Color is a powerful communication tool and can be used to signal action, influence mood, and even influence physiological reactions. Artists and interior designers have long believed that color can dramatically affect moods, feelings, and emotions. "Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions," artist Pablo Picasso once remarked.

Color psychology is the study of hues as a determinant of human behavior. Colors have qualities that can cause certain emotions in people. How color influences individuals may differ depending on age, gender, and culture.

In general, the human brain associates warm colors — such as red, orange, and yellow — with a range of feelings, including passion, comfort, anger, and power. Cool colors — such as blue, green, and purple — have the opposite effect, creating a calming atmosphere that counteracts feelings of anxiety.

Symbolic meanings that are often associated with different colors:

• Red: Passion, excitement, love
• Pink: Soft, reserved, earthy
• Purple: Mysterious, noble, glamorous
• Blue: Wisdom, hope, reason, peace
• Green: Nature, growth, freshness
• Yellow: Hope, joy, danger
• Orange: Warmth, kindness, joy
• White: Truth, indifference
• Black: Noble, mysterious, cold

Why colors affect the way people feel is not straightforward. There are a number of elements that can influence the way a person feels when exposed to a certain color. One important factor is the personal association with a color. If a person’s favorite stuffed animal as a child was blue, for example, then they may have a preference for blue throughout their life. Or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, if they were hit by a blue car as a child, they might have a strong negative emotional reaction to the color blue. However, because of universal human experiences, it is possible to predict how the majority of people will respond to a given color.

In the United States it is common to associate baby girls with pink and baby boys with blue. This difference in young children is a learned difference rather than an inborn one. Research has looked at the preference of young children, ages 7 months to 5 years, using small objects in different colors. The results showed that before the age of two, yellow is the most favored color, perhaps owing to its associations with happiness. However by the age of about two years old, socially constructed gendered colors affects children's color preference, where girls prefer pink and boys avoid pink, but show no preference for other colors.

Color psychology is used widely in marketing and product branding. Not only used on products to attract attention, but also in window displays and stores to increase sales. When people are exposed to different colored walls and images of window displays and store interiors they tend to be drawn to some colors and not to others. Findings showed that people were physically drawn to warm-colored displays; however, they rated cool-colored displays as more favorable. This implies that warm-colored store displays are more appropriate for spontaneous and unplanned purchases, whereas cool-colored displays and store entrances may be a better fit for purchases where a lot of planning and customer deliberation occurs.

 

In particular, the color red has been found to influence sports performance. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, the competitors in boxing, taekwondo, freestyle wrestling, and Greco-Roman wrestling were randomly given blue or red uniforms. A later study found that those wearing red won 55 percent of all the bouts which was a statistically significant increase over the expected 50 percent. The colors affected bouts where the competitors were closely matched in ability, where those wearing red won 60 percent of the bouts, but not bouts between more unevenly matched competitors. In England, since WWII, teams wearing red uniforms have averaged higher league positions and have had more league winners than teams using other colors.

Also, in gaming, color is an important element in how people interpret their environment; color psychology can enhance the feeling of immersion in people that play video games. By using color psychology to cause immersion in players, players can have fewer errors playing video games and feel more a part of the game they were playing in comparison to a game that did not have color psychology immersion.

The bottom line is, color plays an important role in conveying information, creating certain moods, and even influencing the decisions people make. Color preferences also exert an influence on the objects people choose to purchase, the clothes they wear, and the way they adorn their environments. What should you remember about colors? Colors, if chosen wisely, can have a significant impact. Color can affect how memorable something is, guide attention, evoke emotions, and even influence motor function and performance.