How Does Color Preference Change With Age

Preferences - Favorite Color

Our preference for a specific colour tin be related to how we feel in whatsoever situation, how nosotros want to feel, and even how nosotros remember sure experiences (to name a few). This section, which is closely associated with the previous section colour Associations, presents the survey participants preferences and how they vary between age groups and gender. This commencement section examines the question of favorite color for all participants regardless or gender or age. Figure 6.1 below presents this data in graphical form.

Figure 6.1 - Favorite Color

Bluish, for this group of people, is the almost favored choice of the eight colors available. Blue is an interesting colour in that people tend to cull it as a favorite, but it is usually associated with sadness and depression. Birren notes that blueish is commonly associated with adjectives like cold, subduing, sober, gloom and fearfulness ( Colour Psychology and Color Therapy, 143 ). Although some studies have suggested that blue can correspond feelings that are sad or not happy, people tend to like the hue of blueish (and like colors) considering they have a calming and relaxing affect.

Favorite Color by Gender

When this data is examined farther and filters of gender and age are practical, some interesting results surface. The two pie charts below represent favorite colors of each gender.

Figure six.2 - Female person Favorite Color

Figure 6.3 - Male Favorite Colour

A review of color studies by Eysenck in the early 1940's notes that St. George (1938) maintained that bluish for men stands our far more than than for women. Related to unlike colors, Eysenck'south report also plant that the well-nigh significant gender difference is yellow being preferred to orangish past women and orange to yellowish past men. Natalia Khouw states, "this finding was reinforced later by Birren in 1952 who found men preferred orange to xanthous; while women placed orange at the lesser" ( The Significant of Color for Gender, 1 ). Both these published results correlate to the survey results collected in this study.

Favorite Color past Age Group

colour preferences differ by the age of the participant. Birren states in his book that blue and carmine maintain a high preference throughout life, but colors seem to driblet down the list while other colors get more preferred. Yellow, for case, is well liked by children, only begins to drop abroad past people every bit they become adults. Birren states, "With maturity comes a greater liking for hues of shorter wave length (blue, green, imperial) than for hues of longer wave length (ruddy, orange, and yellow)" ( Color Psychology and Color Therapy, 176 ). Below is a graphical representation of the survey results for a favorite color past age group.

As you can see, blue, green, and purple brand up the majority of responses. What's interesting is the preference of light-green in the younger age groups and the preference of purple in the older historic period groups. One could say, past looking at this graph alone, that as people become older their preference for purple increases, while their preference for dark-green decreases. Previous bookish or enquiry publications regarding this specific anomaly were not found during this project and then the ability to compare and contrast these results with other results isn't possible at this fourth dimension. M. M. Terwogy and J. B. Hoeksma did a inquiry study on colors and emotions with regards to preferences and combinations and they noted that as people become older, their preferences are likely to alter equally a issue of social and cultural influences. They land, "As children grow upwards they learn that the expression of anger is ofttimes punished. They also larn that the color black (within Western civilisation) is associated with mourning." (Colour and Emotions, 7) They also country that the furnishings of colour preferences are nevertheless nowadays at later stages of life, but these preferences are outweighed by other (as yet unidentified) factors (Color and Emotions, 16).

Least Favorite Colour

The least favorite color graph (shown below) was mentioned on the "color Associations" page along with what people tend to associate cheap and inexpensive. Below is a graphical representation of the survey results for least favorite colour for all ages and both sexes.

Figure 6.five - Least Favorite Color

Every bit yous can run into orange, dark-brown, and yellow incorporate the bulk of responses. Every bit yous've already read, yellow (according to Birren) tends to driblet from preferred to disliked as a person grows older. Also, Birren stated in 1951 that women tend to put orangish at the bottom of their preference list. Brown, existence a darker hue of orange may share some similarities with orange. An interesting item about orange is the beloved / hate relationship people have with information technology as a colour. Co-ordinate to the survey results, orange took 28% of the votes when associated with "Fun." Also, according to Birren the adjectives that his participants gave to orange are: bright, luminous, glowing, warm, metallic, autumnal, jovial, lively, energetic, hilarity and exuberance. All of these adjectives, to me, seem positive. One hypothesis could be that the dislike of the color orange is of stylistic consequence. That is, orange may be going through a menstruum of being out of fashion, at least in comparison to bluish or light-green.

Least Favorite Colour by Gender

The two pie charts below stand for favorite colors of each gender.

Figure 6.six - Female - To the lowest degree Favorite Color

Figure 6.seven - Male - Least Favorite Color

The aforementioned issues with orangish, chocolate-brown and yellow are supported by the pie charts for both Females and Males. The male participants gave 22% of their vote to imperial which I establish interesting because xx.4% of males stated that purple represented courage and bravery. This shows some inconsistency between the members of the Male participants. Women, on the other manus, only gave 8% of their vote to imperial as their least favorite color. And 34.3% of women associated purple with backbone or bravery. This gender difference is interesting and I believe it'due south acquired by cultural changes in color association. Birren wrote his book in 1951 so revised information technology in 1962; he notes that the participants in his study associated dignity as ane of the adjectives in defining purple. This may be related to the "Purple Heart Medal" which is given by the US Military to any member who is wounded or killed in the line of duty.

Least Favorite Colour past Historic period Group

In the "Favorite color by Historic period Grouping" section in a higher place, I wrote almost Birren'southward comments about age and colour. Subsequent to the bar chart below, I examine this studies results with Birren'southward notes regarding age and colour.

Figure 6.ix - Least Favorite Colour by Age Grouping

Birren seems to be right near the colour orangish and its lack of popularity amongst older people. The bar chart shows orangish increasing as part of the whole throughout the historic period groups of the participants. This survey's results regarding the color yellow also correlate well with Birren's data. As you tin see, yellow slowly becomes less popular as age increases. (Annotation – the age group of 70+ participants only consists of 5 people. That might exist why the graph seems to lose consistency near the upper historic period groups.)

Source: http://www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498/preferences.html

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