What’s Your Color Personality?

Colors can have an intense effect on how you feel. Just deciding which color of suit or dress to wear makes a statement.

Our world is loaded with colors. It can be natural to overlook the visual palette that welcomes us every day. But don’t undervalue the effect of color on mood and personality. Research has discovered that different colors can produce very different reactions in people. A solid understanding of how color and mood mix can help you choose your clothes, decorate your home, and make other daily choices.

Seeing Red

Red is the most arousing and intense color and is intimately associated with both hatred and love. Consequently, research has found red to be a great example of the link between color and mood. Seeing red can produce a flight-or-fight response, which raises your heart rate and blood pressure. It can also be disruptive to thought, with researchers observing that exposure to red hindered people’s abilities to build puzzles. Choosing a red tie, lipstick, or dress can raise interest and attract attention, but using it as a room color could be overwhelming.

Soothing Blue

Blue has proven to be a calming and relaxing color. This color has been shown to reduce your heart rate and relax the body. Students who were shown both white and blue versions of a hospital exam room reported feeling much more pleasant and relaxed in the room that was blue. Blue would be a great color to use in a bedroom, where it could help soothe you to sleep when you’d like to take a mid-day nap.

Uplifting Yellow

Yellow manages to be a color that increases happiness and joy in people. This color is linked with adventurousness, optimism, energy, and alertness. Yellow is also deeply arousing, although less so than red, but can be overpowering when the yellow is too bright. Many companies such as McDonald’s and Kodak use yellow in their advertising to promote enjoyment and optimism. Wearing a yellow dress or spending time in a yellow sunroom can improve the day for the individual.

Going Green

Green, the color of nature and life, is associated in the United States with prosperity and health. Like blue, green can promote calm, relaxation, and peace. Because green is often deemed the most neutral color, it is frequently used in institutional settings such as hospitals and schools and in color therapy. Green in your clothing could help people think of you as relaxed and positive, and a darker green room could be an excellent place to relax.

Simply Orange

Orange is an odd color in that it produces mixed reactions. It’s not as strong as red, so it doesn’t inspire the same violent mood reaction. Orange and its darker sister, brown, manage to connect to the great outdoors and the natural world, similar to the color green. Orange can create feelings of enthusiasm and warmth regarding mood and color, while brown creates feelings of security and comfort. As such, brown furniture may seem more pleasing and relaxing in a room than orange furniture.

Peaceful Purple

Since it is a “cool” color like green and blue, violet feels peaceful and soothing and can assist in relieving anxiety. Still, purple also has connections to nobility and royalty and can appear like an exotic color. A purple tie can add a bit of dashing to your look; yet, a purple suit could sometimes be too much. One study found that people reacted much more positively to a store painted violet than they did to the same store painted in the color yellow.

Powerful Black

Black represents the absence of color and light. In Western cultures, black is thought to represent the color of death. Its color personality is connected with feelings of grief and mourning and also of hatred. Still, black also can be provocative and powerful, which explains its value in men’s suits and its effectiveness when applied to dresses. Wear black when you need to make an impression and project importance.

Harmonious White

White symbolizes unity and balance, of all the colors coming together as one in peace. As such, white is a strong symbol of unity and purity — for instance, its use in monuments and wedding gowns. Nonetheless, in a daily setting, white can be unsettling and feel sterile or unfriendly. People are less likely to feel comfortable or be productive in a room painted white.