Why Are People Drawn to Certain Colors?

First, thanks so much, Mike, for what at first glance may appear to be but a simple, easily answerable question. In truth, any serious answer to this question will be far from simple. Why? Because our perception of color affects every single thing we say, do, feel, and think. Thus even a partially true answer would need to account for the affect of color on every single thing we say, do, feel, and think.

Now being that at least 50% of everything we do is driven by the five mental filters from which human personality emerges, to answer this question, a person would need at least a working knowledge of these five meta-patterns. Not coincidentally, anyone who knows me knows how much I love studying and discovering things about personality. After all, what could drive a person to such madness that they’d write an entire personality theory from scratch?

What drove me to be this foolishness? The bizarre but ubiquitous belief that everything we humans do is based on logical reasons. So pervasive is this nonsensical belief that most otherwise extremely intelligent people make up logical reasons for everything we do, say, feel, and think. Why? Because it is humanly impossible to think logical thoughts, and to simultaneously feel and be aware of any and all feelings. Thus each time our minds contain logical thoughts, these thoughts filter out any and all concurrent feelings.

An example of this is lies in the equally bizarre belief that cognitive behavioral therapies heal. What they actually do is help people to learn to block out (filter out) painful feelings. This leads most people to mistake their reaction to healing a logical explanation for that they have actually healed something. Admittedly, in cases wherein people are suffering, doing this does offer relief. But to be considered a truly healing modality, a therapy must offer permanent, non-will powered relief.

Most current therapies cannot come even close to doing this.

If you can now set aside any reservations you may have as to my admittedly provocative claims, you can then begin to understand the nature of our reactions to color. The first thing we find? That the majority of our reactions to colors cannot be based on any logic. My evidence? Any and all situations in which we actually make logical choices require that we experience time in between the stimulus and our reaction, time in which to logically consider how we want to react. Thus if there is no space between a stimulus and our reaction to said stimulus, then this reaction cannot be said to be based on a logical choice. Unless of course we make our decisions in the quantum realm, in which case quantum leap choices would exist.

They do not.

Snark aside, admittedly, because most people eschew the messiness of feelings in favor of the calm organizing effect of logic, most people make up logical explanations and insert them into this nonexistent space after the fact. We even ridicule people who are not being logical. No coincidence, this bias affects most people’s explanations for our reactions to seeing different colors. In truth, most of our reactions to colors originate in our biology, largely based on having evolved within the influence of a yellow sun AND on that we see but a select range of these colors.

OK. At this point, I feel the need to apologize for the fact that my answer is rapidly reaching dreadful proportions. Hence my opening reference to that even a partially true answer to this question would be immensely complex. Should you wish to run screaming from the room at this point, I would totally understand. However, if you at all feel curious as to where the hell I’m going, then perhaps you’ll permit me a few more moments to add a bit of supporting evidence.

Some years ago, in the midst of my studies in and around my then budding interest in videography, I read, in the opening pages of a book, that we do not see all the colors of visible light equally. This surprised me as I realized I’d been assuming we do have an innate ability to see all colors equally. Scientists tell us, this is not the case, and biologists explain why.

The quick (seriously, Steve, you, quick?) and simple explanation is, we are physically programmed to see some colors far more than others. Greens we see the most of. Reds and violets far less. This difference then causes us to react to greens more mildly, as to us, they are they are the most easily seen. Thus they are less notable. Conversely, because we are less biologically sensitive to reds and violets (the colors on the fringes of visible light), we overreact to seeing those colors, simply because we see less of them when compared to the colors in the middle of this range. Thus they are more notable.

Knowing this helps us to understand things like why more red cars get speeding tickets, and why warning klaxons, problems tags, and failing academic grades often involve marking them with red colors. Even the cliche, “seeing red,” refers to this effect.

A second example involves our sleep/awake cycles. Were you to simply chart the natural colors we get exposed over the course of a day, you’d find these colors, and our sleep/awake cycles, change in a predictable and correlated pattern. Based on scientific instruments, the color of the light we see at dawn and sunset is far more orange than the bluish color of midday light. That we do not notice most of these changes is simply because our brains constantly re-calibrate what photographers call, the “white balance.” This makes us see most light as whitish and these changes invisible to us, when in fact this isn’t at all true.

Add to this that our body’s production of either serotonin or melatonin, and the accompanying changes in our moods, is also correlated to changes in the colors we see. Seeing bright bluish light makes us more alert, in part because our bodies make more serotonin. Conversely, seeing less intense, orangish light makes our bodies turn serotonin into melatonin. And since depression refers to us under-reacting to life, medicines which make us think we have more serotonin, and proper exposure to sunlamps (bright bluish light), both tend to decrease depression (make us more alert).

Finally, years ago, I asked all of my clients in my therapy practice to do a little experiment. I bought a bunch of sun glasses, half with orangish colored lenses and half with blueish lenses. The orangish lenses block blue light, the bluish lenses, the reverse. I then asked people to notice their mood, then watch for any changes when putting these sunglasses on.

In almost every case, people reported that the facial muscles around their eyes relaxed when they put the blue-blocking glasses on. This shifts our perception of color towards orange colors, and this correlates to that most of us feel more calm and relaxed as we wake up or get closer to going to sleep. This also accounts for our reactions to being in the presence of candle flames and campfire light. Conversely, they reported an increase in muscular tension when wearing the orange-blocking glasses. These glasses shift people’s sense of the color of light towards more bluish colors. This correlates to the fact that we are much more alert when seeing bright bluish daylight.

Equally important, they reported a similar parallel, psychological effect. Increases in physiological tension were correlated to similar increases in psychological tension and vice versa.

Now to answer your question as to why we are drawn to certain colors, my response is, we are drawn to colors which inherently align us with our personality and current mood. Most of us don’t walk around constantly wanting to “see red” (feel angry) because this feels uncomfortable based on our innate sensitivity to reds. Most of us feel more awake when the color and intensity of the light we see is bright bluish white. And most of us feel more relaxed and calm when the color of the light we see resembles the color we see at dawn and at sunset.

Even these few, simple examples point to how complex this topic is. I, in no way, am claiming expertise in this area. I only claim to have spent decades exploring how the color of the light we are exposed to affects us, personality-wise. And after all these years, I am still so surprised by how great this affect is, as well as how I constantly realize how much more I have yet to know.

Whew! Did I just write all this!

It must be the color of light I’m seeing.

In all seriousness, thanks again, Mike, for an intriguing question.

P.S. Years ago, when I was designing my therapy practice office suite, I chose colors based on those which “felt right” to me; mostly sage greens with a few red/violet accents. A year later, when I learned about the differences in our eyes’ sensitivity to different colors, to my delight, I found my choices in colors exactly matched the distribution of color sensitivity in our eyes. No coincidence, the most common comment people new to my office make is to say they are surprised at how calm they feel as soon as they enter the office.