Romantic red: Red enhances men
Elliot and Niesta reported across five experiments that red, compared with other chromatic and achromatic colours, led men to view women as more attractive and more sexually desirable. Men appeared unaware of the influence. Red did not affect women's perceptions of the attractiveness of other women, and it did not move men's judgments of women's likeability, kindness or intelligence, a specificity that made the result look mechanistic. The paper states that the findings have clear practical implications for fashion consultants, product designers and marketers, and frames colour as a kind of common language shared within and across species. It is the study that carried colour psychology into commercial practice. It is also the one that has since failed: three studies covering 830 men found no effect, and a pre-registered replication using the original materials found a very weak effect that pointed the opposite way for women rating men.
Elliot and Niesta reported across five experiments that red, compared with other chromatic and achromatic colours, led men to view women as more attractive and more sexually desirable. Men appeared unaware of the influence. Red did not affect women's perceptions of the attractiveness of other women, and it did not move men's judgments of women's likeability, kindness or intelligence, a specificity that made the result look mechanistic. The paper states that the findings have clear practical implications for fashion consultants, product designers and marketers, and frames colour as a kind of common language shared within and across species. It is the study that carried colour psychology into commercial practice. It is also the one that has since failed: three studies covering 830 men found no effect, and a pre-registered replication using the original materials found a very weak effect that pointed the opposite way for women rating men.
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s attraction to women.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1150-1164. Five experiments; men appeared unaware; no effect on women's ratings of other women, nor on likeability, kindness or intelligence; the authors name fashion consultants, product designers and marketers as practical audiences. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.95.5.1150
Where we use it
- What Red Actually Does, Why We Act
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Elliot, A. J., & Niesta, D. (2008). 'Romantic red: Red enhances men's attraction to women.' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1150-1164. Five experiments; men appeared unaware; no effect on women's ratings of other women, nor on likeability, kindness or intelligence; the authors name fashion consultants, product designers and marketers as practical audiences. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.95.5.1150