Color psychology – Do you feel peaceful in a simple white room? Does the blue sea evoke a sense of calmness within? Or maybe you feel unsettled seeing a bright neon yellow? Interior designers and artists have always claimed that color does have a huge impact on a person’s mood and feelings. “Color is a power which directly influences the soul” rightly quoted by Wassily Kandinsky.
Color is a magnificent medium that can be used to stimulate mood, signal action, and even influence the path of psychological reactions. Few colors have been directly linked to activating physiological responses, like the color red claimed by researchers, which results in increased blood pressure, metabolism, and eyestrain.
Color Psychology is the study of how different hues can be helpful in analyzing human behavior thereby understanding the mental, emotional, and physiological effects that colors have in various spheres of human life. It goes without saying that there could be different interpretations, meanings, and perceptions, of colors in different cultures. Just like in Hindu culture wearing white signifies peace during a funeral but in Christianity, white is worn during weddings.
Color is often associated with a human’s emotions. There are two major categories of colors, one is Warm Colors for example yellow, red, and orange and the other is Cool Colors like green, blue and purple. Generally, Warm colors epitomize a range of emotions from comfort to hostility whereas Cool colors often spark emotions ranging from calmness to gloom or feeling sad.
Understanding the effects of these colors is also quite deep. Warm colors like yellow and orange are often associated with stimulating people’s appetite and making them hungry. Hence, haven’t you often seen these colors in restaurants? Also, at the same time, one has to be careful about using these bright colors as they reflect more light and can cause irritation to the eye.
Talking about the cool spectrum of colors, whenever we think of a calm and peaceful environment the two colors that hop in naturally are green and blue. There is also a scientific logic around this as since the eye focuses the green color directly onto the retina, it’s claimed to be causing less strain on eye muscles. Alternatively, the color blue has believed to decrease respiration issues and helps with regulating blood pressure. Hence, it’s also one of the most common bedroom colors.
In ancient times, Egyptians and Chinese used to practice Chromotherapy which is a way wherein colors are used to heal a person by passing certain vibrations to bring health and harmony. Each color has a frequency of a specific vibration and each vibration is somewhere linked to helping with a physiological symptom. In many places, it’s called light therapy.
Andrew Elliot and Markus Maier have said that there is very little theoretical and empirical work being done to understand and study the effects of color psychology and it’s actually astonishing it’s not a very well-developed field yet. There are studies being conducted that are mostly facilitated by practical concerns and not scientific rigor. Irrespective of this, people are using colors and patterns to create art, craft, and designs.
Studies say that:
In this way, color does have a great impact on one’s livelihood. It’s what you see, you absorb. It impacts thinking, mood, action, performance, and overall mental cognitive abilities.
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