RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLOR AND EMOTION: A STUDY OF COLLEGE STUDENTS.

Kaya, Naz; Epps, Helen H.

Ninety-eight college students were asked to indicate their emotional responses to five principle hues (i.e., red, yellow, green, blue, purple), five intermediate hues (i.e., yellow-red, green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue, and red-purple), and three achromatic colors (white, gray, and black) and the reasons for their choices. The color stimuli were referenced from the Munsell Color System. The results revealed that the principle hues comprised the highest number of positive emotional responses, followed by the intermediate hues and the achromatic colors. The color green evoked mainly positive emotions such as relaxation and comfort because it reminded most of the respondents of nature. The color green-yellow had the lowest number of positive responses because it was associated with vomit and elicited the feelings of sickness and disgust. For the achromatic colors, white attained a large number of positive responses, followed by the colors black and gray. The masons for the color-emotion associations are discussed and future research areas are suggested.

COLLEGE students; EMOTIONS; COLOR; ASSOCIATION of ideas; PSYCHOLOGY of learning

College Student Journal, 2004, Vol 38, Issue 3, p396

0146-3934

Academic Journal