Perceiving color stimuli, red color, can affect our performance

Red Color

Man has always seemed attracted to color. One example of this: think of the art in cave drawings where primitive man took substances from nature and applied them directly to his art work. Red, green, gray, pink, yellow and many other colors that our eye sees every day can influence psychological functioning including cognitive performance

In a series of experiments Elliot and colleagues showed that in achievement context presenting a small stimulus in red color as compared to another color green gray significantly reduced subsequent performance on anagram tests and measures or reasoning abilities.

In one experiment Elliot placed a rectangle sized 1.3x1.9 on the upper right corner of each page of the test booklet by using red, green, or black ink. In another experiment, a colored rectangle sized 12.7x18 was presented on the cover page before the actual test. In all experiments, viewing red color consistently led to poorer test.

Perceiving red implicitly activates thoughts about failure and initiates avoidance motivation which, in turn, leads to poorer test performance


How can this affect me?


Well, in the real life there are top people who are in the top, and there are lower people who are climbing the ladder trying to reach the top. The red color can be used to fad out lower people motivation and make them not to climb the ladder.

Stories

Fatima had planned to spend the whole day at the library. She was very motivated and determined to read her new book—Silent Killer—in one set. If she could read 427 pages in one day, she would be very proud of herself. Once she had arrived at the library, first thing she did was to look for a quiet place. She was lucky to find one near a red wall. "Oh, this is a good place. It is quiet and far from the elevator nose" she said

Fatima started reading her book. Usually, she can read thirty pages easily even if the environ was noisy. But that day, at the library, she wasn't able to read even half. Her eyes hurt and her brain was lazy. Suddenly, she lost her motivation. Her day wasn't very productive compare to when she was at home reading. She did not understand why. She didn't know that the red wall instigated her avoidance motivation. If you were her, what would you do.
 
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