Comments on: How the colour of jail cells affects inmates’ emotions

By: melissa

melissa — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:11:06 +0000

well i’m doing a jr. high science fair project like this with plants and this really helped me. so thank you a lot. keep up the good work.

By: trevvg

trevvg — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:19:22 +0000

You bring up a good point. The effects of colour on emotional affect can and do change over time. Some of this may be the “novelty factor”. Colours can be attractive and interesting at first (my indigo blue iMac comes to mind), but then be barely noticed as time goes on. But is this simply a lack of novelty, or do colours in some environments lose their overt ability to alter emotional states simply because they are no longer novel enough to command our attention?

By: Steve Portigal

Steve Portigal — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:37:22 +0000

Without any ability to cite references, I had long thought that these effects were well documented and made their way into school paint schemes (for one example) as far back as the 70s, but they were later found to have effectiveness only for a certain time, that people become accustomed to the “new” color and behavior returns to whatever it was before. Sounds perfect to use this effect for a short-term situation like the drunk-tank, though.