Colour Psychology

What does your favourite colour reveal? Have you ever wondered why most of the social media apps like twitter, facebook use colour blue ? Why do Lawyers wear black while doctors wear white? Why do most of the food outlets Zomato, Mcdonald’s and Kfc use red colour?

In this article, we will be seeing Colour psychology.
Colour psychology revolves around how colours can influence our perception and perspective.
The way colours influence us maybe biological innate, learned or just the nature of the colour itself.

Although there are not a lot of empirical evidence for colour psychology. Let us quickly look down on few popular facts of how colours influence us.

Colour Blue

The colour blue is the colour most associated with communication and hence is used in websites designed for communication and engagement. The fluid and calm nature of the colour ensures a feeling of safety and trustworthiness.

Social Media

Facebookis said to be blue because Mark Zuckerberg, is red-green colourblind. Besides the obvious reason, blue can be used to promote communication and interaction – which facebook is best known for. Twitter uses blue to feel dependable, just like we depend on Twitter to provide us with information on trending and current events. Wordpress uses the colour blue on its homepage to create a feeling of trustworthiness and stability. It is to ensure the visitors to have confidence in them as a blogging platform.

A lot of other tech companies like Telecom, HP, Dell and AT&T, also use the colour blue in their marketing to attract visitors.

Crimes

In 2000,Glasgowinstalled blue street lighting in certain neighbourhoods and subsequently reported the finding of reduced crime in these areas.A railroad company in Japan installed blue lighting on its stations in October 2009 in an effort to reduce the number of suicide attempts. Although the effects and trustability of this technique are questionable.

Office set up

It is also said that wearing Blue in interviews can enhance the chance of the interviewee getting selected as the interviewer perceive the interviewee to be dependent, trustableand warm

Colour Red

Red is an attention-grabbing colour. It has an energetic and vivid influence.

Food

The colour red is said to induce hunger. Red is an appetite stimulant and makes us hungry. Most of the food ordering apps like Zomato, Grubhub, Doordash, Foodler use red colour. Dominos also uses red in some parts of its website.Well known outlets like KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's also uses this strategy.

In an online survey consisting of 130 participants,70 % of the people claimed to prefer a food ordering app which is red in colour than any other colour.

Medicine

When talking about the medical industry as a whole, red should be avoided
The world is associated with life, giving support, and care, while on the other hand, it's linked to injury, blood, risk, and emergency.The colour Redis subconsciously associated with the alarm, hazard, blood, and danger. Red is said to evoke a sense of fear in stressful situations and red is often used very less in Hospital websites.

In an online survey consisting of 120 people, 60 % of the population claimed that they preferred the hospital board/website to be in blue or green in colour than red.

Red in Romance

Red is an attention-grabbing colour and is often associated with passion, love, excitement, energy.

Most of the Indian songs use the colour red to symbolize love and also to attract the audience to feel inclined to the song.

One such example is the Song Sendhoora from the Tamil movie Bogan. Throughout the song, we can see shades of red either in the costume of the actors or in the background or as props. This purely attracts attention and is eye-grabbing to the audience. In an online survey of 120 people, 70 % of them found the song to be attractive and pleasing to watch.

Also in a study psychologistAndrew J. Elliot, it was found that heterosexual men tend to report that female wearing red outfit is attractive.

Colour Yellow

Colour yellow is often said to evoke creativeness and innovations. Most of the people working in creative set up use yellow. Eg: Fully Filmy, Snapchat.

Yellow is also said to be a happy colour and induces happiness in us. No wonder we go crazily happy on seeing Thala in Yellow Jersey.

Colour Black

Colour black is found to be intimidating and said to be a colour exhibiting authority. Lawyers and most of the judges wear black coats to represent that they have authoritative power .Colour black used in private offices and cabins can give us a sense of being in control but we must also be careful of using the colour as it may absorb heat.

Colour White

Colour white is mostly associated with purity and sincerity. Although there's no proper explanation for why doctors wear white coats. There is a lot of past evidence which shows that they wear white coats to evoke a sense of being sincere and pure to the patients instilling hope in the betterment of their health.In a journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, it was found that the patient responded to doctors better when they were not in their white coat. It must be due to the negative learned aversion towards doctors wearing a white coat and associating it with illness and sickness. Hence in St Mary's Hospital Medical school, London most of the doctor working in the psychiatry and paediatrics avoided wearing white coats to develop a better rapport with the patients and to avoid the negative effects.

White has a cultural difference where westerners wear white gowns for their weddings and most of the eastern countries wear white for inauspicious events.

Even politicians wear white to represent that they are pure and are free from corruption which is very ironic in our country which ranks top in corruption.

Colour Green

Colour Green is said to induce serenity and calmness. Green mostly represents Nature. Colour green can be used in the geriatric ward while working with old age people. Shades of green can also be used in meditations centres and temples.

Colour Pink

Colour pink has a learned response to being feminine and sophisticated.Many well-known brands like Victoria secret and Barbie attract women from all over the world.

Although each of us have a favourite colour and grows to be less likely of the gender-stereotyped colours imposed on us as we increase in age, there's a beautiful thing about why do we have a favourite colour which I learnt in a workshop on Hypnosis and Iwould like to share it.

This was an interpretation by the renowned hypnotist Mr Muthiah Ramanathan during the workshop on Hypnosis and Mind which he was kind enough to conduct for us.

Think about your favourite Colour- Keep it in your mind
.
.
Now think of the first memory you have about your mother and try to remember the colour of the dress she was wearing in your memory of her.

.
.
It is most likely that both of them are the same colour. For me, it happens to be blue. I can remember my mother wearing a light blue colour saree and feeding me. It is said that the colour of the dress we remember our mothers wearing in our first memory of them evokes a sense of warmth and makes us feel secure and hence we move on to develop a liking to that colour. Although this is pseudoscience, it might be true in some cases.

Colour psychology is a growing field and has room for a greater scope in future