Do Colors Affect Our Behavior?
We work hard to choose the right colors for our rooms. Hospitals are painted white to give a sense of cleanliness and hygiene, and prisons are painted pink because it is believed to reduce aggression.
These characteristics attributed to colors belong to Western culture. So do colors really have any effect on behavior? Research on this topic yields complex and sometimes contradictory results. The color red, which has been studied the most, is often compared to blue and green. The following theory is put forward: If you do any work in a certain color environment, over time you begin to associate that color with a certain emotion or behavior. For example, the corrections made by the teacher with the color red throughout your school life will always cause you to associate red with danger. The fact that poisonous fruits are mostly red further strengthens this perception. Blue, on the other hand, evokes a calmer state as it is associated with contemplating the sea or looking at the endless sky.
The color of creativity is blue
After many experiments in the past with mixed results, in 2009 researchers from the University of British Columbia tried to find a definitive answer to this problem. The subjects were given computers with blue, red and “neutral” color screens and were subjected to various skill tests. It was observed that the subjects had better results in memory and proofreading on computers with red screens and in tasks that required seeing details, but blue screens gave better results in skills requiring creativity. The researchers concluded that red gave the message of "avoidance" and led the subjects to be more careful, while blue had the opposite effect by pushing them to think more freely. Based on this, they suggested that rooms in institutions such as laboratories or schools, where work requiring caution and caution is carried out, could be painted red, and rooms used for work requiring creativity could be painted blue.
Warning or passion?
However, in a similar study conducted with a larger group in 2014, it was seen that the effect of colors disappeared. While the first study included 69 people, the new one used 263 subjects and it was seen that the color of the background did not make a difference. In another study, subjects were presented with two different plates of crackers and told they could eat as much as they wanted in order to answer questions about their taste. The subjects ate less crackers served on a red plate, and this was attributed to the warning and danger message feature of red. However, when the same experiment was repeated at another university, the opposite results were obtained.
Pink Wards
Examining the effect of colors is actually more difficult than it seems. Perhaps colors do not produce the effects we attribute to them. But the idea of the effect of colors is so established that some prisons in the USA, England, Switzerland, Germany, Poland and Austria paint their wards in a certain shade of pink. 20 percent of prisons in Switzerland have at least one pink cell. It is possible to call this tone, whose official name is Baker-Miller pink, as mushy pink. These two American navy officers, who gave their name to the color, were the first to investigate the effect of pink on prisoners and convicts. In experiments conducted on detainees in 1979, detainees were shown pink and blue cards and their arms were pressed, and it was concluded that detainees shown pink cards resisted less. This not-so-scientific research was repeated in different ways, but no data was obtained to strengthen the opinion that pink has a reducing effect on aggression. In fact, the colors did not make any difference. There are even those who argue that pink can create a feeling of castration in detainees due to the widespread belief that it is a color reserved for women. Maybe colors really do have an impact on behavior. But to date, no one has managed to demonstrate these effects consistently. Maybe the colors don't make any difference. Better experiments are needed to pinpoint this issue. Until the effect or ineffectiveness of colors is proven, the choice of colors in our rooms seems to remain a matter of personal taste and artistic perception.
