Color increases attractiveness; reaction may be
biological, study suggests.
If a woman wants to drive the men wild, she might want to dress
in red.
Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually
attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in
an image framed by a red border rather than some other color, U.S.
researchers said on Tuesday.
The study led by psychology professor Andrew Elliot of
the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, seemed to
confirm red as the color of romance — as so many Valentine's Day
card makers and lipstick sellers have believed for years.
Although this "red alert" may be a product of human
society associating red with love for eons, it also may arise from
more primitive biological roots, Elliot said.
Noting the genetic similarity of humans to higher
primates, he said scientists have shown that certain male primates
are especially attracted to females of their species displaying
red. For example, female baboons and chimpanzees show red coloring
when nearing ovulation, sending a sexual signal that the males
apparently find irresistible.
"It could be this very deep, biologically based
automatic tendency to respond to red as an attraction cue given our
evolutionary heritage," Elliot, whose findings appear in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, said in a telephone
interview.
No effect on likability
The study
involved more than 100 men, mostly college undergraduates, who were
shown pictures of women and asked to rate how pretty they were, how
much the men would like to kiss them and how much the men would
like to have sex with them.
Men were shown a woman, with some of the pictures
bordered in red and some bordered in white, gray or green. Even
though it was the same picture of the same woman, when she was
framed in red the men rated her as more attractive than when she
was bordered by another color.
Men were then shown photographs of a woman that were
identical except that the researchers digitally made her shirt red
in some versions or blue in others. And once again, the men
strongly favored the woman in red.
The men also were asked, "Imagine that you are going on
a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much
money would you be willing to spend on your date?" When she was
clad in red, the men said they would spend more money on her.
The researchers noted that the color red did not alter
how men rated the women in the photographs in terms of likability,
intelligence or kindness — only attractiveness.
The researchers then had a group of young women rate
whether the pictured woman was pretty. Red had no impact on whether
women rated other women as pretty, they found.
Gay men and color blind men were excluded from the
study.
