Universal Patterns in Color-Emotion Associations Are Further Shaped by Linguistic and Geographic Proximity
Associations between 20 emotion concepts and 12 color terms among 4,598 people in 30 countries.
Citation
Jonauskaite, D., Abu-Akel, A., Dael, N., Oberfeld, D., Abdel-Khalek, A. M., Al-Rasheed, A. S., et al. (2020). Universal Patterns in Color-Emotion Associations Are Further Shaped by Linguistic and Geographic Proximity. Psychological Science, 31(10), 1245–1260.
Method
Cross-cultural survey in 30 countries and 22 languages.
Claims used
- Color-emotion associations were largely universal (mean similarity r = 0.88).
- Country still predicted associations beyond universal patterns; nearby languages and geography were linked to greater similarity.
Extracted principles
- Cool hues for large surfacesNot tested
For large colored areas, blue, blue-green, green, and blue-violet may be safer choices than yellow, yellow-green, or brown.
Color