Week 7: Color Correlations

Biah S -

Welcome back everyone, and thanks for tuning in for this week’s post!

This time I’ll be discussing my research on color and its impact on children. One very obvious way colors can be used to influence children is color psychology and the different emotions and concepts we learn to associate different colors with. Red often correlates to passion or danger, yellow is associated with joy and energy, blue represents tranquility, and so on. Some of these associations are learned through repeated exposure to the same linking of a color and an idea, but others are more biologically ingrained within us. For instance, identifying blood flow beneath the skin can help us to more clearly ascertain someone’s emotional state. Common examples would be anger or arousal, which are both feelings usually associated with the color red. These correlations can be used in design to sway audiences towards feeling a certain way towards different characters or settings. A great example of this would be Inside Out, where the characters meant to represent different emotions have designs primarily dominated by the color typically associated with them.

I was also able to find a study about the effect of color on prosocial behavior! It was not focused on the behavior of children, however. It was a study on marketing and how color saturation impacted the efficacy of different advertisements promoting prosocial behavior. It found that a higher saturation resulted in more of this behavior, as a higher saturation is indicative of being more powerful, while a lower saturation is an indicator of being powerless. The more powerful colors were able to have a positive effect on self efficacy and thereby influence consumer behavior. I thought this was really interesting and something that could potentially be applied to what I’m trying to accomplish with my project. If more highly saturated colors were able to more effectively promote prosocial behavior in advertisements, a similar effect could occur with animated children’s media.

That’s it for this week. I hope you all enjoyed!

Li, Y., & Kronrod, A. (2022). Adding Color for the Greater Good: The Signaling Effect of Color Saturation in Pro-Social Marketing Images. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4289112

Elliot, A. J. (2015). Color and Psychological functioning: a Review of Theoretical and Empirical Work. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(368). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00368

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Comments:

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    madison_d
    Hello! If you could theoretically use higher saturation to encourage prosocial behavior by associating it with characters performing prosocial acts, do you think you could similarly use lower saturation for villains or other characters who are acting against prosocial messaging to decrease the influence of their actions?
    March 27, 2025 at 2:58 pm - Reply
    theodore_t
    Hi! You mentioned color having various associations, but is it possible for color to have different associations across different cultures? And if colors’ interpretations do vary across cultures, can it also vary for children who have less exposure to these cultures, possibly leading to misinterpretations?
    March 28, 2025 at 10:23 am - Reply
    Murtada A.
    Hi Biah, I found this extremely interesting! Do you think certain colors could also make children more engaged with learning, like in classrooms, or educational programms?
    March 30, 2025 at 6:35 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Madison! Yes, I think that could potentially help to diminish the negative effects of depictions of antisocial behavior, and I plan on incorporating that into my final project.
    March 30, 2025 at 7:04 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Ted! Yes, color associations can definitely vary by culture and this can affect how they're interpreted. While it's not possible or at least extremely difficult to make sure color choices are interpreted as the creators intended by every viewer, it's important to be mindful of the intended audience and any target demographics in order to create a color scheme with the most positive impact.
    March 30, 2025 at 7:26 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Murtada! Yes, I actually read a few studies on this for my research this week. Children tend to prefer bright colors, but the constant presence of a colorful background, especially with multiple highly saturated colors contrasted with each other, can be disruptive and take up a child's mental resources. Better learning and play occurs around areas without too many colors or with colors that are not overly saturated.
    March 30, 2025 at 7:38 pm - Reply
    Drostan
    Hi! How are you planning to tie in different colors and symbolism into the multiplayer aspect?
    March 30, 2025 at 10:12 pm - Reply
    Abijah S
    Your discussion of color psychology and its influence on children is well-explained, especially with the *Inside Out* example. The connection between color saturation and prosocial behavior is particularly intriguing—consider exploring whether similar studies have been conducted specifically on children’s media. If not, you could speculate on how these findings might translate to animation for young audiences. Do you think different age groups might respond differently to saturation levels?
    March 31, 2025 at 11:38 am - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Drostan! I'm sorry to say production on the game has slowed down a bit and I am not deeply involved enough in development to give an accurate prediction, so I can't offer an answer to that right now. However, I am planning on using the connotations behind different colors in the designs for my final product to elicit certain emotions and associations in viewers.
    March 31, 2025 at 10:35 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Abijah! That was a relatively obscure study, so there aren't any studies done on children with the exact same idea as far as I can tell, but if I were to guess, I'd say a similar effect would occur if done on a younger audience. However, viewing highly saturated colors, especially for extended periods of time, can have detrimental effects on children as well, so it would be important to keep a balance.
    March 31, 2025 at 11:06 pm - Reply

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