Colors and Emotions: Preferences and Combinations

TLDR

The study hypothesizes that color–emotion pairings can be predicted from independent color and emotion preferences. Participants in three age groups completed paired‑comparison tasks to rank color and emotion preferences, followed by a color‑emotion matching task. Preferences were stable within each age group but varied across ages, and in the youngest group color–emotion combinations aligned with the preference rankings.

Abstract

Within three age groups (7-year-old children, 11-year-old children, and adults), preferences for colors and emotions were established by means of two distinct paired-comparison tasks. In a subsequent task, participants were asked to link colors to emotions by selecting an appropriate color. It was hypothesized that the number of times that each color was tied to a specific emotion would be predictable from the separate preferences for colors and emotions. Within age groups, participants had consistent preferences for colors and emotions, but preferences differed from one age group to another. Especially in the youngest group, the pattern of combinations between colors and emotions appeared to be meaningfully related to the preference order for colors and emotions.