So far, psychological research has found little evidence for a relationship between personality and color preference. In folk psychology, however, it is a widely held belief that a person's color preferences may give insights into his or her personality as, for example, is demonstrated by the popularity of the famous-infamous Lüscher Test. Using Wiggins's interpersonal circumplex as a nomological net (Gurtman, 1992; Wiggins & Broughton, 1991), two studies are presented investigating assumptions about interpersonal characteristics that people make when given information about a person's favorite color

Stöber, Joachim

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What (Others Think) Your Favorite Color Tells About YourPersonality: An Interpersonal Circumplex AnalysisJoachim StöberMartin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, GermanyINTRODUCTIONSo far, psychological research has found little evidence for a relationshipbetween personality and color preference. In folk psychology, however, it is awidely held belief that a person's color preferences may give insights into his orher personality as, for example, is demonstrated by the popularity of the fa-mous-infamous Lüscher Test. Using Wiggins' interpersonal circumplex as anomological net (Gurtman, 1992; Wiggins & Broughton, 1991), two studies arepresented investigating assumptions about interpersonal characteristics thatpeople make when given information about a person's favorite color.Wiggins' interpersonal circumplex is constructed from two orthogonal axes,nurturance representing emotional aspects (horizontal axis) and dominancerepresenting the social-status aspects of interpersonal relations (vertical axis).These axes span a two-dimensional space which can be segmented into eightoctants arranged in a circular fashion (see Figures 1 and 2)The aim of Study 1 was to investigate if people infer interpersonal characteris-tics from a person's favorite color and, if so, what dominant characteristics theyassociate with what color. The aim of Study 2 was to replicate the findings ofStudy 1. Moreover, Study 2 investigated the specificity of these inferences bycomparing the trait inferences with ratings of the colors themselves.STUDY 1Participants. N = 80 students (16 male, 64 female) from the University ofGreifswald.Design, Methods, and Procedure. The design corresponded to a 2 × 8 mixedANOVA with gender of the target person as between-participants factor andfavorite color as within-participants factor. Participants were asked to indicatewhich personality characteristics they expected for a person who declared aspecific favorite color. For half of the participants, this target person was "aman," for the other half it was "a woman." Each participant rated eight targetpersons, each with a different favorite color — red, orange, yellow, green, blue,purple, white, and black (sequence randomized) — on eight items, one for eachoctant. Octant items were constructed using the octant labels and items from therevised Interpersonal Adjectives Scales (Wiggins et al., 1988; German version:Ostendorf & Angleitner, 1997). Items were rated on a 5-point scale from "defi-nitely not" (–2) to "definitely yes" (+2). From the standardized octant itemscores, circumplex scores for nurturance (LOV) and dominance (DOM) werecomputed following Wiggins and Broughton (1991).Results. Color had a significant main effect on both LOV scores, F(7, 72) =22.0, p < .001, and DOM scores, F(7, 72) = 17.2, p < .001, while gender oftarget had no significant effects. Therefore, color scores for male and femaletargets were combined and then projected into the interpersonal circle (seeFigure 1).Figure 1. Expected interpersonal characteristics of persons withspecific favorite colors (Study 1).STUDY 2Participants. N = 81 students (11 male, 67 female, 3 with no indication ofgender) from the University of Greifswald.Design, Methods, and Procedure. The design corresponded to a 3 × 8 mixedANOVA with target as between-participants factor and color as within-partici-pants factor. 42 participants were asked to indicate which personality charac-teristics they assumed for a man or a woman who declared a specific favoritecolor. For n = 20 participants, the target person was "a man," for n = 22 it was"a woman." The remaining n = 39 participants rated the characteristics of thecolors themselves. Else, the procedure was the same as in Study 1.Results. First, the 42 participants, who rated persons with favorite colors, wereanalyzed. Again, color had a significant main effect on both LOV scores, F(7,34) = 11.3, p < .001, and DOM scores, F(7, 34) = 8.1, p < .001. As before,gender of target had no significant effects so that scores for male and femaletargets were combined and projected into the interpersonal circle (Figure 2).Second, the 39 participants, who had rated colors only, were included into theanalyses. However, when contrasting target classes (person ratings vs. color-only ratings), all effects were nonsignificant.Figure 2. Expected interpersonal characteristics of persons withspecific favorite colors (Study 2).CONCLUSIONSExcept for blue and purple, all colors showed marked projections into interper-sonal space. Red was associated with the assured-dominant octant. Black wasplaced in the cold-hearted octant while white was projected into the aloof-introverted octant. Both yellow and orange were located at the border betweenthe warm-agreeable and the gregarious-extraverted octant. Finally, green wasprojected into the unassuming-ingenuous octant. Additional analyses found noevidence that the expectations based on a person's favorite color differed fromthe characteristics attributed to colors only. Therefore, it may be argued thatcultural stereotypes associated with specific colors (e.g., Heller, 1989) presentthe basis for the trait inferences associated with favorite colors.REFERENCESGurtman, M. B. (1992). Construct validity of interpersonal personality measures: The interpersonalcircumplex as a nomological net. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 105-118.Heller, E. (1989). Wie Farben wirken [The effects of colors]. Reinbek bei Hamburg, Germany:Rowohlt.Ostendorf, F., & Angleitner, A. (1997). Psychometric properties of the German version of theInterpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS) and the Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R).Unpublished manuscript, University of Bielefeld, Germany.Wiggins, J. S., & Broughton, R. (1991). A geometric taxonomy of personality scales. EuropeanJournal of Personality, 5, 343-365.Wiggins, J. S., Trapnell, P., & Phillips, N. (1988). Psychometric and geometric characteristics of therevised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R). Multivariate Behavioral Research, 23, 517-530.Gregarious-ExtravertedAssured-DominantArrogant-CalculatingCold-HeartedAloof-IntrovertedUnassured-SubmissiveUnassuming-IngenuousWarm-AgreeableGregarious-ExtravertedAssured-DominantArrogant-CalculatingCold-HeartedAloof-IntrovertedUnassured-SubmissiveUnassuming-IngenuousWarm-Agreeable

A geometric taxonomy of personality scales.

Psychometric and geometric characteristics of the revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R).

Psychometric properties of the German version of the Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS) and the Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales (IAS-R).

What (others think) your favorite color tells about your personality: An interpersonal circumplex analysis

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What (others think) your favorite color tells about your personality: An interpersonal circumplex analysis

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