By+Jim+Davies

You dont have to look very hard to see that our culture has some pretty powerful associations between colors and feelings. As an example， the Pixar film Inside Out has characters representing emotions，1 and the color choices for these characters—red for anger， and blue for sadness—feel right.

Red， specifically， is one of the most powerful colors in terms of its associations and the feelings it generates. Soccer players perceive red-shirted opponents to be better players，2 and one study indeed found that players wearing red shirts won sports games more often. Looking at red also seems to help people focus. Red enhances performance on detail-oriented tasks，3 whereas blue and green improve the results of creative tasks. Red is also sexual—men find women wearing red to be more attractive， and women think the same of men.

Why might this be？ Although these associations are a part of our culture， are they arbitrary， or did they come about for reasons outside of culture，4 perhaps having to do with our biology or the environment we all live in？

Color is not distributed randomly5 in the world around us， and as we experience the world， we build up associations between colors and the things they represent. Yet red is a relatively rare color in the natural environment. Certain fruits， small parts of the sky at times， and blood are all red. When we get angry or embarrassed， our faces get redder （though the effect is less obvious in dark-skinned people）.

But these appearances of red in our environment dont seem to be enough to explain the breadth of reds various connotations.6 And there is reason to think the meanings might be inherent to our biology： Red connotes high arousal，7 passion， and violence even for some non-human animals. When male mandrills face off， for instance， the paler （less red） male stands down.8 And macaques9 use red in sexual displays. Yet while poison dart frogs are brightly colored， they dont skew toward red—many are green， yellow， and blue.10 This suggests that the general association with red is specific to primates， evolving before mandrills and humans differentiated.11 If it had been learned， as a result of being associated with passion and danger in the environment， we would expect broader crossspecies associations； for instance， we might see that all poison animals were red.12 If red is indeed a warning color used to communicate among primates， specifically， then the associations with red might be innate13 yet arbitrary， meaning that it might just as easily have been another color that took on that role.

The difference between light and darkness is the most primitive and most visually and emotionally powerful aspect of color，14 and the associations in our environment for darkness and light seem clearer. This suggests that the implications of light and dark might be learned as well as evolved—that is， we might be born with certain reactions to light and dark that get reinforced through experience with the natural world and through culture.15 Darkness is scary because it prevents us from using our dominant sense： vision. So in that sense， the common negative associations with darkness are not arbitrary， as is primatesuse of red as a warning color. If a language has only two words for colors， those two words are invariably16 light and dark. In one experiment， people were supposed to speak aloud the words they saw flashed on the screen. People were faster at saying the words associated with immorality（such as “greed”） when they were in black， and faster at saying the “moral words” （such as “honesty”） when they were in white—and this happened too quickly for them to deliberate17 about it. This shows that it was subconsciously18 easier for them to associate morality with lightness.

Not surprisingly， the use of light and dark in fiction and in religion tends to follow widespread associations of good and evil. Across cultures， darkness is associated with sickness， fear， and evil， probably stemming from19 the fact that the world is， and always has been， more dangerous at night—for our species. One of the few exceptions is some cultures use of white to symbolize death， though this may have more of a connotation of purity and the completion of a life cycle rather than loss and sadness.20

Mice， which are nocturnal and more vulnerable when they can be seen，21 fear light and are comfortable in darkness. If mice could have religion， their god might say， “Let there be dark.22”

1. Pixar： 皮克斯動畫工作室，由喬布斯創(chuàng)立，后被迪士尼公司收購，皮克斯動畫是歷年來奧斯卡獎的熱門；Inside Out：《頭腦特工隊》（2015），是一部美國3D動畫片，榮獲奧斯卡最佳動畫片獎，故事發(fā)生在一個小女孩的大腦中，她的五種情緒分別由五個角色代表，形象地演繹出情緒是如何影響小女孩行為的。

2. perceive： 認為；opponent： 對手，敵手。

3. 對于需要注重細節(jié)的任務，紅色可以增強人的執(zhí)行力。

4. arbitrary： 任意的，隨意的；come about：發(fā)生。

5. randomly： 任意地，隨機地。

6. breadth： 廣泛性，廣度；connotation：內(nèi)涵意義，隱含意義，后文connote為其動詞形式，意為“暗示，意味著”。

7. inherent： 固有的，內(nèi)在的；arousal： 喚起，（尤指性欲的）激起。

8. mandrill： 山魈（臉部為藍紅兩色的大型非洲猴子）；face off： 和……對抗，對峙；stand down： 退出（比賽等）。

9. macaque： 獼猴，短尾猴。

10. poison dart frog： 箭毒蛙，通身鮮明多彩，常為黑與艷紅、黃、橙、粉紅、綠、藍的結(jié)合；skew： 使偏斜，使歪斜。

11. 這表明，與紅色的大致關聯(lián)通常僅限于靈長類動物，而且早在山魈與人類產(chǎn)生分化之前就形成了。primate： 靈長類動物；differentiate： 使不同，使分化。

12. 如果人們接受了這個結(jié)果，認為紅色與外界的激情和危險有關，那么我們就會設想紅色與其他物種的更廣泛的聯(lián)系，比如我們會認為所有有毒的動物都是紅色的。cross-species： 跨物種。

13. innate： 固有的，內(nèi)在的。

14. 深和淺的差異是最原始的，也是色彩中最具視覺和情感沖擊力的。primitive：原始的。

15. 這表明，深色與淺色的含意在進化中不斷得到新解，也就是說，我們可能生來就對深淺有特定的反應，并且這種感知會隨著人們在自然界和文化中的經(jīng)歷而加強。implication： 含意，暗指；reinforce： 加強，加深。

16. invariably： 總是，永恒地。

17. deliberate： 仔細考慮。

18. subconsciously： 下意識地。

19. stem from： 起源于。

20. 少數(shù)例外之一是，在一些文化中，白色被用來表示死亡，但這更可能代表著純潔和完整的生命周期，而不是失去與悲傷。

21. nocturnal：（動物）夜間活動的；vulnerable： 脆弱的，易受傷的。

22. 這句話詼諧借用了《創(chuàng)世記》中的一句話：神說，要有光，就有了光（And God said， “Let there be light，” and there was light）。