The Psychology of Color

Retrieved from VeryWell/Joshua Seong

Hello everyone! Last week, I discussed using color harmony in my works. For the most part, in my works, my initial choices of color are based on what emotions/themes I wanted to portray. Of course, while most of these choices are subjective to my own experience and perception of color, interestingly, a lot of research is being done on the psychology of color.

Surface of Color Psychology

So, what exactly is the psychology of color? In short, color psychology is the study of hues as a way to determine human behavior. For practical reasons, knowing how color choice can affect people's moods and behaviors will be very beneficial for architects, designers, and branded companies.

Here are the "common" emotional  perceptions of color (however, note that these are not set in stone, as explained later) as cited from Oberlo:

Black: mystery, power, elegance, sophistication, or sadness and evil

White: innocence, goodness, cleanliness, and humility (in North American culture)

Red: excitement, passion, danger, energy, and action

Blue: tability, harmony, peace, calm, trust, or sadness

Green: growth, fertility, health, generosity, or envy.

Yellow: happiness, positivity, optimism, and summer but also of deceit and warning

Purple: power, nobility, luxury, wisdom, and spirituality (if overused, can seem arrogant)

Brown: comfort, security

Orange: creativity, adventure, enthusiasm, success, and balance

Pink: femininity, playfulness, immaturity and unconditional love

Although it's usually assumed that people's moods are specific to a defined color (as seen from above), the truth of the matter is that color perception is influenced by so much — upbringings, preferences, culture, context, etc. — thus muddying the effect of a certain color. In reality, the idea that the one shade red or blue could evoke a universal, highly specific emotion is about "as accurate as a Tarot card reading"(Ciotti). However, color still plays a role in persuasion when it comes to marketing and branding but in a broader way.

Color for Brands & Consumers

In the study "Impact of Color in Marketing", researchers found that up to 90% of snap judgments made about products can be based on color alone. Moreover, results from studies such as "The Interactive Effects of Colors" reveal that the relationship between brands and color actually depends on the perceived appropriateness of the color being used for the particular brand. In other words, when looking at brand and color, people think: "Does the color 'fit' what is being sold?" Colors actually influence how consumers view the personality and image of a brand. So, rather than associating the color blue with security or "green with calmness" (Ciotti), people look for how appropriate a color is towards brand identity. For instance, a rugged brand would lean towards earth tones and grays rather than brighter colors.

As we all know, branding plays a huge role in consumerism. For instance, think of the Coca-Cola and Pepsi debate. While most people, in blind taste-testing experiments, preferred Pepsi over Coca-Cola, the effect is reversed once people know which brand they're drinking. Coca-Cola's consistency in its red and white color brand is a main reason as to why consumers can never forget it as the original cola. Thus, people have a subconscious brand loyalty; color is incredibly important when creating a brand identity that people can instantly recognize.

Interestingly, Coca-Cola initially chose its red color so that shippers can easily differentiate it from alcohol containers. In a way, this introduces us to the "Isolation Effect," which states that an item that stands out is more likely to be remembered. Research has shown that participants are able to recognize and recall an item better when it sticks out from its surroundings (Ciotti). Having a contrasting color accent can cause consumers to take action. For example, as seen in this example figure bellow, changing the color button from green to red was shown to cause a boost in activity. However, it isn't simply because red causes more people to take action; rather, it's because the red contrasts the rest of the site (that's clearly geared towards green). In other words, context and contrast is an important factor when choosing color for identity, branding, and consumerism. 

Retrieved from Ciotti

As for designs and architecture, there needs to be a balance between color complexity and unity. Unity and variety are the opposite of each other; however, good color arrangements know when to stop between these two extremes (Kurt and Osueke).

Complexity in Color

Color psychology is quite complex to immediately jump to bold conclusions, as people's perception of color is influenced by their environments and culture. For instance, the people of China perceive white as a sad color because white is worn when mourning; on the other hand, other societies in Europe perceive it as "purity, virginity, and cleanliness" (Kurt and Osueke).

Moreover, while some researchers have concluded that heterosexual males are more aroused when seeing women in red, certain research has found that these approaches are systematically confounding. To clarify, most research that attempts to link hue to arousal oftentimes use highly saturated and bright colors. So, rather than the color red being specifically accountable for arousal, it may actually be due to saturation above all else. Thus, when studying how color can impact human emotions and behavior, there are many facets (such as contrast, chroma, saturation, brightness, etc.) to consider, making color psychology a complex field.

In the end, much research is still needed to truly understand the psychological impacts of color. Current research is only budding, and a lot of claims are not completely backed by research. Even if color can evoke emotions and behavior, the specificity of it is still unclear due to numerous variables. Yet, despite this vagueness in color perception, some fundamentals remain clear: 1) Humans lean towards contrasting colors/accents 2) Consistent colors boosts brand identity 3) (Most importantly) Context matters when choosing a color palette.