A study in scarlet: red elicits implicit negative affect

A recent line of research highlighted how colors can serve as implicit affective cues. The simple perception of a color can elicit positive or negative affect, and thus signal the benign or threatening nature of a situation, even in absence of any conscious emotional experience. Past research has associated color red to negative affect, due to its systematic association with natural (blood, fire) and cultural (road signals) danger, and blue to natural elements (sea, sky) and to positive sensations such as freedom and serenity. However, it is unclear whether the affect engendered by colors is a function of context. In two experiments, we investigated whether blue and red activate positive or negative valence irrespective of context. In experiment 1, participants were presented positive, negative and neutral words, superimposed on red, blue or grey (achromatic control condition) backgrounds, and responded on the basis of valence. Findings showed faster RTs in response to negative words and slower in response to positive words presented on red backgrounds. In experiment 2, the Affect Misattribution Procedure was used and participants evaluated Chinese pictograms as visually pleasant/unpleasant. Pictograms were preceded by briefly presented color patches (blue, red, grey). Results showed that pictograms were judged as less pleasant when they were preceded by red vs. blue. The present findings show that, regardless of contextual information, red but not blue implicitly elicits affect engendering congruence effects with negative words in experiment 1 and influencing pleasantness judgments of neutral stimuli in experiment 2.