The magic of colour is around us constantly. It influences our purchasing patterns, modifies our moods and physiology and alters our appetites and levels of confidence. Colours even affect our sense of time and temperature. We use colour as a prime indicator of ripeness when we select fruit and vegetables and it’s even thought that colour may override flavour in taste perception. What does a lime-flavoured drink taste like when it’s coloured orange?

As a species we’ve been hardwired to visual cues including colour which, scientifically, is the first thing we see. Colour is nature’s signal system and we instinctively respond. Yellow is the first colour we see in daylight (the sun) and it indicates alertness and action for the day. Blue is the first colour we see in the night light and it indicates rest and retreat.

Whether it’s colour in commerce, colour in nature, colour in your personal life or colour in your wardrobe, the average person sees up to 16 million shades, tints and tones of colour, from a base set of only 11 colours: blue, green, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow, black, white, grey and brown. In this article we’ll look at how colours influence your psyche and how your colour preferences are a guide to your personality and psychological status.

Colourful impact

A world without colour would be a sad and dismal place. Fortunately, we’re bathed in the beauty and energy of colour constantly. An understanding of colour, plus an appreciation of which colours are natural attractors and what this means, gives you an opportunity to use colour to your advantage. You can use colour for your personal wellbeing, just as commerce uses colour as a tool of communication.

Reaction to colour is subjective — however, this doesn’t mean it’s not predictable. Long-term personal colour preferences reflect elements of our stable personality. Shifting, short-term likes and dislikes of various colours indicate the state of our disposition at varying times in different circumstances.

Colour preferences indicate the conscious and unconscious psychological structure of individual areas of psychological and physical stress and imbalance in our life.

An attraction to a particular colour at one phase in our life (little girls and pink) may transition to an acute dislike of that same colour later in life. Constant immersion in a specific colour (school uniform) may morph into a total rejection of that colour later — perhaps for a lifetime, if the memories are particularly unpleasant.

Society, too, makes distinctions around colour. Research shows that old money prefers deeper, richer, pulled-back colours such as charcoal, burgundy, navy, deep green, coco and cream — colours deemed discrete and understated, as if it were inappropriate to draw attention to oneself. Brights are used only for accents, if at all.

New money, on the other hand, is more likely to be celebratory and expansive with colour choices. The new red Mercedes will be sure to alert everyone to new-found success.