Do we feel colours? A systematic review of 128 years of psychological research linking colours and emotions
Jonauskaite and Mohr systematically review over a century of psychological research linking colours to emotions. They identified one hundred and thirty-two peer-reviewed articles published in English between eighteen ninety-five and two thousand and twenty-two, covering over forty thousand participants from sixty-four countries. All basic colour categories showed systematic correspondences with affective dimensions of valence, arousal and power, as well as with discrete emotions.
Jonauskaite and Mohr systematically review over a century of psychological research linking colours to emotions. They identified one hundred and thirty-two peer-reviewed articles published in English between eighteen ninety-five and two thousand and twenty-two, covering over forty thousand participants from sixty-four countries. All basic colour categories showed systematic correspondences with affective dimensions of valence, arousal and power, as well as with discrete emotions.
Written from the abstract as shown on the OpenAlex record, read 2026-11-04.
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Jonauskaite, D., & Mohr, C. (2025). Do we feel colours? A systematic review of 128 years of psychological research linking colours and emotions. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32(4), 1457-1486. doi:10.3758/s13423-024-02615-z.