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Have you ever heard that
你听说过
social media sites have blue backgrounds because blue makes you feel calm?
社交媒体网站的背景是蓝色的，因为蓝色让你感觉平静吗？
Or have you read on some pop-psychology site
或者你有在流行心理学网站上读过
that wearing red to a job interview will make you more confident?
穿红色衣服面试会让你更自信吗?
The Internet is full of sketchy facts and rumors about color psychology—
互联网上关于色彩心理学的粗略事实和谣言——
the idea that certain colors can change our mood or influence our decisions.
某些颜色可以改变我们的情绪或影响我们的决定铺天盖地。
But what does the science have to say?
但是怎么用科学对其进行解释呢？
Like a lot of things in psychology, the answer isn't crystal clear.
就像心理学的很多东西一样，还没有一个确切的答案。
Colors might affect our perception, and maybe even our behavior,
颜色可能会影响我们的感知，甚至影响我们的行为，
but not always in a predictable way.
但并不总是以可预测的方式。
And when it comes to why, the jury is still out.
至于原因，目前还没有定论。
One of the most famous examples of color psychology gone wrong is Baker-Miller pink.
颜色心理学出错最著名的一个例子是贝克-米勒红。
In the late 1960s, a researcher named Alexander Schauss began investigating
20世纪60年代末，一位名叫亚历山大·斯豪斯的研究人员开始就
whether certain colors could actually cause your body to have a biological response.
某些颜色是否会给人的身体带来生理反应进行调查。
After doing some experiments, including a few on himself,
在做了一些实验，包括自己也进行了一些实验之后
he began to believe that exposure to the color pink had a calming effect,
他开始认为暴露在粉红色的环境中会起到镇静的效果，
causing the lowering of heart rate and blood pressure and even weakening muscle strength.
会导致心率和血压降低，甚至肌肉力量减弱。
Schauss worked to find a shade of pink that was most effective,
Schauss努力找到一种最有效的粉色，
and believed the color could do wonders in prisons.
他相信这种颜色能在监狱里创造奇迹。
He convinced a Naval correctional facility—run by Gene Baker and Ron Miller—
他说服了由吉恩·贝克和罗恩·米勒经营的海军监狱
to paint a holding cell that color, which came to be known as Baker-Miller pink.
牢房喷上后来称为贝克-米勒红的颜色。
At this prison, incoming inmates were thought to be especially unruly.
在这座监狱里，新来的囚犯被认为特别不守规矩。
But after five months of using the pink holding cell,
但是关进粉色牢房5个月之后，
there had been zero violent or disruptive incidents.
没有发生任何暴力或破坏性事件。
The officers were convinced that the pink paint worked,
警官们确信粉红色的涂料起了作用，
and were even more impressed because all it seemed to take was 15 minutes of exposure.
更令人印象深刻的是，这一切似乎只需要15分钟。
Schauss and others later tried to show that Baker-Miller pink had a physiological effect on people,
Schauss和其他人后来试图证明贝克-米勒红对人的生理产生影响，
and that the color could be a calming force in other prisons.
这种颜色在其他监狱可以起到镇静作用。
But those studies don't really hold up when you look at how they were done.
但是当你看到这些研究是如何进行的，你就会发现这些研究结果并不可靠。
For one thing, the scientists didn't split up the prisoners randomly
首先，科学家们并没有将囚犯随机分开
and put half in pink rooms and the other half in, say, white rooms.
一半放在粉色的房间，另一半放在白色的房间。
Instead, they simply compared the amount of violence in the first year, when there were white walls,
他们只是简单地比较了第一年当时白墙里暴力事件的数量，
to the following year when things were painted pink.
和第二年白墙被涂成粉色暴力事件的数量。
Carefully controlled experiments have failed to find that Baker-Miller pink is, as Schauss claimed, tranquilizing.
仔细对照实验未能发现，正如Schauss所言，贝克-米勒红是一种镇静剂。
But that doesn't mean that color doesn't matter at all!
但这并不意味着颜色无关紧要！
Consider experiments done in 2012 in the Netherlands, with people using poker chips.
想想2012年荷兰进行的实验，用的是扑克筹码。
When poker players were given red chips, they bet more and and were more competitive.
扑克玩家拿到红筹股时，他们会下注更多，竞争也更激烈。
When asked how they were feeling during the game, they reported feeling stronger.
当被问及在比赛中感觉如何时，他们表示感觉更强。
Players using white or blue chips, on the other hand, tended to fold more.
另一方面，使用白色或蓝色筹码的玩家往往会折损得更多。
So color does seem capable of changing feelings and behavior.
所以颜色似乎能改变人的感觉和行为。
But that raises the question of … why?
但这提出了一个问题：为什么？
Is that because red has some sort of biological effect on people when they're playing poker?
是因为红色对玩扑克的人有某种生物影响吗？
Or is it that people learn to associate certain meanings with certain colors, because of their culture?
还是因为文化的原因，人们学会了将特定的含义与特定的颜色联系起来?
Red might have an emboldening effect on a select group of Dutch people—
红色可能对一群荷兰人有壮胆的作用——
as seemed to be the case in the poker study—but not on people in Japan or Kenya, for example.
就像扑克研究一样——但在日本和肯尼亚就不同了。
And even then, the associations that we make with a color at a poker table won't necessarily apply to your wardrobe.
即便如此，我们在牌桌上对颜色的联想也不一定适用于你。
You probably have your own, personal associations with red, too.
对红色你可能也有自己的个人联想。
So, something about color matters.
所以，颜色很重要。
The challenge for psychologists today is to figure out how and why colors affect us,
今天心理学家面临的挑战是弄清楚颜色是如何以及为什么会影响我们，
while avoiding the mistakes of their Baker-Miller pink past.
同时避免贝过去克-米勒的错误。
That means improving research methods—including by being more careful about what we mean by “color.”
这意味着改进研究方法——对待我们认为的“颜色”含义要更加谨慎。
When we talk about color, we usually think about hue, or the wavelength of a red, say, versus a blue.
论及颜色，我们通常会想到色调，或者红色波长，蓝色波长，
But there's also how bright it is, and how intense and vivid it is.
但是它有多么明亮，多么强烈，多么生动。
In the past, most researchers have varied all these elements at the same time,
过去，大多数研究人员同时改变了所有这些元素，
making it really hard to interpret results.
使得研究结果很难解释。
So, even though we can't say that a certain color will make you happier or less violent,
所以，即使我们不能说某某种颜色会让你更快乐或暴力减少，
colors can influence our feelings and alter our behavior—
颜色可以影响我们的感觉和改变我们的行为——
we're just not sure exactly how or why.
我们只是不确定颜色是如何以及为什么会对我们产生影响。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, especially to our patrons on Patreon.
感谢收看本集心理科学秀，感谢Patreon对本节目的支持。
If you'd like to help us keep making episodes like this one, go to patreon.com/scishow.
如果你想帮助我们继续制作这样的剧集，请访问patreon.com/scishow。
And for lots of psychology info coming your way, go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe.
如果您想了解更多的心理学信息，请访问并订阅youtube.com/scishowpsych。
