Anger as “seeing red”: Evidence for a perceptual association

Abstract

Metaphor representation theory contends that people conceptualize their non-perceptual states (e.g., emotion concepts) in perceptual terms. The present research extends this theory to color manipulations and discrete emotional representations. Two experiments (N = 265) examined whether a red font color would facilitate anger conceptions, consistent with metaphors referring to anger to "seeing red". Evidence for an implicit anger-red association was robust and emotionally discrete in nature. Further, Experiment 2 examined the directionality of such associations and found that they were asymmetrical: Anger categorizations were faster when a red font color was involved, but redness categorizations were not faster when an anger-related word was involved. Implications for multiple literatures are discussed.

Gaze direction and brightness can affect self-reported emotion

“…One prior study found that physical coldness could significantly increase feelings of a specific emotion: loneliness (Bargh & Shalev, 2012). Another recent study found that people use the color red as a perceptual metaphor to understand anger (Fetterman et al, 2012). Our results add to research showing that metaphors (vertical gaze position and brightness) of emotion can influence, at least temporarily, emotional experience along the pleased-depressed dimension of an observer.…”

“…However, the idea that environmental input might affect emotion is not entirely novel. Several studies have revealed that color can temporarily influence emotional judgments (Adams & Osgood, 1973;Hevner, 1935;Keith & James, 1975;Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994;Fetterman, Robinson, & Meier, 2012). Within the field of clinical psychology, several studies have shown that phototherapy (daily exposures to bright light) is effective in combating certain depressed disorders, such as seasonal affective disorder (Terman, Terman, & Ross, 1998), antepartum depression (Oren et al, 2002), and general depression (Kripke, 1998).…”

Is sadness blue? The problem of using figurative language for emotions on psychological tests

“…Blue may be associated with a variety of emotions because the associations are not based upon common physiological reactions. People turn red when they are angry (hence, anger is red), but people do not turn blue when they are sad (Fetterman, Robinson, & Meier, 2012).…”

“…Third, India is culturally and socially different from the USA. It has different ethnic groups (India is 72 % Indo-Aryan and 25 % Dravidian; the USA is 63.7 % White, 16.3 % Hispanic or Latino, and 12.6 % Black), religions (79.6 % Hindu and 14.2 % Muslim vs. 86.2 % Christian with 24.5 % Catholic and 15.8 % Baptist), (Chen et al, 2014;Fetterman et al, 2012;Waggoner & Palermo, 1989) India (Kennedy, 2011) China (Chen et al, 2014;Yu, 1995) Hungary Japan Matsuki, 1995) Poland (Mikolajczuk, 1998) Zulu language …”

Predicting Context-dependent Cross-modal Associations with Dimension-specific Polarity Attributions. Part 2: Red and Valence

“…Red also shows a strong association with danger (Pravossoudovitch, Cury, Young, & Elliot, 2014). In addition, red is suggested to be associated with negativity (e.g., Gil, & Le Bigot, 2015;Moller, Elliot, & Maier, 2009) and anger (e.g., Fetterman, Robinson, & Meier, 2012;Young, Elliot, Feltman, & Ambady, 2013) but also with warmth and excitement (e.g., Bennett & Rey, 1972).…”