Feb 13, 2021 03:12 AM
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/ar...-color-red
EXCERPT: From roses to lipstick to little Corvettes, many manifestations of red conjure thoughts of love and lust. The color is everywhere this time of year, in the hearts, flowers and other trappings of Valentine’s Day. There's no doubt that red and romance are entwined in our minds; what’s less clear is the reason for their connection.
One explanation is that human societies have paired the two for so long that we are now conditioned to think of them together. [...] Of course, none of that explains how those connections arose in the first place, leading some to wonder whether evolution primed us to be aroused by the sight of red.
[...] In their study, Elliot and Niesta asked male undergraduates to rate the attractiveness of women in photographs. Some images featured red in the background or on their shirts. In other images, the woman wore other colors — white, green, or gray. Every variation of the experiment yielded the same result: Women wearing red, or simply appearing against a backdrop of it, were rated as more attractive. The men also reported they'd be more likely to ask out the women clad in red and spend more money on their date. (The aphrodisiac is quite subtle, apparently, considering the men weren’t conscious of red's effect.)
A couple of years later, Elliot and his colleagues reversed the experiment, asking women to rate men. Women also found men wearing red more attractive, and the team concluded that red entices in both directions. Next, Elliot looked for evidence that the link between red and attractiveness is universal among other cultures. He found it in a rural village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where red typically carries negative connotations. But experiments revealed that the romantic red effect also held true here — the “first evidence suggesting that red may operate as something of a lingua franca in the human mating game," the study noted.
Some studies since then have affirmed these results, though often with caveats... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: From roses to lipstick to little Corvettes, many manifestations of red conjure thoughts of love and lust. The color is everywhere this time of year, in the hearts, flowers and other trappings of Valentine’s Day. There's no doubt that red and romance are entwined in our minds; what’s less clear is the reason for their connection.
One explanation is that human societies have paired the two for so long that we are now conditioned to think of them together. [...] Of course, none of that explains how those connections arose in the first place, leading some to wonder whether evolution primed us to be aroused by the sight of red.
[...] In their study, Elliot and Niesta asked male undergraduates to rate the attractiveness of women in photographs. Some images featured red in the background or on their shirts. In other images, the woman wore other colors — white, green, or gray. Every variation of the experiment yielded the same result: Women wearing red, or simply appearing against a backdrop of it, were rated as more attractive. The men also reported they'd be more likely to ask out the women clad in red and spend more money on their date. (The aphrodisiac is quite subtle, apparently, considering the men weren’t conscious of red's effect.)
A couple of years later, Elliot and his colleagues reversed the experiment, asking women to rate men. Women also found men wearing red more attractive, and the team concluded that red entices in both directions. Next, Elliot looked for evidence that the link between red and attractiveness is universal among other cultures. He found it in a rural village in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where red typically carries negative connotations. But experiments revealed that the romantic red effect also held true here — the “first evidence suggesting that red may operate as something of a lingua franca in the human mating game," the study noted.
Some studies since then have affirmed these results, though often with caveats... (MORE - details)