To improve your creativity, what color should you glance at?

Want to spark your creativity? Try glancing at the color green.  About to do some proofreading? Peer at something red.  Preparing for a major test, or presentation, where brain performance is key?  A touch of blue might do.
 
Welcome to the emerging world of color psychology. 

According to new research out of the University of Munich, a glimpse of green appears to activate “the type of pure, open (mental) processing required to do well on creativity tasks” according to lead researcher Stephanie Lichtenfeld, who was quoted in Pacific Standard Magazine earlier this year.

The Pacific Standard article, authored by Tom Jenkins, explains that, across the board (that is, in a full range of experiments using both picture-based and word-based assessments of creativity) green outperformed white, gray, red and blue (talk about envy). But worry not for other members of the color wheel – they’ve had their day in the sunshine (see details, below).

For instance, Jenkins points out that recent studies have linked red to “sexual attractiveness, the perception of danger and adherence to strict standards.” And Jenkins cites a 2010 paper in which “teachers gave harsher grades when correcting papers using red ink.” 

Lichtenfeld and colleagues ran four experiments that demonstrated the power of green, first exposing subjects to a range of colors, then asking them to perform a series of tasks to demonstrate creativity (for example, participants were asked to draw as many objects as they could from a geometric shape).

More colorful findings: 

• Online auctions? A study in the Journal of Consumer Research, as reported in Science Daily, found that if you’re selling a product on eBay, use a red background. It will lead individuals to make higher bids in auctions, but lower offers in negotiations;

• Referee bias? In a 2008 report, Science Daily reported the following: “Psychologists Norbert Hagemann, Bernd Strauss and Jan Leibing from the University of Munster specifically found that referees tended to assign more points to tae kwon do competitors dressed in red than those dressed in blue.”

• First date?  No surprise, perhaps, but men are disproportionately attracted to women dressed in red (the hidden power behind lipstick?).  In one study, conducted by University of Rochester psychologists Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta, one set of participants was shown a photograph of a woman in a red shirt, while another group of participants was shown the same woman in a blue shirt. Men were asked how attracted they were to the woman and asked, among other questions: "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?" According to the Science Daily article, “under all of the conditions, the women shown framed by or wearing red were rated significantly more attractive and sexually desirable by men than the exact same women shown with other colors.”

• Memory? Proofreading? According to a 2009 report in Science Daily, a University of British Columbia study found that the color red enhances our attention to detail. According to the Science Daily article: “Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading by as much as 31 per cent compared to blue.”

• In the gym? A study published last year in the Journal Emotion, and reported in Science Daily, found that when humans see red, their reactions become faster and more forceful (but the physical benefits are short-lived); and

• Buying toothpaste? Apparently, we’re attracted to certain products based on a combination of their background color and the associated message.  For example, Juliet Zhu from the Sauder School of Business (University of British Columbia), found that people were more receptive to a new, fictional brand of toothpaste that focused on negative messages such as "cavity prevention" when the background color was red, whereas people were more receptive to aspirational messages such as tooth whitening when the background color was presented in blue.