Mood and Color/Concept Essay

Jamie Johnson
Mr. Gowans
LA 12
1/14/13

Mood and Color

Does your mood really have anything to do with the colors that surround you? Scientists have and are doing studies on that question but science does not have a real answer. Even though science does not have an answer the average person believes that it is true. Most of the articles I have read say that color in fact does have an effect on your mood but how and why color affects a person’s mood still remains a mystery. Happy, sad, angry, peaceful, passionate, crazy, energetic, grumpy, anxious, frustrated, or positive, color may be responsible for your mood.

Artists throughout time have used color to portray different moods. Just by looking at a painting you get a feeling for the mood based on the colors the artist used. In todays media movies and television use color in the same way. The work of early artists may be the origin of the belief that color affects our emotions and moods. Though color clearly portrays a mood the question remains, does color cause one's mood? This is a question that is difficult to answer since scientists say that the one does not make the other true and the influence of color may be nothing more than a placebo effect resulting from the common belief that color influences our mood.

People who claim color affects our emotions say blue is calming, red causes you to feel anger or passion, purple brings out your creativity or causes you to feel powerful, green makes you feel hopeful and helps you connect with nature, and jelly bean colors or bright colors, make you energetic or joyful. “There are 16.7 million colors in the universe, with each hue possessing a unique power to stir the spirit and conjure up feelings. "The right colors stimulate or relax our sense, release happy memories and reflect how we think about ourselves," says Leatrice Eiseman” (Barker, Living). We as people cannot see all of the 16.7 million colors, so in general those who believe that colors affect our attitudes and moods usually just refer to the common colors when they identify the effect of color on our moods.

We know that people say that the colors around you can make you feel calm or energetic but how can color affect your mood? “Color triggers emotions and memories, so it immediately affects how we feel, says Leatrice Eiseman” (Barker, Colour) That may be true but it may not. That might be true because the color may remind you about something from our past which will affect your emotions and how you feel. On the other side it may not because we all have different memories, so why does the color blue make us all feel calm when our emotion and past experiences may be different?

For many people it seems to be true but why? Some scientists would suggest that media and publicity have sent us subconscious messages which through our lives condition us to have certain emotions when we see certain colors. To test this they would need to evaluate individuals who have not been exposed to the effects of media and already hold the belief that color influences our mood. To find such a person in today’s world would be difficult. So the theory that someone has through their life watched or experienced different medias that used color in connection with the mood portrayed on the screen which in turn conditioned us to relate those colors with the mood portrayed in media is reasonable. This is why scientists believe that It is basically the power of suggestion that makes it seem that colors affect our mood. For example someone may say you don't look very good today you must be feeling blue, so the person starts to believe that they are sick. They also connect the color blue with the way they feel. When people say that this or that color brings out this emotion in you people start to believe it, so it seems to be true.

The fact that artists understand that color affects your mood and use it in media does not mean that color does affect our mood without the past experiences. Still it makes it easy to conclude that because of the experiences of life color undoubtedly does affect our mood. They use the right color in the right place to make you feel what they want. Using bright colors for a happy painting or dark and gloomy colors for a depressing painting we can feel an emotion. So color does have an effect on our mood.

Mood rings a ring that tells you your mood by the color. The color is used to portray your emotions and moods in mood rings. Mood rings use the same colors to portray feelings and passion as visible colors. If your mood ring is blue you are happy and calm and that’s what the color blue makes you feel. Is that on purpose or not? I do not know but it is interesting. So how do mood rings work? The ring changes color depending on your body’s temperature. So does it really work? Well, it’s all up to your opinion and what you think.

Though science does not have evidence that color affects your mood, hospitals have had experience and have found that color does help. “ Hospitals have long been aware that quiet colors like light blues and mint greens are beneficial in reducing patient stress and can promote physical and mental relaxation” (Stein). If it work it works, color is helping patients be more relaxed, so who cares if science can’t prove it? Its working for someone because hospitals proved it. “Color affects everything from our moods to our heart rates. While blue is generally calming and red stimulating, in a recent article published in Color, Research and Application, participants in two different studies had such high cortical arousal in red rooms that it paradoxically lowered their heart rates. In a third study, multicolored rooms lowered participants' heart rates more than gray ones. Introverts were the most strongly affected.” (Arango). This leads us to conclude that there is much to be learn on how color affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Hospitals aren’t the only ones that have found out that some colors may affect a person’s feeling. “High-energy reds and oranges are typically used in fast food franchises for a specific reason...it can make the viewer impatient and restless, thus encouraging patrons to "eat and run."”(Stein) Businesses are using color to affect our mood to help them move forward. Fast foods are using it to get people to come order, eat and leave quickly leaving room for more customers to come helping them to serve more customers and make more money. Whether or not it truly works most fast food companies are giving it a try. There are more than fast food places giving color a try. To see if it would help in offices they, “set up test offices in different hues and found that color affects the quality of people's work” (Barker, colour). According to many companies color is not only affecting the mood of their employees but it is also helping business in and out of the office and patients in a hospital.

In conclusion, the colors around you surely affect how you feel. It may make you feel different about something you see or bring back memories that will affect your mood. It may just be all in your mind and you just believe what others tell you and things you hear. Still colors do have some effect on us whether it is in our heads or not. It’s really not a question of whether colors affect us it’s a question of why and how we are affected by the colors that surround us. Once we know the how and why we will be able to use color to truly make the world a more beautiful place.

Work Cited

Arango, Jorge S. "The Color Of Introversion." Psychology Today 43.4 (2010): 40-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.
Barker, Elizabeth. "Colour Your World." Natural Health 37.5 (2007): 16-19. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.
Barker, Elizabeth. "Living In Color." Natural Health 34.2 (2004): 66-73. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Jan. 2013.
Stein, Shifra. "COMMUNICATING With Color." Women in Business 58.3 (2006): 14-15. Academic Search Premier. Web. 11 Jan. 2013.