David Ewing Duncan's blog
Seeing Red Messes with IQ
Avoid the color red when you want to be the best you can be.
David Ewing Duncan 03/19/2007
- 2 Comments
Want to do your best? Then avoid the color red when taking exams, such as the IQ test. Psychologists at the University of Rochester studied the impact of showing subjects a brief "perception" of the color red before they took a test. The appearance of this color--associated with danger, blood, stop signs, and error marks on school papers--apparently causes faster heartbeat and breathing, and causes performance to plummet.
"The findings suggest that care must be taken in how red is used in achievement contexts and illustrate how color can act as a subtle environmental cue that has important influences on behavior," reports the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.
This is, of course, shocking news: a study that tells us something that we could probably surmise on our own. The same goes for the fact that the antidote to red--the color green--soothes us and makes us calm and want to "go."
Next thing you know, a study will tell us that blue makes us feel serene, and black signals mystery and the unknown.
Study: Elliot, A.J.; Maier, M.A.; Moller, A.C.; Friedman, R. & Meinhardt, J. (2007) The Effect of Red on Performance Attainment. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol 136(1): 154-168.
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
HBE
2 Comments
Seeing Red Messes with IQ
The old saying that anthropology makes the strange familiar and psychology makes the familiar strange comes to mind. On the surface, it would seem redundant to tell us what we already know i.e. that red causes a specific kind of emotional reaction. Look a little deeper. There is a tremendous amount of research being done in the hard and soft sciences in regards to the psychology of color. The more we study, the more we learn about color’s profound impact on our psyche and physiology. Perhaps the Rochester study seems silly to you. But it is actually helpful empirical data for those of us in the field. My educational enterprise, for example, works with the psychological impact of color in several ways as part of a learning game for youth at risk.
Howard B. Esbin, PhD.
Heliotrope
www.heliotrope.ca
Reply