Abstract

Color psychology refers to the study of color and its effect on emotion and behavior. Elliot & colleagues have proposed a “color-in-context theory,” arguing that the effect of color on psychological functioning is modulated by the situational context. Specifically, it is claimed that red facilitates sexual attraction in romantic or sexual contexts, but can have a negative impact on mental and physical performance by increasing the perception of threat in achievement contexts. Past research has focused mainly on behavioral and self-report measures. The present study adds to this work by further collecting participants’ physiological data in response to color. As a measure of arousal and valence, facial electromyography and skin conductance were recorded as both male and female participants viewed pictures of either attractive individuals of the opposite sex or threatening images presented on a background of either blue or red. Self-reported ratings of arousal, valence, attraction and threat of the images (arousing/unarousing, happy/unhappy, attractive/unattractive, threatening/nonthreatening) were also collected. It was hypothesized that images on a red background would evoke higher physiological and self-reported arousal in all conditions (including threat and romantic), and that physiological and self-report measures of valence would be dependent on the context of the images. It was found that males viewing females gave significantly higher attraction ratings when the images were displayed on a blue, rather than red background. No other significant effects of color were found. These results fail to support the red effect theory, and suggest a need for greater standardization of colors and images used in color-in-context research.

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