# Colours affect mental performance, with blue boosting creativity



## David Baxter PhD (Feb 6, 2009)

Colours affect mental performance, with blue boosting creativity 
_BPS Research Digest_
February 5, 2009

Paint the walls blue to boost your creativity. That's the message from an intriguing new study that shows the contrasting effects of blue and red on mental performance.

Psychologists have known for some time that colours can affect cognition, but research in the area has produced contradictory results. For example, some studies have shown red to be beneficial while others have found the opposite.

Ravi Mehta and Rui (Juliet) Zhu believe the contrasting results have arisen from the fact that red is beneficial for some kinds of mental processing, while blue is beneficial for others.

In a series of six experiments, they've now demonstrated that red provokes a cautious, avoidant mode of motivation, which is beneficial for tasks that require attention to detail. By contrast, blue provokes an approach-based, exploratory motivational state, which is conducive to creativity. The effects are thought to occur via the meanings we learn to associate with different colours - for example, in many cultures red is of course associated with danger and the command to stop. This study was conducted on a Canadian sample - it's possible the effects of colour may vary between cultures.

Many of the experiments involved computer tasks, with either a red or blue background appearing on the monitor. These experiments showed that people were better at a word-recall task and a proof-reading task when the screen background was red compared with when it was blue or white. By contrast, participants came up with better quality and more creative ideas for things to do with a brick when the screen was blue, rather than red, and they also preformed better at the remote associates test (involves items like: which one word relates to "shelf", "read" and "end"?).

Evidence that these differences emerged via the effect of colour on motivational state came from participants' performance in anagram tasks. Mehta and Zhu found that participants working at a monitor with a red background were quicker at unscrambling anagrams related to avoidance, while those with a blue background were quicker to unscramble jumbled words related to approach.

In yet another experiment, participants were given twenty "parts" from which to design a child's toy. Participants given red parts designed toys that independent judges rated to be more practical and appropriate, but less original and novel. By contrast, participants given blue parts came up with more creative toy designs.

Screen background colour also influenced participants' preference for two different camera adverts. Participants shown an advert against a red background tended to prefer the advert that showed a montage of product details, whereas participants shown the advert against a blue background preferred a version where the montage showed assorted travel-related images.

Mehta and Zhu said their findings have real life implications. "What wall colour do we pick for an educational facility? What colour enhances persuasion in a consumption context? What colour enhances creativity in a new product design process?" they asked. "Results from this research suggest that, depending on the nature of the task, different colours might be beneficial."

*Source:* Ravi Mehta, Rui (Juliet) Zhu (2009). Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances. _Science_. In Press.


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## Meg (Feb 6, 2009)

The walls of the waiting area where I'm currently placed are bright red, and I've thought several times it was an odd choice of colour.  It's a nice colour, but not exactly calming.


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## amastie (Feb 7, 2009)

The fact that certain colours have certain effects on our mood or out ability to think differently was, I would have thought, not something new.

We choose colours to wear based on what makes us feel better.  Most people have a preference for certain colours.  I never would have green around me until I saw the brilliant, transluscent apple green of an opal.  I hadn't liked opals till then either.

A friend said once, years ago, that a mental health facility (in France, I think), painted all their walls pink because that was found to promote healing.

I would have thought that colour has a physical effect on our nervous system in a similar way that sounds do - music etc.  And I expect that other odditites of our sensual experience might also be  proved to have positive and negative effects on our state of mind.  I have a particular interest (though an almost entirely ininformed one) in the effect of design and structure on our psyches.  The design of a home, of a garden, of a street, the structure we surround ourselves with inside our home and our office,  the routines that we rely on to ensure us that the world is "as we know it".

All of these are factors designed to give ongoing feedback from the world around us, and that feedback is terribly important.  So to  have it confirmed that colour - which is one aspect of that feedback - signals certain impulses within us I don't see at all surprising.  Rather, I would have thought it surprising if it didn't.


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## DrFrog (Feb 23, 2009)

Interesting; though we should be cautious until green and purple are brought into the fold, for starters.


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## amastie (Feb 23, 2009)

Hi DrFrog, and welcome to PsyscLinks,
I think you're right.  I can't see purple and green working together well at all, but maybe in certain circumstances and used within certain shades and contexts any colours can be used tgether?


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## solitary man (Feb 23, 2009)

I certainly see this working in my life.

When I was at my darkest periods in my life, the only colours I would wear were black and navy blue, and always felt uncomfortable wearing anything with colour, especially red.

Now that I feel really good about things, I can't get enough of wearing colour, especially red, which garners me plenty of compliments.

The colour black I try not to wear as it feels too heavy.


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## Mashka (Feb 23, 2009)

My room is painted dark, dark orange. The walls of my psychologists office, pretty much her entire building, are entirely white. It's kind of bland,


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## amastie (Feb 24, 2009)

Home furnishings for me must be light, bright orange.  Clothing, though mostly blue, are best to be bright lemon/yellow - without a doubt.


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