Which color enhances mental abilities? It depends on the context. A new University of British Columbia study finds that red is the most effective at enhancing our attention to detail, while blue seems to work better at enhancing our ability to think creatively.
Red and blue activate different unconscious motivations, says Rui (Juliet) Zhu, noting that color influences cognition and behavior through learned associations.
“Thanks to stop signs, emergency vehicles and teachers’ red pens, we associate red with danger, mistakes and caution,” says Zhu, “The avoidance motivation, or heightened state, that red activates makes us vigilant and thus helps us perform tasks where careful attention is required to produce a right or wrong answer.”
Blue, on the other hand, encourages us to think outside the box and be creative, says Zhu, noting that the majority of participants in her studies believed incorrectly that blue would enhance their performance on all cognitive tasks.
“Through associations with the sky, the ocean and water, most people associate blue with openness, peace and tranquility,” says Zhu, who conducted the research with UBC PhD candidate Ravi Mehta. “The benign cues make people feel safe about being creative and exploratory. Not surprisingly it is people’s favorite color.”
Blue certainly is my favorite color. For years, I was pidgeon-holed by my new age friends by my preference for blue – “Blue means you’re more cerebral” – a reference meaning “less open to new ideas” and “more skeptical” etc. I admit I’m a bit of a skeptic and I do like to think and mull things over before making a choice. I just find it interesting that real research into color preferences demonstrate that my new age friends may have been maybe “not so right” as they supposed about me and others who prefer the color blue.
On the flip side, those who believe in the ancient philosophies of chakras will find some validation in this research. Red in the chakra world equates to grounding, earthly, tactical, detail-oriented thoughts and behaviors. Whereas blue in that system equates to more etherial, spacial, strategic, and open awareness.
Color means something to the psyche and those in the business of persuasion and change might be wise to keep that in mind.
Here are some interesting color-related facts when it comes to pharmaceuticals:
- Red and other hot colored tablets tend to work better as stimulants.
- Blue and other cool colored pills tend to work better as depressants.
Perhaps now you understand why…
Ravi Mehta and Rui (Juliet) Zhu of the University of British Columbia published their findings in Science, Feb 6, 2009.