Dr. Avnish Jolly, The India Post, 28th January, 2009 :Red rose is connected to love, red is the colour of heart, red dress in romantic, the tale of colour red and it’s enduring love goes on and on. There is something about the lady in Red…, it is the colour of love and makes men crazy for Lady in Red, recent study at the University of Rochester by Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta, through five psychological tests, demonstrate the connection of red colour with everlasting love. Red definitely makes her even more attractive! Men can’t help get away from a woman in red and they don’t even know what role does the colour play in that magnetic attraction.
What attracts men to women is a forever question, to which almost everyone has a different answer. Psychologists at the University of Rochester published a study in last year by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology adds colour, literally and figuratively to this age old question. Professor of psychology, Andrew Elliot and post-doctoral researcher Daniela Niesta, through five psychological experiments, demonstrate the connection of this colour with everlasting love.
Elliot said,“It’s only recently that psychologists and researchers in other disciplines have been looking closely and systematically at the relationship between color and behavior. Much is known about color physics and color physiology, but very little about color psychology.”
“It’s fascinating to find that something as ubiquitous as color can be having an effect on our behavior without our awareness,” the expert said.
The study took men’s responses to photographs of women under different colour presentations. The test subjects looked at a woman’s photo framed by a border of either red or white and answered a series of questions, like: “How pretty do you think this person is?” Other experiments contrasted red with gray, green, or blue. When using chromatic colours like green and blue, the colours were precisely equated in saturation and brightness levels, explained Niesta. “That way the test results could not be attributed to differences other than hue.”
In the final study, not the background but the shirt of the woman in the photograph was digitally coloured red or blue. Then the men were asked about their attraction to the women and also about their intentions regarding dating that woman. “Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have 100 dollars in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?,” this was one question asked.
And the experiment highlighted that the women framed in red or wearing red colour were rated significanlty more attractive and secually desirable by men. They’s sure be willing to spend all their money for the ’Lady in Red’. Red has a charm of it’s own, it is no doubt the colour of passion and add’s extra glow to a woman, it surely has all that it takes to floor any man!
Recently the survey was conducted by bottled water brand Willow Water has revealed almost half of women surveyed feel most beautiful at age 32. Of the 1,500 British women who took part in the survey, 38 per cent said because of their increased confidence and life experience, they felt most attractive in their early thirties.
Beauty is still achievable much past the thirties though as a fifth of the women aged 40 to 60 said they were the happiest with their looks at age 40 – which contradicts the stereotype of youthful twenty-somethings stealing all the limelight. An active love life and well balanced diet that women experience in their older years also contributed to feeling more attractive than they did in their binge drinking younger days.
Our fascination with beautiful celebrities also sets high standards of what physical appearance can be achieved later in life. Celebs hitting 32 this year are Sophie Dahl, Sarah Michele Gellar and Liv Tyler – who all still look as fresh faced as they did in their early twenties.
Psychologist Dr Sandra Wheatly told the Daily Mail that feeling beautiful is connected with confidence and life experience and as the years go on, the more wise women become – “Showing that beauty is more than just skin deep”, she said.