A Color Survey

After delving into my previous research, I decided to create a study myself. I gave an anonymous survey to 61 individuals, 54 female and 7 male. The majority of participants were ages 16 to 30 and caucasian. The questions that I wanted my survey to address were things I had learned in my earlier research: do males prefer cooler colors while females prefer warmer colors, and are there typical emotions associated with specific colors.

Sex Preferences

According to Jin Gyu Park’s study of color perception in pediatric patient’s room design, There are distinct color preferences between male and female patients. It was found that males preferred cooler colors (greens and blues) and females prefered warmer colors (reds and purples). On a traditional color wheel, purple is considered a cool color; however, for the purpose of consistency, I counted purple as a warm color in my survey.

I wanted to see if these sex preferences carried over into everyday life and not just in healthcare rooms. To accomplish this I had 5 color pairs and asked the participants to chose the one that they preferred. The pairs consisted of teal and rust, olive green and plum, blue and pink, indigo and gold, and grey and tan. I found that 71% of males prefer the cooler color option over the warmer color options. Whereas females did not have a clear preference, with 72% of females preferring the teal over the rust, 65% preferring the plum over the olive green, 63% preferring the blue over the pink, 57% preferring the indigo over the gold, and 80% preferring tan over grey. When participants were asked specifically to list their favorite colors it was found that 66% of the male's favorite colors were cool colors, 17% were warm colors, and 17% were neutrals.  For females, 48% of their favorite colors were cool colors, and 44% were warm colors, and the other 8% had favorite colors that were neutrals.

Interestingly the male that most often preferred the warmer color option had female siblings only, whereas the other males had either male and female siblings or no siblings. This corroborates what  Philip Cohen’s study found on how family structure affects color preferences, as mentioned in my previous post. My findings on male preference a line with what Park’s study found, but my female findings did not. Could this be due to women breaking gender norms more frequently than men? Or maybe it’s the age of my sample being mostly 16-30 years compared to Park’s pediatric patients?

Color Psychology

For this portion of my survey, participants were asked to select which feelings they associated with each color swatch. A list of possible feelings were provided and a right in option was also available. The feelings listed were: confident, energetic, passionate, peaceful, positive, powerful, reflective, reliable, restful, sensual, sophisticated, and tranquil. The color swatches were the six primary colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple; along with black, sage green, slate blue, and mauve purple.

Of the participants, 56% of them associated the color red with feeling passion, 72% associated orange with the feelings of being energetic, 57% associated yellow with feeling positive, 51% associated green with the feelings of being energetic, 48% associated blue with confidence, and 46% associated purple with passionate feelings.

59% of the participants associated black with the feelings of power, 57% associated sage green with the feelings of tranquility, 54% associated slate blue with feeling peaceful, and 48% of people associated mauve purple with feeling tranquil.

Based on my survey, colors tend to evoke specific feelings in the viewer and most of the feelings are somewhat universal. For example, when people see the black, 60% of people associate it with feelings of powerfulness and another 40% of people also associate it with feelings of sophistication. Many of the brighter, primary colors had more active emotions associated with them, for example, passion for red and purple, and energeticness for green and orange; whereas, the the sage green, slate blue, and mauve purple had peacefulness, restfulness, and tranquility most often associated with them. These three colors are muted and cool. Colors like these are often used in healing environments because they are thought to be the most calming. These three examples are all very soft and neutral; however, they are not drab and dull like grey can be. This explains why colors such as these have been gaining popularity in home decor recently.

My survey led to some interesting discoveries. First off, it supported the idea that males favor cooler colors over warmer colors, but refuted that females favor warmer colors over cooler colors. Of the one male that had only female siblings, he chose warm colors more frequently than any of the other males. This supports findings from previous studies that males that grow up with female siblings with have less typical male color preferences. And lastly the survey confirmed that colors universally evoke specific feelings within people. We are never without color and it might have more impact on us than we might realize.