after reading about how a blue stripe on the walls of prison cells could promote truthfulness, i tried to find out about the elusive field of color psychology. it turns out that there is very little direct connection between color and emotion: it seems to vary widely between cultures and individuals. for example, the color blue can evoke sadness as well as peace. in a study of three offices painted different colors, there was no effect on the psychology of people within. on the other hand, subjects bathed in colored light were much more anxious under red or yellow than blue light. like many things in psychology, there is a little bit of science behind it: doctors have successfully used blue light to treat jaundiced infants . in a study, severely handicapped and mentally disordered children were measurably calmed by the substitution of yellow and blue for orange, white, beige and brown and replacing fluorescent lights with full-spectrum ones. one good review of the state of the science is hiroshi sasaki’s color psychology, and the most interesting study about emotional association with color involves using stroop lists to see what colors and emotional words are most easily associated as in the table above. genov, schnall and laird describe how traditional emotional associations hold true, but individual preferences overwhelm any general rules.
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