Perceptual defense as a function of manifest anxiety and color

✍ Scribed by John A. Hammes

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1961
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 170 KB
• Volume: 17
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9762
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-4679(196101)17:1<27::aid-jclp2270170108>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

PROBLEM

Culturally and associatively speaking, color is differentially perceived. Hues such as red and orange are considered warm and exciting, while blue and green are thought of as cool and relaxing(5). Gerard(3) found greater cortical and autonomic arousal under red than under blue color stimulation. Furthermore, under red stimulation, subjects scoring high in manifest anxiety (HA Ss) on the Taylor A-Scale gave greater cortical arousal than did low-anxious subjects (LA Ss), and under blue, less arousal.

The present study investigated the relations of certain color conditions t o perceptual defense and manifest anxiety. It was predicted that ambiguous stimuli presented under red illumination will be perceived as dangerous, aggressive, or threatening, and that if perceptual defense is operating, subjects will tend to avoid identifying the ambiguous stimulus with a dangerous, aggressive, or threatening object. Under the supposedly tranquilizing effects of blue, however, perceptual defense should be relatively less influential than under red, and selection of dangerous objects less frequent. I n view of Gerard's study(3), it was further predicted that HA Ss xould exhibit greater perceptual defense under red than would LA Ss. This tendency, however, might be expected to be equalized, or possibly reversed, under the tranquilizing effects of blue illumination.