Colour and Mood

A research study conducted by K. Yildrim et al at the Gazi University, looked at whether different colours of a living room evoked different moods. The study involved asking participants to look at 2 different digital images of rooms in different colours and to rate the feelings that the rooms evoked. The variables that were rated were scales of happy/unhappy, spacious/less spacious, restful/disturbing, vivid/lack lustre, highly arousing/not very arousing, exciting/unexciting, stimulating/non-stimulating, calm/restless, peaceful/non-peaceful. The 3 colour schemes compared were cool (blue tones), warm (red tones) and achromatic (grey tones). The results found that participants rated the warm colour schemes as more arousing, stimulating and exciting whereas the cool colour schemes were rated higher on the scales of not very arousing, spacious and restful. It is generally assumed that cooler and achromatic colours evoke calmer and more peaceful emotions. The study also found that female participants gave more positive ratings overall than males in the study.