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You don’t have to look very hard to see that our culture has some pretty powerful associations between colors and feelings. As an example， the Pixar film Inside Out has characters representing emotions，1 and the color choices for these characters—red for anger， and blue for sadness—feel right.
Red， specifically， is one of the most powerful colors in terms of its associations and the feelings it generates. Soccer players perceive red-shirted opponents to be better players，2 and one study indeed found that players wearing red shirts won sports games more often. Looking at red also seems to help people focus. Red enhances performance on detail-oriented tasks，3 whereas blue and green improve the results of creative tasks. Red is also sexual—men find women wearing red to be more attractive， and women think the same of men.
Why might this be？ Although these associations are a part of our culture， are they arbitrary， or did they come about for reasons outside of culture，4 perhaps having to do with our biology or the environment we all live in？
Color is not distributed randomly5 in the world around us， and as we experience the world， we build up associations between colors and the things they represent. Yet red is a relatively rare color in the natural environment. Certain fruits， small parts of the sky at times， and blood are all red. When we get angry or embarrassed， our faces get redder （though the effect is less obvious in dark-skinned people）.
But these appearances of red in our environment don’t seem to be enough to explain the breadth of red’s various connotations.6 And there is reason to think the meanings might be inherent to our biology： Red connotes high arousal，7 passion， and violence even for some non-human animals. When male mandrills face off， for instance， the paler （less red） male stands down.8 And macaques9 use red in sexual displays. Yet while poison dart frogs are brightly colored， they don’t skew toward red—many are green， yellow， and blue.10 This suggests that the general association with red is specific to primates， evolving before mandrills and humans differentiated.11 If it had been learned， as a result of being associated with passion and danger in the environment， we would expect broader crossspecies associations； for instance， we might see that all poison animals were red.12 If red is indeed a warning color used to communicate among primates， specifically， then the associations with red might be innate13 yet arbitrary， meaning that it might just as easily have been another color that took on that role.
Red， specifically， is one of the most powerful colors in terms of its associations and the feelings it generates. Soccer players perceive red-shirted opponents to be better players，2 and one study indeed found that players wearing red shirts won sports games more often. Looking at red also seems to help people focus. Red enhances performance on detail-oriented tasks，3 whereas blue and green improve the results of creative tasks. Red is also sexual—men find women wearing red to be more attractive， and women think the same of men.
Why might this be？ Although these associations are a part of our culture， are they arbitrary， or did they come about for reasons outside of culture，4 perhaps having to do with our biology or the environment we all live in？
Color is not distributed randomly5 in the world around us， and as we experience the world， we build up associations between colors and the things they represent. Yet red is a relatively rare color in the natural environment. Certain fruits， small parts of the sky at times， and blood are all red. When we get angry or embarrassed， our faces get redder （though the effect is less obvious in dark-skinned people）.
But these appearances of red in our environment don’t seem to be enough to explain the breadth of red’s various connotations.6 And there is reason to think the meanings might be inherent to our biology： Red connotes high arousal，7 passion， and violence even for some non-human animals. When male mandrills face off， for instance， the paler （less red） male stands down.8 And macaques9 use red in sexual displays. Yet while poison dart frogs are brightly colored， they don’t skew toward red—many are green， yellow， and blue.10 This suggests that the general association with red is specific to primates， evolving before mandrills and humans differentiated.11 If it had been learned， as a result of being associated with passion and danger in the environment， we would expect broader crossspecies associations； for instance， we might see that all poison animals were red.12 If red is indeed a warning color used to communicate among primates， specifically， then the associations with red might be innate13 yet arbitrary， meaning that it might just as easily have been another color that took on that role.