Colour Psychology

(Source: http://beckybendylegs.com/how-important-is-colour/ )

What is Colour? How does Colour can helps in therapy? Let’s find out here.

Colour can be defined as a reflection or transition of light which form a visual sensation that depends on its wavelengths. It is also the quality of light producing of visual perception (source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/colour )

There are some studies on colour to determine how colour can affect human behaviour, moods and feelings and how colour can influence perception. Besides, it is related respectively to the mind, body and emotions of people and colour can help to balance all these 3 aspects.

Businessman, artist and interior designers have understood how colour can dramatically affect moods, emotions and feelings for such a long time now. Colour can be a powerful communication tool because of its variety purposes such as to signal action, to influence mood and to cause physiological reactions. However, keep in mind that these different colours also have variation of interpretation, meaning and perception, and also can be influence by the cultures or religions.

Different colour can affect someone differently, did you notice how some colours can make you feel calm while other colours can make you feel active or aggressive?  No wonder that some colours have been associated with the increased of blood pressure, increased of metabolism and even make eyestrain.

However, this field is still lack of research as only limited theoretical or empirical work has been done in this area although it is proven to be an important topic in marketing, art, design and other area.

Primary colours are Red, Blue and Yellow. Warm colours are Red, Orange and Yellow and Cool colours are Blue, Purple and Green. It is said that warm colours can evoke emotions between warmth and comfort feelings to the feelings of anger and hostility while cool colours are calm but convey feelings of sadness or indifference.

(Source: http://boutiquemc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Colours-Mean-Brands1.jpg )

Some of interesting findings are:

1.     Placebo (fake pills) are more effective if it is warm-coloured than cool-coloured.

2.    Reductions in crime can be achieved if blue-coloured streetlight is installed.

3.    Temperature affects preference of colour because warmth people will choose cool colour as their favourite and vice versa.

4.    Colour give impact on performance as a research shown that when a red colour prior to an examination lead to negative impact on the performance of the students.

5.    Red colour can cause people to react in faster speed and force and this is useful for athletic activities.

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Colour psychology can be helpful in therapy because I think it is useful to control the mood of client and to create a very therapeutic room through the selection of the colour of the walls and the decorations in it. Through this, we can help to enhance the growth of the client because some colours do give a positive impact to human such as Green which increase growth. Besides, the colour are helpful especially when counsellors do art therapy and the client were asked to draw or do anything that related to the colours, we can identify the mood through the client’s colour preference at the session. Colour psychology is interesting for me as people tend to overlook these simple things as colour can impact our behaviour, emotions, feelings and mind.

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Sources:

1.     http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/colorpsych.htm

2.    http://www.arttherapyblog.com/online/color-psychology-psychologica-effects-of-colors/#.VWM0AU-qqkp

3.    http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/meaning-of-colors.html

4.    http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

MULIANA BINTI MOHAMAD TAHA

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