by Thalma Lobel
Two British researchers investigated whether red conveyed dominance in inanimate objects.11 They presented participants with blue and red circles and asked them to indicate which shape appeared to be more dominant. This might seem a strange question. How can shapes look dominant? However, when participants had to choose, they answered that the red circle was more dominant. The word dominant, and the concept it represents, immediately and without their awareness pointed their minds toward red.
Dominance is considered a stereotypically masculine characteristic, and many studies have shown that women like dominant men and men with higher status. Elliot and Niesta with their colleagues asked this question: “If red is associated with dominance and status, and if women prefer men with higher status, is it possible that women will find a man wearing a red item more attractive?”12 They conducted seven experiments on the effect of red on women’s perception of men. The first five experiments were very similar to those I described earlier, which examined the effect of red on men’s perception of women. This time, however, the participants were women who saw photos of men.
The researchers presented female students with black-and-white photos of a man on a red, white, or gray background. The researchers asked the women to rate how attractive they perceived the man to be and how sexually attracted they were to the man. Women who saw the photo of the man on a red background perceived him as more attractive and as more sexually desirable than did women who saw the same photo on a white or gray background. Similar results were found when, instead of the background, the researchers manipulated shirt color. Women were asked to judge a man wearing a red shirt or a green shirt. And wouldn’t you know it? The man with the red shirt was perceived as more attractive and desirable.
The researchers went one step further to examine what it is in the color red that affects women’s judgments of men. They once again presented female students with a photo of a man. As in the previous studies, all participants saw the same photo, but half saw the man wearing a red shirt and the other half a gray shirt. This time, they were asked to evaluate the status of the man and his status potential, that is, whether he had a high potential to succeed in the future and to earn a lot. The findings are extraordinary. Women who saw the man with the red shirt believed he had a higher status and a higher potential for status and success. In other words, exactly the same man was perceived as higher in status just because he wore a red shirt.
These experiments clearly demonstrate that the color red has a strong influence on women’s perception of men’s attractiveness and plays an important part in the attraction between the sexes. Red signals a higher status, and higher status in men makes them more attractive and sexually desirable. It seems that on women red symbolizes sex and consequently attracts men, and on men it symbolizes dominance and status and attracts women. Thus, red influences attraction in both sexes, but for different reasons. However, we need more studies to fully understand this phenomenon.
Red may bestow status on women too. Elliot and Niesta, who conducted the studies on men’s perceptions of women, did not examine the possibility that red might be associated with status in women as well. We should therefore ask whether it is possible that red signals dominance and higher status not only in the eyes of women who are judging men but also in the eyes of men who are judging women. Elliot and his colleagues have noted that in the animal world red signals status in males, but no study has directly asked whether red in women also signals status, and whether high status in women attracts men. So, we need more studies to fully understand this phenomenon too.
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Men can easily apply these findings by wearing something red in social interactions and business meetings. Wearing a red tie or a red shirt may confer just enough status in a professional setting or on a date to lead to success.
Every day, people pitch their ideas to potential investors, to colleagues, to clients, and in job interviews. Naturally, they all put serious thought into the best way to present an idea, as well as what to wear. Clothing is part of the presentation. The results of the studies described here suggest that a red tie or another subtle red item would be positively influential. Of course a red suit would have adverse effects—it would be too loud and detract from the presentation. However, when situations are not clear-cut and investors or clients may feel they are taking a certain risk, color will play a part in conveying the authority of the presenter.
Male politicians often wear a red tie when they want to convince people to vote for them or to believe in them. They or their advisers must have heard of market research that demonstrates the influence of the color red on our perceptions and behaviors, or they have sensed the association of red with power, authority, and dominance. In the marketing world, the color red influences price perceptions. For example, male consumers perceived greater savings when the prices were written in red, as compared with black.13
The impact of clothing is well known and borne out by numerous studies. A few examples: teaching assistants who wear formal clothes are perceived as more competent than those who wear less formal clothes;14 women in prestigious jobs who wear sexy clothes are perceived as less competent than those who dress more conservatively;15 customers believe they will be given higher-quality service and exhibit stronger purchasing intentions when customer service agents are dressed appropriately.16
Not only are the perceptions and judgments of others affected by the clothes we wear but so is our own behavior. Recently researchers demonstrated that subjects who wore white lab coats performed better on cognitive tasks that demanded selective attention than did those who wore regular clothes.17 Moreover, the researchers found this effect held true only when the white coat resembled a doctor’s coat rather than a painter’s coat.
I was recently watching on TV two candidates—a man and a woman—running to head one of Israel’s political parties. The man wore a dark suit with a red tie; the woman’s outfit had no red in it. In videos of past interviews, he had not worn a red tie except on election day, when he wanted most to convey confidence, dominance, and the potential for future success. So the candidate had been either studying his psychology or watching American politicians. He beat the female candidate by a large margin. No doubt, gender stereotypes played a role. It would be interesting to examine the best color for female politicians to wear, since most likely they should not wear red.
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We take for granted that most of us can see color. The fact that our brains can even receive such signals is amazing. Human beings are only one of the millions of species on this planet who need vision to survive, yet our eyes have red-green receptors that allow us to experience the rich quality of the light around us. It may seem arbitrary, but the specific wavelengths we sense as redness (approximately 630 to 740 nanometers) beam with certain associations. Red explodes in our minds, signaling passion, danger, mating, and dominance. We react to this color strongly and automatically. Fortunately, with knowledge and awareness, we can regulate our responses and become mindful of environmental triggers that aim to mislead us.
The entertainment and marketing industries know how to use colors to great effect. Take note of the sports uniforms you see and the clothes your friends wear at a party. Notice what colors you yourself choose to wear. Check out the backgrounds of billboards and magazine advertisements, the light in restaurants and art galleries. Be aware that you may feel suddenly, subtly different when you are in the presence of red. By understanding the power of red, you can understand a bit more about human behavior—and share in that power of red.
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I Alon Valency and Gil Michaeli.
In Contrast: Separating the Light from the Darkness
A woman doesn’t wear a white dress to a wedding unless she’s the bride. Most of us know that this is just not something you do. But there are certain occasions on which you are supposed to wear white. The Jewish holiday Shavuot is one of them. Although this holiday may not be well known among secular Jews around t
he world, it is celebrated widely in Israel and has its own special traditions. For example, people eat only dairy products (no meat). Many people will also wear white. All around Israel you see children, usually carrying bags of fruit, dressed all in white.
About three years ago, my husband and I attended a Shavuot party thrown by a couple we’ve known for many years. The host was an economist and a stockbroker, and his guests were mostly economists, businessmen, politicians, and lawyers, all highly esteemed in Israel. It was our first time attending the party, and we were late arriving. About 150 guests were already mingling in the spacious garden. I was wearing a classic “little black dress” (it was a party, after all), but, to my horror, the first thing I noticed as we walked into the garden was that everybody—everybody—was wearing white. I was the opposite of fashionably late.
I must have figured the Shavuot custom was for schoolchildren only, because I hadn’t given any thought to my dress. But the women were all in white dresses, or a white blouse with white pants or white skirt, and the men were in white shirts and pants. In the midst of such a whiteout, I felt terribly self-conscious in my black dress, and felt the need to explain myself. “Nobody warned me!” I insisted. Eventually I started socializing, greeting some people I knew. Israel is a small country, and many of the businessmen, media figures, and politicians were familiar to me. Some I knew personally, while others were faces I knew from TV and newspapers.
After overcoming my embarrassment at being one of the two off-color guests (the other was my husband), I started to enjoy the party. Everyone seemed so pleasant! I clearly remember thinking, and later telling a friend, that most of the people, including the rather sharklike politicians and hard-nosed businessmen, seemed particularly nice. Was it the holiday spirit? Was it something about the kindness of the hosts? Maybe. But could it have also been that I perceived the guests as nicer simply because they were all wearing white? Does seeing white influence our state of mind and judgment?
White and black symbolize opposite concepts. White symbolizes goodness—purity, morality, virtue, and cleanliness—and dark symbolizes evil. In the Book of Isaiah, it is written, “ ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’ ” (1:18). Many cultural traditions use white for things other than bridal dresses. The ancient Greeks wore white when they went to sleep, believing that this would give them pleasant dreams. Angels are usually portrayed as dressed in white; the symbol of peace is a white dove; a white flag indicates truce. In fairy tales, white knights on white horses rescue young girls. We commonly use metaphors such as pure as snow and whiter than white, all of which indicate good attributes.
White can also connote spirituality. Mother Teresa of Calcutta chose to wear a white sari with blue stripes to embody caring and compassion. Mahatma Gandhi also always wore white, to represent the tradition of self-sufficiency in his homespun cloth as well as peace in his nonviolent resistance to British rule. Black, on the other hand, symbolizes negativity, evil, and contamination. Metaphors such as black days, blacklist, black book, black cloud, black sheep, and black market, as well as common words such as blackmail, all have negative connotations. Witches are often portrayed wearing black, and people who practice witchcraft (a so-called dark art) wear black. Evil characters such as Darth Vader and Voldemort are clad in black, as was Maleficent, the mistress of all evil in Sleeping Beauty. Often a devil personified is shown wearing black, even when it is Prada, as in Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel and the movie of three years later starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.
Of course, black can also be associated with elegance. Many women wear black dresses for formal events, but in an artistic context, black usually symbolizes wickedness. Take Darren Aronofsky’s popular film Black Swan, for example. Natalie Portman portrayed Nina and won an Oscar for her role as a dancer in a New York ballet company who struggles to get the lead in Swan Lake. In this fictitious production of the classical ballet, the white swan represents innocence and purity, and her lustful twin, the black swan, sexuality and dangerous, dark impulses. Nina has to cope with these opposite forces in her own soul. When she auditions, the choreographer claims that she is suited only for the role of the white swan, since she is not worldly enough and lacks the necessary passion to be the black swan. When she convinces him otherwise, demonstrating her dark sensuality, Nina gets the role of the black swan. Through its tragic end, the movie deals with these opposites: the purity and restraint represented by the color white, and the aggression and primal power represented by the color black.
As in the Book of Genesis, the distinction between light and dark is the first indication of being and consciousness. God brings light out of chaos and “darkness . . . upon the face of the deep.” “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Light is also the first experience of an infant upon leaving his mother’s womb—from darkness to a flood of light. When the infant closes his eyes, he is enveloped in darkness. But when he reopens his eyes—light!
Black and white are no ordinary colors. In fact, according to scientists, black is the complete absence of light, and so symbolizes darkness. The darker something is, the more it appears black. White, on the other hand, is the presence of light that stimulates all three types of cone cells in the eye. Mixing any color with white makes it appear lighter. Many researchers study these related phenomena together and even use the terms interchangeably, referring to the stimuli as dark and black, light and white.
The Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness
In 1954, an ad in The Wall Street Journal announced the sale of a biblical manuscript written over two thousand years ago. While it did not draw much attention at the time, it was for the Dead Sea Scrolls, manuscripts written on papyrus and preserved in clay jars. Found in 1947 in a Qumran cave by three Bedouin shepherds, and widely considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history, the Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest known copies of what Christians consider the Old Testament and Jews call the Bible. They shed light on the early historical period before the Common Era, or the birth of Jesus, and on Judeo-Christian theology.
One of the first scrolls found is called The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness and is known informally as the War Scroll. Acquired for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, it contains a prophecy that describes a coming war between the good people of the world, who are the congregation of God, and the evil people, the people of the enemy nations. The “sons of light” are the various tribes of Israel, while the “sons of darkness,” or evil people, are various other peoples, including the Edomites, Amalekites, Hittites, and Moabites. The war, described in great detail, lasts for forty years and ends with the victory of the sons of light.
These associations of light and goodness, dark and evil, are ancient. Our minds make them automatically and instinctually. Metaphors such as seeing the light and the light at the end of the tunnel symbolize good things. Like light, brightness is also used to symbolize good things. We look on the bright side, speak of having a bright future, and believe we are better and more productive when we wake up bright and early. On the other hand, we use metaphors such as the Dark Ages to refer to a historical period of stagnation and decline and point out a person’s dark side to warn about her character and behavior. Dark past, dark secret, and forces of darkness are all negative. In the Star Wars series, the Force also has its Dark Side.
The poet John Milton described hell in his epic poem Paradise Lost as “no light, but rather darkness visible,” a phrase that novelist William Styron borrowed for his memoir of suffering from severe depression, Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness. Psychoanalyst and philosopher Julia Kristeva wrote about depression and melancholia in her book Black Sun. My late friend Professor Norman Endler, a distinguished psychologist and researcher from York University in Canada, wrote a book called Holiday of Darkness, in which he described his depression and how it affected his life and his fam
ily. These titles show the complexity of negative psychological states—the paradox of holding goodness and darkness within us.
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In everyday life we use metaphors that relate white, bright, and light to positive states and things, and black and dark to negative, frightening, and immoral acts and things. The question is: Are these simply figures of speech? Or do dark or black stimuli actually evoke negative emotions, while bright and white stimuli evoke positive emotions? How strong and instinctive are these associations between white and good, and black and evil, and might these ingrained associations influence the course of our lives by affecting our judgment and behavior? Is it really possible that I perceived the people at that Shavuot party as being kinder because they were all dressed in white?
Several researchers have investigated these questions using what is called the Stroop effect. The Stroop effect refers to incongruence between the meaning of a word and the color of the font in which that word is printed. In classic Stroop tests, participants read the names of colors, but the letters appear in a color different from the color that they name. For example, the word green is printed in red ink, rather than in green ink, and the word yellow is written in blue.
Participants are asked to name the color of the ink, and their response time is measured. If the word is table, for example, and table is printed in red, you will have no difficulty saying “red.” However, if the word is green and it’s printed in red, you will have more difficulty saying “red,” because the color of the ink (red), is incongruent with what you read (green). In this case, the meaning of the word (green) interferes with the color of the word (red). You are actually receiving contradictory information, so your mind takes longer to perform this task. This confusion is the Stroop effect at work.