Color brings our world to life.  If we lived in a world that was only black and white, our lives would seem a little dull, don’t you think? But shouldn’t you be questioning why we associate black and white with  gloomy, dreary, and dull?.  Our minds associate colors with emotions and feelings.  Colors have their own meanings.

Ever since we were young, we’ve learned to associate colors with our emotions and mood.   We can separate colors into warm and cool colors. Red, orange, and yellow are examples of warm colors but the motions they can make you feel range from a comforting feeling to a feeling of rage and anger.  A bright red might trigger anger and heartbreak where as a light yellow might trigger warmness and happiness.  Cool colors are represented by blue, purple, and green.  Your emotions may range from calmness to sadness.  The colors blue and green are associated with peacefulness and restfulness because we associate these colors with our environment and nature.  Physically our eye uses the retina to directly focus on the color green which results in less strain for our eye muscles.  The color blue brings a sense of calmness and can actually lower our blood pressure.  Black and white we either associate the same emotions with or they can be complete opposites.  They both can trigger a mourning feeling, but black we associate with power and evil where as white is more of innocence and purity.

Did you ever think about how company’s use this color psychology to market their product in a certain way.  Did you ever notice just how many logos are the color red?  A study done by the University of Missouri-Columbia was able to find how people felt based on company’s logo colors.  The color that surprised them the most was red.  Red usually represents an aggressive emotion but what the study found was red represented a feeling of expertise and confidence.   Although there is not an exact cause as to why this happens, one reasoning behind it is many well-known brands are the color red (McDonald’s and ESPN) so in our mind we associate the red logo with a positive and good quality company.  Since red also represents a loving and desirable feeling it can trigger hunger which is why many food chains and restaurants choose to use the color red.

We obviously can’t just consider color being the only reason we have certain emotions because correlation does not equal causation.  There are many other factors that affect our emotions and mood but the color around us plays a major part in it.  How boring do you think our lives would be if there was no color? The next time you experience certain feelings and emotions, look around and observe the colors around you.  You might be surprised what you find.