Colors and Personality free essay sample

People of all generations and cultures have used color to express feelings and emotion. Color preferences are personal expressions for life such as using in clothes, shoes, bags, room painting, and etc. Although some of the colors are the popular for the fashion, people mostly chose the color which expresses themselves. Some people refrain from using color because they do not understand how to use it or hesitate not to reflect their soul. All of these illustrates that colors have personal trait to reflect personalities. Many people are not aware that colors have influence on them. They seldom realize colors around them are affected by their mood, temperament, and behavior. Colors are clues about personality traits. On the other hands intensity, value, and hue are the three essential qualities of color. In terms of these properties of the colors, objects we see, stimulate our emotions. This is the warmth and the coolness of the color we see. We will write a custom essay sample on Colors and Personality or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Statement of the problem The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between color preferences and personality and effects of coolness and warmth of the color on preferences. Review of related literature Color choices represent social consequences to express us to other people and influence how others perceive us. Lange et al. (2005) showed that people’s color preferences, as accessed via the Dewey Color System Test, provide meaningful information about their personalities, interpersonal styles, and behaviors. Lange also found that people’s vocational interest can be inferred from their color preferences. Lange (2005) found that respondents’ color preferences present most powerful predictors of their social boldness personality treats and least predictors of their apprehension personality treat. Luscher (1971) proposed that individuals with similar color preferences have also similar personality characteristics. He supposed that physiological reactions while viewing primary colors such as blue, red, yellow and green reveal psychological needs of the individuals. For example, when the primary color is not liked this is regarded as unmet physiological and psychological need. However, these reactions change according to intensity value and hue of the color (Bjersedt, 1960). Crozier (1999) proposes that color is a determinant element for human and other species. According to evolutionary perspective ability to discriminate colors and tendencies to approach some and avoid others is essential for surviving. Crozier(1999) emphasizes on effect of stimuli which are color patches on commercial behavior. He showed that blue is the most preferred and most pleasant hue and yellow and orange are less liked. Preference of color is a multidimensional experience. this preference depends on hue, saturation and brightness (Crozier, 1999). He found that illumination, background color and interactive effects of color affect preferences (1999). Bjerstedt (1960) found that warm color such as red and cool colors such as blue trigger associational themes and found that these differences demonstrated among various nationality and language groups. He showed that different individual preferences for warm versus cool colors indicated different personality traits. For example, warm color patterns represented certain behavior tendencies such as activity, directedness, and need gratification. Bjerstedt (1960) showed that younger people choose the warm color patterns more often than older people do. Colors reflect an emotional valence for people, which is related to their attitudes. (Colt et al. , 2003) . On the other hands, Colt et al. (2003) demonstrated that the position of the color, central or peripheral, influence feel of the image. Color in the centre seemed more concentrated feel to the image. Radeloff (1999) found that attributes of the visual experience are subcomponent of the human experience in relation to colors. He found that fabrics in summer and winter colors were not significantly different from one another but were significantly more preferred than spring colors and autumn colors were the least preferred. These findings shows that cool based clothing fabrics are more preferred than warm based fabrics. Several variations need to be made about this research. Main object of this study is to investigate the relationship between color preference and personality traits. Color preferences of individuals will reflect one or more personality trait 2. Color preferences changes according to warmth and coolness. 3. Individuals with a tendency toward introversion will prefer cool colors 4. Individuals with a tendency toward extroversion will prefer strong intensified colors.