Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances Export

@article{citeulike:4017762, abstract = {Existing research reports inconsistent findings with regard to the effect of color on cognitive task performances. Some research suggests that blue or green leads to better performances than red; other studies record the opposite. Current work reconciles this discrepancy. We demonstrate that red (versus blue) color induces primarily an avoidance (versus approach) motivation (study 1, n = 69) and that red enhances performance on a detail-oriented task, whereas blue enhances performance on a creative task (studies 2 and 3, n = 208 and 118). Further, we replicate these results in domains of product design (study 4, n = 42) and persuasive message evaluation (study 5, n = 161), and illustrate that these effects occur outside of individuals' consciousness (study 6, n = 68). We also provide process evidence suggesting that the activation of alternative motivations mediates the effect of color on cognitive task performances. 10.1126/science.1169144}, author = {Mehta, Ravi and Zhu, Rui J.}, citeulike-article-id = {4017762}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1169144}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1169144//}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19197022}, citeulike-linkout-3 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19197022}, citeulike-linkout-4 = {http://dx.doi.org.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/10.1126/science.1169144}, day = {5}, doi = {10.1126/science.1169144}, journal = {Science}, keywords = {color, problem-solving}, month = {February}, number = {5918}, pages = {1226--1229}, posted-at = {2009-02-13 20:09:15}, priority = {2}, title = {Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1169144}, volume = {323}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4017762 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4017762 N2 - Existing research reports inconsistent findings with regard to the effect of color on cognitive task performances. Some research suggests that blue or green leads to better performances than red; other studies record the opposite. Current work reconciles this discrepancy. We demonstrate that red (versus blue) color induces primarily an avoidance (versus approach) motivation (study 1, n = 69) and that red enhances performance on a detail-oriented task, whereas blue enhances performance on a creative task (studies 2 and 3, n = 208 and 118). Further, we replicate these results in domains of product design (study 4, n = 42) and persuasive message evaluation (study 5, n = 161), and illustrate that these effects occur outside of individuals' consciousness (study 6, n = 68). We also provide process evidence suggesting that the activation of alternative motivations mediates the effect of color on cognitive task performances. 10.1126/science.1169144 IS - 5918 JF - Science EP - 1229 TI - Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances VL - 323 SP - 1226 KW - color KW - problem-solving AU - Mehta, Ravi AU - Zhu, Rui PY - 2009/02/05/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1169144 ER -