Color Preferences in Different Societies
Favoritism of colors varies widely. Oftentimes societal influences will have a direct impact on what colors we favor and disdain. In America the color blue often symbolizes sadness, black symbolizes mourning and yellow symbolizes fortune. From a recent study, it was discussed that associative learning is the process where an individual develops color preferences. In different countries, color preference vary. In China, red indicates luck, while in Nigeria and Germany it means the exact opposite. An excerpt from Dr. Isaac H. Godlove describes American views on color.
"In recent years, these troublous times have made some of us chronically blue. Our business was in the red. We were going home with a dark brown taste in the mouth. We were unable to look through the old rose-tinted glasses to see the yellow-golden flood again flowing our way. The purple depression had us contemplating black mourning for dying business, departed bank accounts and profits. But we took a hitch in our belts and carried on, waiting for the rosy dawn, for we lacked the yellow streak. We toned up our product, gave it a more healthy complexion, made it more attractive; put more color spice into our sales appeal."
Read more about this topic: Favorite Color
Famous quotes containing the words color, preferences and/or societies:
“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”
—Josephine Baker (1906–1975)
“This is the great truth life has to teach us ... that gratification of our individual desires and expression of our personal preferences without consideration for their effect upon others brings in the end nothing but ruin and devastation.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)