Color Psychology

You can often tell what college many people went to by their wardrobe.  What self-respecting Mizzou Tiger graduate doesn’t have at least a few black and gold tee shirts, sweatshirts, caps or jackets?  What Alabama alum doesn’t deck their house out in crimson and white during college football season?  What degree holder from North Carolina doesn’t bleed Carolina Blue and white during March Madness every spring?  (This is hyperbole, of course. Blood is always a shade of red, from bright cherry to dark red.)

It’s fun to look back and see what colors we wore as we grew up.  My high school was in Farmington, so we were the Black Knights, or probably more accurately, the “Knights” for short.  We wore black and gold, just like Mizzou, but also just like Fredericktown, a town some twenty miles to our south.  That was really confusing sometimes.  Their letter jackets were black with a brownish yellow “F” brandished over their hearts just like ours.  They were the “Black Cats”, but it seemed they didn’t bring a lot of bad luck with them.  Many of them crossed my path over four years, and I never had any bad luck when they were around.

Flat River Central, later to be known as Park Hills, colors were red, white, and blue.  They were the Rebels, and they were one our school’s archrivals.  I love seeing the colors red, white, and blue because of our country, but when I was in school, those colors often brought a negative visceral response because it pointed to a school we often battled scholastically and athletically.  Potosi’s colors were purple and gold.  They were another school we battled with a little extra fervor.  To this day, the colors purple and gold turn my stomach a little bit.

It’s funny how colors can affect your mood, your thinking, and even your behavior.  How often do you see the colors of the American flag and swell inside with a bit more pride than before you saw it?  How often do you see your alma mater’s colors and think back on simpler days and treasured memories of yesteryear?  

Even in advertising, there is a philosophy and color theory.  Yes, they’ve thought of everything to try to get you to buy what their selling. The following results are taken from Color Psychology.  

Purple is associated with wisdom, wealth, royalty, power, and magic.  Its mood is powerful, exudes strength and calming.  Blue is associated with depth, stability, wisdom, trust, and confidence.  Its mood is calming.  Green is associated with growth (like green grass), health, harmony, and nature.  Its mood is calming and refreshing.  Yellow is associated with energy (like the sun) warming, and happy.  Its mood is aggravation and joy.  Orange is associated with enthusiasm, heat, success, and creativity.  Its mood is warm and excitement.  Red is associated with passion, energy, strength, love, and power.  Its mood is intensity, anger, and excitement.  White is associated with purity, light, cleanliness, and innocence.  Its mood is cold and unfriendly.  Black is associated with power, mystery, elegance, evil, mourning, and death.  Its mood is confident, calm, stable, and mysterious.

Do you have a favorite color?  Maybe it’s your favorite because you connect with its mood or associations.  It’s easy to see that in some people.  Often, colors are use to connect people with products.  Think of a Pepsi can logo, or Coca Cola.  You don’t need the words to know what’s in the can, all you need is the colors and the logo.  We are all familiar with Starbucks green, FedEx navy and orange, the golden arches of McDonald’s, and the red bullseye of Target.  We are being conditioned to top of mind awareness of products and venues.  Colors really do carry a lot of power in that regard.

All that happens because the cones in the retina enable color perception when processing the light’s differing wavelengths.  There are three types of cones:  small, that absorb shorter wavelengths like purple and blue, medium, that absorb medium wavelengths like yellows and greens, and long, that absorb the orange and red end of the color spectrum.

You’ve got about 6 million cones in your retinas.  They are most densely concentrated in the macular area, which is the area responsible for your central vision.  If your cones are damaged, your color vision perception will be as well.

So, get ready for college football season.  Put on your red and black, and go to Houck Stadium and cheer on our Southeast Missouri State Redhawks.  You’ll fit right in, (and you know you look good in red and black).