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According to a new study, the colors we use to describe emotions may be more useful than we think. The study found that people with depression or anxiety are more likely to associate their mood with gray, while happy people prefer yellow.
The results will help doctors assess the condition of children and other patients who have difficulty expressing their feelings out loud. “This is a way to measure anxiety and depression levels that is largely unrelated to the use of language,” says gastroenterologist Peter Walrell, co-author of the study. “In this case, it could be a much more interesting and accurate way to get the information you need without asking any questions.”
“Colors are often used as metaphors for determining mood, but no one has done systematic research on color associations yet,” says Warrell. For the study, he and his colleagues used eight colors — red, orange, green, purple, blue, yellow, pink, and brown — and divided each into four more shades.
Then they added white, black and four shades of gray to the existing spectrum, for a total of 38 colors. After meeting with target groups, the researchers decided to display all colors in the shape of a wheel.
They then gave printouts of the color wheel to the participants in the experiment, including 105 healthy adults, 108 adults with depression, and 110 people who are anxious. Each person was asked to choose their favorite color and the color they thought was the most striking. They were also asked to choose a color that would describe their mood over the past few months.
Another group of 204 healthy volunteers was given the task of simply dividing all colors into positive, negative, and neutral colors.
As a result, all participants, whether completely healthy, anxious or depressed, love blue and yellow. But at the same time, healthy people chose a lighter shade of blue than others. Yellow, on the other hand, was named by everyone as the brightest and most conspicuous.
But when it came to determining the color of the mood, the groups were divided. Only 39 percent of healthy people were able to link their mood to color at all. Of those who did, yellow was also the most popular color. Meanwhile, about 30 percent of people with anxiety indicated their mood in one shade of gray, and so did most people who were depressed. For comparison, healthy people chose gray to describe their mood only 10 percent of the time.
“People don't associate blue with a bad mood, but dark blue does, so the hue of the color is more important than the color itself,” says Warrell. The doctor also added that non-verbal methods of obtaining information are in some cases preferable to a conversation. Warrell noted that this method can be used in a wide variety of fields, from pediatrics to surgery.