Department of Psychology, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e40333. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040333. Epub 2012 Jul 11.
A basic premise of the recently proffered color-in-context model is that the influence of color on psychological functioning varies as a function of the psychological context in which color is perceived. Some research has examined the appetitive and aversive implications of viewing the color red in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts, respectively, but in all existing empirical work approach and avoidance behavior has been studied in separate tasks and separate experiments. Research is needed to directly test whether red influences the same behavior differently depending entirely on psychological context.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The present experiment was designed to put this premise to direct test in romance- and achievement-relevant contexts within the same experimental paradigm involving walking behavior. Our results revealed that exposure to red (but not blue) indeed has differential implications for walking behavior as a function of the context in which the color is perceived. Red increased the speed with which participants walked to an ostensible interview about dating (a romance-relevant context), but decreased the speed with which they walked to an ostensible interview about intelligence (an achievement-relevant context).
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These results are the first direct evidence that the influence of red on psychological functioning in humans varies by psychological context. Our findings contribute to both the literature on color psychology and the broader, emerging literature on the influence of context on basic psychological processes.
最近提出的色彩语境模型的一个基本前提是，色彩对心理功能的影响因感知色彩的心理语境而异。一些研究分别考察了在浪漫关系和成就相关的背景下观察红色所带来的欲望和厌恶影响，但在所有现有的实证研究中，趋近和回避行为是在单独的任务和实验中进行研究的。需要研究来直接检验红色是否会根据完全不同的心理语境对相同的行为产生不同的影响。
方法/主要发现：本实验旨在直接检验在涉及行走行为的相同实验范式中，在浪漫关系和成就相关的背景下，这一前提。我们的研究结果表明，红色（而非蓝色）的暴露确实会根据感知颜色的背景对行走行为产生不同的影响。红色会增加参与者走向一个关于约会（浪漫关系相关的背景）的表面访谈的速度，但会降低他们走向一个关于智力的表面访谈（成就相关的背景）的速度。
结论/意义：这些结果是红色对人类心理功能的影响因心理语境而异的直接证据。我们的发现为色彩心理学的文献和更广泛的、新兴的关于语境对基本心理过程影响的文献做出了贡献。
