The Power of Colors – Part 6
In this article, we are going to talk about two colors, yellow and green! They are interesting colors. We have mentioned yellow a couple of times. You can see that you can create some powerful emotions when you put the two colors together.
Let’s talk about yellow first before we discuss green. This is from Leslie Kane’s article:
Yellow – The Energizer.
Yellow lifts spirits and makes people feel peppy and optimistic. It is a color of highest visibility; if you glance quickly at a collage of colors, yellow will be the first one you perceive. Tests show that yellow raises blood pressure, pulse rates, and respiration, though not as constantly as red does.The energizing effect of yellow was illustrated in a study by a Swedish scientist, Oscar Brunler, PhD. Mice placed in slate-blue boxes became listless and inactive. When Brunler switched them to yellow boxes, they became alert and active.
Yellow’s activating properties work on humans, too. Margaret Welch of the Color Association reports that a study involving preschool children under age 5 showed that out of a roomful of toys, children most frequently grabbed the yellow ones. According to Bender, a telephone company found that when the interior of a phone booth was painted yellow, people finished their conversations faster and freed the booth for other customers.
The good old days, when we had phone booths to walk into to make a call. I almost forgot about them until I read this article. We have changed our culture a lot in the last thirty years. Yet, the research still affects us. Color is an interesting subject, I think. After you read this report, you might see why painting your child’s bedroom yellow might be a mistake.
Yet on a small scale, yellow is a very nice accent in a room and it’s fun to wear. You really need to have the right shade for your skin’s undertones. We can talk about that in another article. Let’s keep going with another color. Green! I’m continuing on with Leslie’s article.
Green – The Masquerade
Green encompasses such a huge range of shades that it’s impossible to generalize its effect. People describe rotten food as “sickening” green and forest as “lush, restful” green.
Accordingly, there are two schools of thought regarding green’s psychological impact. Some people believe green is soothing. Others feel it is an irritant. “Green provides the ideal environment for sedentary tasks, concentration and meditation,” Bender says. “It expresses firmness, peacefulness, resistance to change. It is a quiet, refreshing color in most tints, particularly blue-greens.”
Schauss disagrees. “Green is one of the worst colors to use if you’re seeking a tranquilizing effect,” he says. “Initially, people reasoned that green should promote tranquility because the forest is green and green reminds us of nature. But when you go into a forest, you’re looking at thousands of different hues of green. When you work with green paint, you get a monochrome effect – only one green. That’s irritating.” Studies at UCLA in the early 70s measured the effects of many colors and gave the first indications that green wasn’t as calming as everyone had assumed.
I want to add something as a real estate broker. Green can be interesting. Both researchers are right. Green is relaxing in a blue-green or black-green. When you do a complete room with it, you will find it irritating. In the seventies, it was popular to paint a room complete green. Even a light green, you would feel sick after being in the room. You felt nauseated and usually got a headache.
As a real estate agent in the eighties, people became hostile to a completely green room. Being an agent, you quickly learned to not even show a house if it had a completely green room. People would walk out before they finished seeing the whole house.
Yet, when you use a black-green or blue-green in your décor, it can be very effective as long as you stay away from a gold-green. A black-green reminds you of a forest and it is a great color to use in carpets, counters, or tile. We will go into this more if you want in another article.
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