Problem

Can colour affect emotion? 

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that if colour really does affect a person's emotions , then each person surveyed will have similar responses, because everyone will have the same emotion when they see a certain colour.

I researched my project by watching videos and reading articles about colour psychology. I also looked at other studies about what people felt when they saw a colour. I based my google form on a study from Australia so that I could compare all the results at the end. 

What is colour psychology?

Colour psychology is the study of how colours affect the mood and behaviour. It studies how colour can evoke different emotional responses. And how  responses are impacted by age and culture.

Variables

Controlled Variables: the colours on the Google form and the questions asked

Manipulated Variable: the different people I have sent the Google form to

Responding Variable: the responses people sent in

I have sent out a google form to 47 people and they all answered the same multiple choice questions asking what emotions they feel when they see a certain colour. I also added the option "other" to see if people felt any different emotions. Then when I got all the results back I made a graph of all their results to see what emotions most people feel when they see a certain colour.

During my project I observed that most people felt postitive emotons when the saw the colour green. I think this might be because Most of my family took this survey and they are all Irish. And since Ireland is green it might have reminded them of their home country.

My conclusion is... yes! Colours do have an affect on a person in both positive and negative ways. According to my survey most people felt...

Calm when they saw Blue                 Energetic when they saw Yellow               Content when they saw Green

Pleasure when they saw Purple          Cheerful when they saw Pink                    Excited when they saw Red

Cautious when they saw Orange          Disappointed when they saw Black           Free when they saw White

Disgust when they saw Brown

I could apply knowing how colours affect emotion by understanding what emotions are created by which colours. For example: if I know that blue makes people feel calm I could paint the walls of a hospital that colour so that the patients can feel calm not nervous. 

If I were to continue this experiment I would look more into culture and see if people feel a certain way about a colour depending on their culture. I would also ask random people to fill in the form, not just people I know. Another thing I would look deeper into is age. Do adults feel different emotions than children when they see a certain colour?

The Junto Institute. “Emotion Wheel”. Thejuntoinstitute.com. https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/emotion-wheels/ .

Hodder David. “Emotion and feeling wheel.” davidhodder.com, https://www.davidhodder.com/emotion-and-feeling-wheel/.

Cherry Kendra. “Colour psychology: Does it affect how you feel?” Verywellmind.com, https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824

Jonauskaite D, Abu-Akel A, Dael N, et al. “Universal patterns in color-emotion associations are further shaped by linguistic and geographic proximity”. Psychol Sci. 2020

American Psychological Association. “Red with anger or feeling blue? The link between color and emotion, with Domicele Jonauskaite, PhD”. youtube.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A19Z3bHSXjs

Science of People. “Color Psychology: How Color Affects Your Emotions And Why”.  Mike Mantell - scienceofpeople.com

https://www.scienceofpeople.com/color-psychology/

I really enjoyed this project and I loved diving deeper into colour psycology and learning more about it. I would like to thank my 47 particapants for making this project possible, my mom for helping me get set up, my teachers (Mrs. Stark and Mr. Boissonneault)  and finally my brother and my dad for their support and patience.