Color's Power

over Emotion

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What is the problem?Workplace environments have a powerful influence over people and their emotions. Low paying retail jobs often ignore this reality. Is it possible for these employers to craft a workplace that will produce a happier, more productive employee and a stronger corporate culture?

I worked at Target for 2 years and hated every second of my time there. I had to drag myself there four days of the week and it sucked the life out of me. When thinking back on my experience at Target, I had trouble remembering why I was so miserable. While I was at work, I didn’t mind my actual job too much; I had friends and I got respect from the managers. So why did it bother me to work there so much? I had the thought that maybe it was the overwhelming and oppressive red on almost every surface of a normal Target store. I decided to research and figure out if the color red could be the culprit for my awful 2 years of Target employment.

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image oftargetImagine being enveloped

by this much red for 40

hours a week.

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Can this overwhelming red

hurt employees happiness

and productivity?

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Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that overwhelming colors can have negative effects on people’s emotional states and also have an impact on their productivity.

To test this hypothesis I knew that I needed to create an experiment that would measure people’s happiness and effectivness at doing a task. The inspiration for this experiement was Target and their red-themed stores, but I did not just want to test the color red. I decided early on that I would use red and blue. Common thought suggests that red would be more aggressive and blue more calm. Having mutiple colors would also test whether one color was more affective then the other.

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ExperimentIdeasA. My first idea to test my hypothesis was a complex. I was going to build three rooms. One room would be red, one blue, and one white. Once participants were in the rooms, I would have them perform different tasks and record how long it took for them to com-plete the tasks. The tasks were going to be designed so that the three people in the room would have to work as a team to complete them. Ultimately this experiment was too complex and required too many participants and thus was not feasible.

B. The next idea was that instead of painting entire rooms red and blue, I would make something that could fit over the person’s head. This would allow me to completely encompass the participant in the colors without having to build an entire room. While they were covered with this colored shade, they would again be asked to complete tasks. I moved away from this kind of thinking because creating an artificial environment was not desirable.

A

B

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Final Experiment&ProcessThe conclusion I ended up coming to was that I did not need to make false scenarios and see how people react, but rather I needed to see how color can influence someone’s everyday interactions. The previous ideas had the people performing made-up tasks to measure the effects, but they would never be performing these tasks in their real life. So I came up with the idea of two people to wearing two differently colored glasses. They would wear each pair of glasses for a 48 hour period and then fill out a report on how the glasses made them feel. After the first 48 hour period they would get 24 hours off and then get another 48 hour period with the other pair of glasses. With this process I could see how the colors affected people in real world scenarios.

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The Participants

The next step was to find two people who would be nice enough to wear these ridiculous glasses for four days. Luckily my friends Jesse and Jose were up for the challenge of taking part in this experiment. It began on Tuesday with Jose wearing the Red glasses and Jesse wearing the Blue. The first day was obviously full of people asking what was the deal with the odd glasses but by day two, it was life as usual. I asked that they wear the glasses at all times. Though, they could take off the glasses for any reason. Particularly, if they were driving, they were allowed to remove them. Apparently, a stop light becomes a lot trickier, when everything looks red. Also if they experienced any physical problems, like headaches, they could remove the glasses. At the end of each 48 hour period, I emailed them a survey I put together based off depression tests.

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The world throughthe red glasses.

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The world throughthe blue glasses.

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The world throughthe blue glasses.

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"The red lenses amplified my emotions"

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"In an enclosed room with many, I could feel my

heart rate rise."

"I felt over crowded with one or two people

around which made me frustrated."

"The best analogy is that I felt like golam from

lord of the rings and the glasses became my

precious."

Jose’s Results

Jose had some interesting results. Initially he was uncomfortable with the glasses and his emotions reflected that. He would have more extreme reactions to typical situations. He also found being in crowds much more uncomfortable. Although the most interesting result was after the 48 hours was done Jose almost became dependent on the glasses. He felt uncomfortable without them. He had acclimated to the conditions of the glasses.

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"I dont think the color affected me as much as

the red, it might have been due to the inensity

of the lenses."

"I had been wearing the glasses for 2 days

straight and once I took them off everything

was orange"

"While I was wearing the glasses everything was

cool, afterwards I wanted to put them back on to

counteract the warmth of the environment."

The results for the blue glasses were less impressive then the results from the red glasses. Jose hadmeasurable changes both physically and emotionally with the red glasses, but with the blue, there was not as much of those effects. A interesting side effect of the glasses was what happened when Jose took them off. The world went from being completly blue with the glasses on to the whole world being orange when he took the glasses off. So these results were notable, but not as strong as the results from red glasses.

"The blue did not affect me as much as the red"

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"Whatever I was doing was not as fulfilling as usual."

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"When I was wearing the glasses I was hungry as

hell and I couldn’t do anything about it"

"I had trouble focusing, but when I could focus

whatever I was doing was not as fulfilling as

usual."

"During the 48 hours my thoughts were less

linear and logical.“

Jesse’s Results

Jesse’s results from the red glasses were surprising. I was expecting some influence from the glasses but Jesse had some strong effects. He said his emotions were impacted and he was restless. Intriguing was the increase in hunger, which is something that I never expected. He also stated his productivity was not as high while wearing the glasses. All these great results showed the power that color has over people.

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"I prefered calmer music when I would usually

prefer angier/more exciting music"

"I often felt removed from the situation at hand."

"I was was easily bored. I had an epic

headache most of the way through the process. “

The blue glasses had a relaxing change to Jesse’s emotions. He might say it made the him too relaxed. As evidence of his change in music taste. In the survey the question was asked “ during the experiment did you feel lonely?” and Jesse said he was. He also said he talked less that normal. It is fascinating that the glasses made Jesse more introverted. Just a change of the colors around him, changed his personality on a base level. He definitely felt more of an influence from the blue glasses then Jose did.

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"It was difficult to be excited with the blue glasses."

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Conclusion I would say that my experiment was a success. Even though I did not get a perfect result in every phase of the experiment, I did get some very interestingresults. Jose had a noticeable change in emotion during his time with the red glasses. With the blue glasses though he did not feel any strong effects. This could be contributed to any number of things, but Jose mentioned himself that the blue glasses were not as “intense” as the red glasses. When I wore and compared the two pairs of glasses there was cer-tainly a difference. The red glasses made everything red while the blue glasses tinted everything blue to a lesser degree. I would not say that the blue glasses were totally ineffective though, because Jesse did feel effects a result of the blue glasses. Jesse’s experience with the blue glasses gave a good result. He was made more passive and more introverted. Just like Jose, Jesse had the strongest results from the red glasses. He had a insatiable hunger. Though it is inconcusive that it was just because of the glasses, I am sure they had some effect.

The experiment did prove my hypothesis to be correct. People and their emotions can be changed simply by the colors of the world around them. So this is possible why I was so unhappy and restless during my career at Target. Companies must not ignore the power colors have over their employees.

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Thank you Jesse

Thanks guys. I needed to two people to look like fools for for 4 days straight and luckily I had two friends that were willing to help me out.

Thank you Jose