COLORS AND EMOTIONS - PREFERENCES AND COMBINATIONS

Within three age groups (7-year-old children, 11-year-old children, an d adults), preferences for colors and emotions were established by mea ns of two distinct paired-comparison tasks. In a subsequent task, part icipants were asked to link colors to emotions by selecting an appropr iate color. It was hypothesized that the number of times that each col or was tied to a specific emotion would be predictable from the separa te preferences for colors and emotions. Within age groups, participant s had consistent preferences for colors and emotions, but preferences differed from one age group to another. Especially in the youngest gro up, the pattern of combinations between colors and emotions appeared t o be meaningfully related to the preference order for colors and emoti ons.