Colour Psychology: What Science Has Actually Measured

Hi, I'm Théo! Among the quotations my mother had copied out by hand, there is this one, from Zao Wou-Ki: “Paintings are the pages of painters' diaries.” If a painting is a diary, what does it do to the person looking at it? That is the question colour psychology asks, and here is what science actually answers, solid results and deflated ones included.

What is colour psychology?

It is the study of what a perceived colour does to our emotions, our reasoning and our actions. The reference review is by Andrew Elliot and Markus Maier (Annual Review of Psychology, 2014). Their theory, known as “colour-in-context”, rests on two ideas: a colour acts through learned associations, sometimes reinforced by a biological predisposition; and its meaning depends on context, the same red signalling the danger of failure in an exam hall and attraction in a romantic setting. Our article on the power of colours develops the same idea.

The same authors warn that this literature remains “at a nascent stage”, and that considerable work on boundary conditions and generalisation to the real world is needed before any recommendation for application. Keep that sentence in mind: it explains why half of what you read on the subject does not hold up. What each colour evokes, on the other hand, is documented differently, by historians and surveys: that is our guide to the meaning of colours.

Why we like a colour

The best measured answer comes from Stephen Palmer and Karen Schloss (Berkeley, PNAS, 2010): we like the colours of the things we like. This is the ecological valence theory. With 48 participants and 32 colours, the average value of the objects associated with each colour, weighted by the strength of the association, explained 80% of the differences in preference: blues, linked to clear skies and clean water, are liked; browns, linked to things that rot, are rejected; this is what our article why hang a blue abstract painting finds in buyers' choices. Among Berkeley students, attachment to the university even went hand in hand with a preference for its colours, blue and gold, and a rejection of the red and white of Stanford, its rival.

In other words, a colour preference is a personal and a collective history at once. Abstract art shows this too: a study in the Journal of Vision (Vessel and Rubin, 2010) measured that agreement between two people on what they find beautiful drops from 0.46 for photographs of real scenes to 0.20 for generated abstract images, while each person remains consistent in their own tastes. In front of an abstract painting, the eye that matters is yours.

“I discovered in this artist a rare originality, instantly recognisable. Her works were not content with just being beautiful: they seemed inhabited, run through with an inner energy, as if each canvas captured a moment of life, an emotion, a mood, sometimes serene, sometimes tormented.”

What has been measured, and holds up

A red room is more arousing than a blue one. One of the few series of experiments conducted in real painted rooms comes from Küller and Janssens (Lund University) with Mikellides (Oxford Brookes), in a synthesis published in 2009: strong colours, red above all, put the brain in a more aroused state, and introverted people, or those already in a bad mood, react to them more. The authors conclude that moderate use of good colour design improves mood and well-being. For a bedroom, the argument weighs against bright red; for a living room, it weighs in its favour.

The white office is not the most neutral. Nancy Kwallek and her colleagues (University of Texas, 1996) placed 675 people in offices painted in nine colours: participants made significantly more proofreading errors in the white office than in the blue and red ones, while saying they preferred to work in neutral tones. What we prefer and what serves us do not always coincide: our page on abstract paintings for the office draws the lessons from that.

It is lightness, not hue, that makes a room feel bigger. Oberfeld, Hecht and Gamer (University of Mainz, 2010) had people estimate, in virtual reality, the height of rooms in which they varied the lightness of the surfaces: a light ceiling looks higher, so do light walls, the two add up, and the lightness of the floor changes nothing. A follow-up study (von Castell, Hecht and Oberfeld, 2018) isolated the three dimensions of a ceiling's colour: only luminance alters perceived height, hue has only a very weak effect, and saturation practically none. What neuroscience adds about the way we look is in our article on neuroaesthetics.

Mood follows the light you feel, not the light that is measured. The field study by Rikard Küller and his colleagues (2006), on 988 people in real workplaces across four countries, shows that mood is at its lowest when the lighting is judged far too dark, at its highest when it is judged “just right”, and that it drops again when the light becomes too bright, whereas the illuminance measured with a lux meter had no effect at all. What counts is how you experience the light, and a light-toned painting on a dark wall is part of that.

What does not hold up

Red that lowers test results. In 2007, Elliot, Maier and their colleagues showed in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General that brief exposure to red before a test (a participant number written in red ink) lowered scores. Timo Gnambs' meta-analysis (2020, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review), covering 67 effect sizes from 38 samples, finds no difference for anagram and knowledge tests, a modest effect for reasoning, and, once publication bias is corrected for, no remaining evidence of any effect of red on intellectual performance. The earliest studies reported far stronger effects than those that followed.

Blue that makes you creative. The idea comes from a study by Mehta and Zhu (Science, 2009): red was supposed to favour detail-oriented tasks, blue creative ones. Kenneth Steele repeated the anagram experiment exactly, with more than three times as many participants (2014), and did not find the effect, despite sufficient statistical power; the creativity experiments themselves have not been replicated.

Red that warms you up. Bennett and Rey (Human Factors, 1972) had 21 students wearing red, blue or clear glasses rate their thermal comfort while the temperature of the walls varied from 15 to 38 °C: no effect of hue. Colour produces, they write, a “strictly intellectual” effect, the belief that you are warmer, without changing felt comfort. Povl Ole Fanger, the father of thermal comfort standards, measured the same thing in 1977: under red light, his subjects preferred a temperature about 0.4 °C lower, a difference he judged to be of no practical significance.

“Throne de Feu” (73 × 60 cm) is a red that needs no study to exist: it excites the eye, like the red rooms in Lund, and that is precisely what is asked of it in a living room. What it will not do is heat the room or lower your marks; why hang a red abstract painting says where it belongs. The collection of red paintings is the largest in the catalogue.

What this changes when choosing a painting

Three rules follow from what holds up. The first: to make a room feel bigger, go for lightness before hue; a light wall or a light painting does more than a “cool” colour. The second: the light you feel counts more than the light that is measured, so hang the painting where it catches the light you like, and read how high to hang a painting for the rest. The third: with an abstract work, your taste outweighs any advice, and the ecological valence theory says why: you like the colours of what you like. The simulator lets you try a painting on a photo of your own wall, and the feng shui of colours offers another framework for choosing.

“Poésie Naturelle” (73 × 55 cm) is a good example: light, luminous greens that brighten a wall more than they colour it. If green is the colour of the things you like, you will not need a study to know it, and why hang a green abstract painting will tell you where. The collection of green paintings has around thirty of them.

Frequently asked questions

Is colour psychology a real science?

Yes, but a young one. Elliot and Maier's review (2014) shows that colour genuinely influences emotions, reasoning and actions, while judging the literature to be “at a nascent stage”. Several famous results have not survived replication.

Does red really lower test results?

No, according to Gnambs' meta-analysis (2020): once publication bias is corrected for, no evidence remains of any effect of red on intellectual performance. The original study (2007) reported effects that replications did not find.

Which colour makes a room feel bigger?

The lightest one, whatever its hue. The University of Mainz experiments (2010, 2018) show that only luminance changes the perceived height of a room; hue has only a very weak effect and saturation almost none.

Does blue make you more creative?

Nothing proves it. The Science study (2009) that claimed so was not confirmed by a replication run with more than three times as many participants (Steele, 2014), and its creativity experiments have never been replicated.

Choose with what holds up

Lightness, the light you feel, and your own taste. The rest remains to be verified. Browse the collection by colour, and if a shade draws you without your knowing why, ecological valence most likely has an answer; our guide to choosing a painting to suit your personality has another.