The Influence of the Background Color “Red” on the Appraisal of Pictures

Abstract

It is assumed that color has an influence on human cognition and behavior. The red effect has been taken up by a large body of research and the purpose of the study was to test the influence of red as a background color on the appraisal of pictures. Participants were randomly divided into two conditions: red or white. They appraised the levels of valence and arousal of four pictures with background colors of red or white. Results demonstrated that the levels of arousal were significantly higher when negative pictures with background color red were presented than when they were presented with background color white. This study’s results are consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated a context-dependent manner of color effects on human cognition and behavior.

Keywords

• red,valence,arousal,appraisal of pictures

Kaynakça

1. Attrill, M. J., Gresty, K. A., Hill, R. A., & Barton, R. A. (2008). Red shirt colour is associated with long-term team success in English football. Journal of Sports Sciences, 26(6), 577-582. doi: 10.1080/02640410701736244
2. Bakker, T. C., & Milinski, M. (1993). The advantages of being red: Sexual selection in the stickleback. Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology, 23(1-4), 287-300. doi: 10.1080/10236249309378870
3. Borade, A. B., Bansod, S. V., & Gandhewar, V. R. (2008). Hazard perception based on safety words and colors: an Indian perspective. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, 14(4), 407-416. doi:10.1080/10803548.2008.11076777
4. Buechner, V. L., Maier, M. A., Lichtenfeld, S., and Schwarz, S. (2014). Red – take a closer look. PLoS ONE 9:e108111. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108111
5. Changizi, M. (2009). The Vision Revolution. Dallas, TX: Benbella.
6. Elliot, A. J., Kayser, D. N., Greitemeyer, T., Lichtenfeld, S., Gramzow, R. H., Maier, M. A., & Liu, H. (2010). Red, rank, and romance in women viewing men. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 399-417. doi:10.1037/a0019689
7. Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2007). Color and psychological functioning. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 250–254. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00514.x
8. Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2012). Color-in-context theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 61- 125. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-394286-9.00002-0

9. Elliot, A. J., Maier, M. A., Moller, A. C., Friedman, R., & Meinhardt, J. (2007). Color and psychological functioning: The effect of red on performance attainment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(1), 154-168. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.136.1.154
10. Elliot, A. J., & Niesta, D. (2008). Romantic red: red enhances men’s attraction to women. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 95(5), 1150–1164. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.5.1150
11. Fetterman D. K., Robinson M. D., Gordon R. B., & Elliot A. J. (2011) Anger as seeing red: Perceptual sources of evidence. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2, 311–316. doi: 10.1177/1948550610390051
12. Fetterman, A. K., Robinson, M. D., & Meier, B. P. (2012). Anger as seeing red: Evidence for a perceptual association. Cognition & Emotion, 26, 1445-1458. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2012.673477
13. Gil, S., & Le Bigot, L. (2016). Colour and emotion: children also associate red with negative valence. Developmental science, 19(6), 1087-1094. doi: 10.1111/desc.12382
14. Griffith, L. J., & Leonard, S. D. (1997). Association of colors with warning signal words. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 20, 317-325. doi:10.1016/S0169-8141(96)00062-5
15. Guéguen, N. (2008). The effects of women’s cosmetics on men’s approach: an evaluation in a bar. North American Journal of Psychology, 10, 221-228.
16. Guéguen, N. (2010). Color and women hitchhikers’ attractiveness: gentleman drivers prefer red. Color Research & Application, 37, 76-78. doi: 10.1002/col.20651
17. Guéguen, N. (2012a). Color and women attractiveness: when red clothed women are perceived to have more intense sexual intent. Journal of Social Psychology, 152, 261-265. doi:10.1080/00224545.2011.605398
18. Guéguen, N. (2012b). Does red lipstick really attract men? An evaluation in a bar. International Journal of Psychological Studies, 4(2), 206-209.
19. Guéguen, N., & Jacob, C. (2012a). Color and cyber-attractiveness: red enhances men’s attraction to women’s internet personal ads. Color Research & Application, 38, 309-312. doi: 10.1002/col.21718
20. Guéguen, N., & Jacob, C. (2012b). Lipstick and tipping behavior: when led lipstick enhances waitresses’ tips. International journal of Hospitality Management, 31, 1333-1335. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2012.03.012
21. Guéguen, N., & Jacob, C. (2014). Clothing color and tipping: gentlemen patrons give more tips to waitresses with red clothes. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 38, 275-280. doi: 10.1177/1096348012442546
22. Guéguen, N., Jacob, C., Lourel, M., & Pascual, A. (2012). When drivers see red: car color frustrators and drivers’ aggressiveness. Aggressive Behavior, 38, 166-169. doi: 10.1002/ab.21416
23. Hill, R. A., & Barton, R. A. (2005). Red enhances human performance in contests. Nature, 435(7040), 293. doi:10.1038/435293a
24. Hupka, R. B., Zaleski, Z., Otto, J., Reidl, L., & Tarabrina, N. V. (1997). The colors of anger, envy, fear, and jealousy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 28, 156-171. doi: 10.1177/0022022197282002
25. Kövecses (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614408
26. Kurdi, B., Lozano, S., & Banaji, M. (2016). Introducing the Open Affective Standardized Image Set (OASIS). Behavior Research Methods, 1-14. doi:10.3758/s13428-016-0715-3
27. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
28. Landau, M. J., Meier, B. P., & Keefer, L. A. (2010). A metaphor-enriched social cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 1045-1067. doi:10.1037/a0020970
29. Lang, P. (1980). Self-assessment manikin. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida.
30. Lin, H. (2014). Red-colored products enhance the attractiveness of women. Displays 35(4), 202-205.doi: 10.1016/j.displa.2014.05.009
31. Lindsay, D. T., Brown, A. M., Reijnen, E., Rich, A. N., Kuzmova, Y. I., and Wolfe, J. M. (2010). Color channels, not color appearance of color categories, guide visual search for desaturated color targets. Psychological Science, 21, 1208–1214. doi: 10.1177/0956797610379861
32. Luximon, A., Chung, L. W., & Goonetilleke, R. S. (2008). Safety signal words and color codes: the perception of implied hazard by Chinese people. Proceedings of the 5th Pan-Pacific Conference on Occupational Ergonomics, Kitakyushu, Japan, 20-33.
33. Maier, M. A., Elliot, A. J., & Lichtenfeld, S. (2008). Mediation of the negative effect of red on intellectual performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1530–1540. doi: 10.1177/0146167208323104
34. Meier, B. P., D’Agostino, P. R., Elliot, A. J., Maier, M. A., & Wilkowski, B. M. (2012). Color in context: Psychological context moderates the influence of red on approach-and avoidance-motivated behavior. PLoS ONE, 7, e40333. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040333
35. Meier, B. P., Scholer, A. A., & Fincher-Kiefer, R. (2014). Conceptual metaphor theory and person perception. In M. J. Landau, M. D. Robinson, & B. P. Meier (Eds.), The power of metaphor: Examining its influence on social life, 43-64. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
36. Moller, A. C., Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2009). Basic hue-meaning associations. Emotion, 9(6), 898-902. doi:10.1037/a0017811
37. Muehlenbein, M. P., & Bribiescas, R. G. (2005). Testosterone-mediated immune functions and male life histories. American Journal of Human biology, 17, 527-558. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.20419
38. Niesta-Kayser, D.., Elliot, A. J., & Feltman, R. (2010). Red and romantic behavior in men viewing women. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 901-908. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.757
39. Pomerleau, V. J., Fortier-Gauthier, U., Corriveau, I., Dell’Acqua, R., and Jolicœur, P. (2014). Colour-specific differences in attentional deployment for equiluminant pop-out colours: evidence from lateralized potentials. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 91, 194–205. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2013.10.016
40. Pravossoudovitch, K., Cury, F., Young, S. G., & Elliot, A. J. (2014). Is red the colour of danger? Testingan implicit red-danger association. Ergonomics, 57, 503-510. doi:10.1080/00140139.2014.889220
41. Pryke, S. R., & Griffith, S. C. (2006). Red dominates black; Agonistic signalling among head morphs in the colour polymorphic Gouldian finch. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 273(1589), 949-957. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2005.3362
42. Roberts, S. C., Owen, R. C., & Havlicek, J. (2010). Distinguishing between perceiver and wearer effects in clothing color-associated attributions. Evolutionary Psychology, 8, 350-364. doi: 10.1177/147470491000800304
43. Rohr, M., Kamm, F., Koenigstorfer, J., Groeppel-Klein, A., & Wentura, D. (2015). The Color Red Supports Avoidance Reactions to Unhealthy Food. Experimental Psychology, 62(5), 335-345. doi:10.1027/1618- 3169/a000299
44. Serig, E. M. (2000). The influence of container shape and color cues on consumer product risk perception and precautionary intent. Proceedings of the IEA 2000/HFES 2000 Congress, 4.290-4.293.
45. Setchell, J. M., & Wickings, E. J. (2005). Dominance, status signals and coloration in male mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx). Ethology, 111(1), 25-50. doi: 10.1111/j.1439-0310.2004.01054.x
46. Smith-Jackson, T. A., & Wogalter, M. S. (2000). Users’ hazard perceptions of warning components: an examination of colors and symbols. Proceedings of the IEA 2000/HFES 2000 Congress, 6.55-6.58.
47. Sokolik, K., Magee, R. G., and Ivory, J. D. (2014). Red-hot and ice-cold ads: the influence of web ads’ warm and cool colors on click-through ways. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 14, 31-37. doi: 10.1080/15252019.2014.907757
48. Tchernikov, I., and Fallah, M. (2010). A color hierarchy for automatic target selection. PLoS ONE 5:e9338. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009338
49. Wogalter, M. S., Kalsher, M.J., Fredrick, L. J., Magurno, A. B., & Brewster, B. M. (1998). Hazard level perceptions of warning components and configurations. International Journal of Cognitive Ergonomics, 2, 123-143.
50. Young, S. G., Elliot, A. J., Feltman, R., & Ambaby, N. (2013). Red enhances the processing of facial expressions of anger. Emotion, 13, 380-384. doi: 10.1037/a0032471