later work. As a student, you might be interested in reading about a team of undergraduates who attempted to replicate a study on the color red. The original study found that women are more attracted to photos of men that have a red border rather than a gray one. Several teams of undergradaute reearch methods students attempted to replicate this finding by running direct replication studies. You can read the result in this empirical article in the journal Collabra.

g) Read relevant bits of the empirical article, such as the abstract and Results. Were the students able to replicate this finding?

h) Challenge question: There are forest plots in this article! Scroll through to Figures 1 and 2 and connect what you see there to what you learn about in Chapter 14.