Colour and emotion: children also associate red with negative valence

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Color Psychology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Color-emotion associations influence environmental processing.
• Research indicates adults associate red with negative valence.
• The developmental trajectory of this association in children is largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the red-negative emotion association in children for the first time.
• To determine if children aged 5-10 years exhibit the same red-negative association as adults.
• To explore the developmental emergence of color-emotion links.

Main Methods:

• A face categorization task was administered to children aged 5-10 years.
• Participants sorted ambiguous faces presented against red, grey, or green backgrounds.
• They judged whether faces appeared to 'feel good' or 'feel bad'.

Main Results:

• Children significantly more often associated faces with negative emotions ('feel bad') when presented against a red background.
• This finding mirrors previous results observed in adult populations.
• The red-negative association was consistent across the tested age range (5-10 years).

Conclusions:

• Children, like adults, demonstrate a negative emotional association with the color red.
• This suggests the red-negative valence association may emerge early in development.
• Findings contribute to understanding the development of color-emotion association theories.