Does He Come In Red?
12th August 2010
You might remember an earlier post when you see the lineup.
Yeah, that’s right. The pretty one is in red.
A little over a year ago Andrew J. Elliot and Daniela Niesta published a series of fun experiments aimed at testing the Romantic Red effect. Let me quote myself:
In all five studies, men always rated the same woman more positively when her picture appeared against a red background. (With women, the rating did not vary – a girl is a girl is a girl to other girls in this application.) What surprised me was the size of the effect. Expressed as the Windowpane, the effect ranged from a high of 75/25 to a low of 62/38 with an average across all five of 68/32, or a strong medium effect.
But, as noted at the time, these studies only tested the effect of red with women targets, not men. Well, now Elliot and colleagues have run a similar set of experiments with men as the target and guess what? Romantic Red still applies.
This new series of experiments from Elliot et al. employed a major interesting wrinkle compared to the first set of studies of female targets. In the experiments with men, Elliot and colleagues varied the ethnicity of the male in the photo. Some featured a Chinese male, others a Latino male, and others a Caucasian male – all raters were always of the similar ethnicity.
In general, the Romantic Red effect applied with male targets the same way it did with female targets. Women rated a man either on a red background or wearing a red shirt as more attractive than the same man on a non-red background or non-red shirt. The effect sizes were also big coming in from medium to large to jumbo. And, finally, when men did the rating, color made no difference – a boy is a boy is a boy to other boys just as a girl is a girl is a girl to other girls.
Here are the grains of salt . . .
We’re talking pictures, folks, and not even talking pictures. The raters never interacted face-to-face with the experimental targets in this research. Would the Romantic Red effect apply even when that boy or girl started talking? Would it apply when it was live and not mediated? This research suggests you might want to wear a red sweater on your first date, but who knows? If you’ve been around the block a couple of times, you know even the most gorgeous red-wrapped face and body you’ve ever seen can become repulsive when he or she starts talking. Furthermore, you don’t need to read the experimental research to know that Red sells more stuff than just girls or boys. Red is a hot marketing color for all manner of nonsexual goods and services. So, does Red make people sexy or is Red a hot color. Finally, realize that Red may get attention, but . . .
. . . you probably could take it too far.
