Cross-Cultural Emotion and Symbolic Meanings of Color

The colour is an inseparable part of our everyday lives and its presence is evident in everything that we perceive. It is widely recognized that colours have also a strong impact on our emotions and feelings. The colours are found to trigger certain psychological, physical, biological and metabolic reactions within humans. The colour is the fundamental building block of visual symbols and serves as a communication method for humans. However, colour may generate another level of meaning in the mind. The colour symbolism arises from cultural, mythical, historical, religious, political, and linguistic associations. The symbolic meanings of colour words reveal wide-ranging connotations in cultures including positive and negative meanings. While particular colours have been found to be highly preferred regardless of age, racial group, or culture. On the other hand, Colours affect our functioning before we are conscious of it and deliver important messages.

Colours are used in flags and national colours to identify groups and countries. Colours are used in different signs to warn us of danger and make us alert. In ancient civilizations, colour was an integral part of the substance and being of everything in life. It is also closely associated with mental and emotional states and can affect them profoundly. Most fundamental colour symbolism was drawn from nature. Thus, green symbolized potency in arid regions but a sacred colour in Islam. Blue stood for the sky, and also for the spirit and truth. Interpretations of colour may differ and the symbolism varies with the cultural environment. The colour black and the colour white clearly stand for duality and antithesis. Red, the colour of blood, is usually linked with living, but it represents death in the Celtic world.

The socio-cultural, religious context within which a person was brought up also may mould the above association. Culture could be defined as an amalgamation of the attitudes, values, ethics, norms, customs, beliefs, rituals, mythology, scriptures, doctrines, and all the art forms accepted and practised through generations by a certain group of people.