Experomental psychological study on variety and fluidity of color preference

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K18695
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Psychology and related fields
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Yokosawa Kazuhiko 東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 教授 (20311649)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 色嗜好 / 実験心理学 / 美感 / 統合的認知 / 物体嗜好 / 文化的構え

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated whether color preferences changed when the mental set on color was manipulated, by providing participants with instructions about different cultural sets without any physical change in the environment. To this end, we compared the color preferences of Japanese participants under three different cultural sets, namely, “colors that are used in America,“ “colors of Japanese traditional culture,“ or no specified cultural set. We also investigated the degree to which participants matched colors with each cultural set, i.e., American or traditional Japanese. The results demonstrated the modulation of color preferences. Furthermore, the size of the modulation for each color positively correlated with the degree of the match between each color and each cultural set, suggesting that the cultural set affected the color preferences.

Free Research Field

実験心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

嗜好や美感に関する文化差について実験心理学的検討を行い、日本文化における美感の基礎指標としての色嗜好は、物体や抽象的概念の寄与によって形成されていることを明らかにできたことが学術的意義である。必ずしも色そのものの嗜好に日本文化の特徴があるのではなく、抽象概念も加味して色嗜好が決定される際に日本文化など、様々な文化の特徴が反映されることを明らかにできたことに社会的な意義もある。