Each one is colored uniquely (e.g., anger is “red”, fear is “purple”, and disgust is “green”). The 2015 Pixar movie Inside Out is about a girl who has five “basic” emotions living in her head. The results are discussed with respect to constructionist theories of emotion. The results suggest that previous studies which report emotion-color pairings are likely best thought of experiment-specific. In addition, in study 2, we found that saturation and lightness, and to a lesser extent hue, predicted color-emotion agreement rather than perceived color. As with the first study, no color-emotion pairings were both specific and consistent. In study 2, only two of 20 emotions showed consistency, and three colors showed specificity. When we resampled our data, however, none of these effects were likely to replicate with statistical confidence. In study 1, four of the ten emotions showed consistency, and about one-third of the colors showed specificity, yet agreement was low-to-moderate among raters even in these cases. Participants in both studies indicated the strength of the relationship between a selected color(s) and the emotion. In study 2, different participants ( n = 52) completed a similar online survey except that we added additional emotions and colors (which better sampled color space). In study 1, participants ( n = 73) completed an online survey in which they could select up to three colors from 23 colored swatches (varying hue, saturation, and light) for each of ten emotion words. We assessed consistency and specificity for color-emotion pairings among English-speaking adults. Psychology, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Dartmouth, MA, United Statesĭo English-speakers think about anger as “red” and sadness as “blue”? Some theories of emotion suggests that color(s)-like other biologically-derived signals- should be reliably paired with an emotion, and that colors should differentiate across emotions.Jennifer Marie Binzak Fugate * and Courtny L.

Emotion wheel color