Psychological and Physiological Effects of Colour:

Hello! So here is some of what I have on this subject,

Scientific research underpinning colours effects on people Extensive research has been undertaken to investigate both the psychological and physiological affects colour can have on a person. Over the last 100 years this field of research has expanded enormously and this section will provide an overview of this advancing knowledge: firstly by looking at the starting point of research, when the idea of colour and its effect on the body were first being investigated, before moving forwards chronologically to the modern day. Early research into this topic looked into the effect of colours on people’s moods and emotional state. For example Hevner (1935) found that various colours were perceived differently by participants, with the colour red tending to be seen as ‘happy’, whilst blue was seen by participants as a ‘serene’ and ‘dignified’ colour. In a later study carried out by Lewinski (1938) it was observed that by changing the lighting or illumination in various painted rooms the 50 participants reported different effects. It was found that the yellow and red rooms were described as "most unpleasant" with the green and blue being said to be "most pleasant." Later still, experiments by Goldstein (1942) found that red was ‘disagreeable’, ‘upsetting’, ‘exciting’ and ‘imposing’ compared to green that was found to be both ‘soothing’ and ‘agreeable’. Yellow and red in conjunction with each other where found to have an expansive effect (increasing the external world) while blue and green had the opposite effect. As these experiments demonstrate, colours impact the moods of the viewer, who then tend to project those perceptions onto the colours themselves. 6 There was however what seemed to be a move away from scientific research into colour and its effects on people after these studies were carried out. It has been suggested that to a large extent Dr John Ott and his controversial hypothesis on the subject sparked much debate, and as a result this particular subject came back into vogue some twenty years after the work outlined above. Ott himself is known in the art industry for his time lapse photography and his work in carrying out a number of studies into the effects of colour on people during the 1950s and beyond (Ott, 1958). Ott’s work looked at great detail into different theories behind colour’s effects on viewers. He had varied findings, though nothing proven to be statistically significant, throughout his different lines of studies (Ott, 1958). More recently, studies have been carried out that have demonstrated statistically significant results when participants were asked to look at specific colours. In these studies it was found that when focusing on blue compared to pink (different ends of the light spectrum) pink elicited a reduction in strength compared to blue (Pellegrini & Schauss, 1980; Pellegrini, Schauss & Birk, 1980). This research lead to the suggestion that colour could be used to help people become less aggressive and reduce violent outbreaks due to the ‘tranquillizing’ effect the colour was said to have. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was carried out that trialled the use of painting a block of American federal holding cells in prisons pink. The idea was to reduce the number of violent outbursts and aggressive behaviours. The findings of this study carried out by Pellegrini et al (1981)were inconclusive and no significant difference was found. However, looking at a trend of violent outbreaks across the year in the participating 7 prisoners it was found for the first month, there were the least outbreaks compared to the rest of the year. Month on month the number of outbreaks increased until back to a normal level, which stayed consistent for the rest of the trialled year. These results, though not statistically significant, point to further work for investigators, as it would be consistent with this data to suggest that, whilst pink is indeed able to reduce emotional arousal, extended exposure may lead the viewer to habituate to their surroundings.