Does Baker-Miller pink reduce aggression in prison detention cells? A critical empirical examination
Oliver Genschow and colleagues (Noll, Wänke and Gersbach) assigned 59 male prisoners in special detention in Switzerland at random to an entirely pink cell or to a white cell with a grey floor of the same size. Guards rated each man's aggression on arrival and again after three days. Aggression fell in both kinds of cell, and the colour made no difference at any point, including when prisoners who began calm and prisoners who began aggressive were analysed separately. The authors allowed that 59 men might be too few to detect a small effect, and raised the worry that the colour could backfire by attacking inmates' perceived manhood.
Oliver Genschow and colleagues (Noll, Wänke and Gersbach) assigned 59 male prisoners in special detention in Switzerland at random to an entirely pink cell or to a white cell with a grey floor of the same size. Guards rated each man's aggression on arrival and again after three days. Aggression fell in both kinds of cell, and the colour made no difference at any point, including when prisoners who began calm and prisoners who began aggressive were analysed separately. The authors allowed that 59 men might be too few to detect a small effect, and raised the worry that the colour could backfire by attacking inmates' perceived manhood.
Written from the the account in this site's article What the Pink Cell Never Proved, which reports the paper.
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Genschow, O., Noll, T., Wänke, M., & Gersbach, R. (2015). Does Baker-Miller pink reduce aggression in prison detention cells? A critical empirical examination. Psychology, Crime & Law, 21(5), 482-489. doi:10.1080/1068316X.2014.989172.