Color and Affect

Abstract

Abstract. This work arose from an interest in seeking the origins, in the field of psychological assessment, of knowledge on the relationship between color and affect. This relationship in psychological assessment has existed since Herman Rorschach published his book Psychodiagnostics. In 1967 Beck stated that it was not Rorschach who discovered the relationship between color and affectivity, recognizing that there was evidence that this relationship had been accepted since the early days of civilization. In the 1940s, studies on painting and personality and on the artistic production of psychotic patients began to appear more prominently and culminated in Buck’s work, with his suggestion for inclusion of colors in the HTP test. In the 1950s, Pfister and Lücher published their color tests, with some theoretical considerations about the cultural and physiological aspects related to the symbolic interpretation of colors. Neuroscience can now be used to better understand how color perception and processing work in the brain, although the connection between color and affect in this field needs to be explored more. Studies in different areas such as physics, anthropology, ethology, and sociology suggest that a combination of factors related to the qualities of the light stimulus and its perception are also associated with the colors in nature and their symbolism that lead to the affective connotations of colors.