The influence of anxiety on the structure of color associations

Nankevich Alena Anvarovna ORCID: 0000-0002-4261-4460 Assistant Professor; Department of Sociology and Philosophy; Smolensk State University 214000, Russia, Smolensk region, Smolensk, Przhevalsky str., 4 alena.nankevitch@yandex.ru Other publications by this author     Suchova Elena Evgenjevna ORCID: 0000-0003-1351-5479 PhD in Sociology Dean of the faculty of Sociology at Smolensk State University 214000, Russia, Smolensk region, Smolensk, Przhevalskogo str., 4 elena-suchova@mail.ru

Griber Yuliya Alexandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-2603-5928 Doctor of Cultural Studies Professor; Department of Sociology and Philosophy; Smolensk State University Director; Color Laboratory; Smolensk State University 214000, Russia, Smolensk region, Smolensk, Przhevalskogo str., 4 y.griber@gmail.com

Introduction

Since the second half of the twentieth century, humanity has been living in the "age of anxiety" ^[1], and anxiety is a natural part of modern life (see appendix: ^[2]). Representing a stable personality trait that performs an adaptive-orientation function ^[3], anxiety includes emotional, cognitive, and operational components ^[4] and, from the point of view of psychophysiology, is a mobilizing response to stress that activates processes conducive to survival in a broad sense ^[5]. Concomitant physiological symptoms of anxiety include rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, sweating, dry mouth, and muscle tension (see notes: ^{[6; 7]}).

According to the conducted experiments, anxiety and the accompanying psychophysiological changes in the state significantly affect cognitive functions. In most cases, this influence has a negative character: anxiety reduces the effectiveness of tasks ^[8] and success in exams ^[9], causes impaired concentration ^[10], changes in the subject's implicit ideas about himself, the world and in the perception of the surrounding reality ^[11] and even a revision of values ^[12]. The constructive potential of anxiety is formed by mobilizing personal resources ^{[5; 7]}, stimulating intellectual activity ^[13] and creative search ^[14], as well as by improving the quality of emotion processing, especially those related to threat ^[15]. Studies also indicate that marked changes in cognitive functions, both constructive and destructive, correlate with the level of anxiety of the subject (see, for example, ^[16]).

Despite a large number of studies of anxiety in the context of its impact on cognitive processes, the relationship of anxiety with color cognition still remains without due interest. The modern study of the relationship between anxiety and color is built around two key themes.

The first is related to the analysis of color images of anxiety, which, in most cases, involves self-description "in color" of their condition by subjects, and then a comparison of the obtained chromatic distributions with their anxiety level (see, for example, ^[17]). The data from these studies show such significant differences between the experimental and control groups that the authors suggest using them as a diagnostic tool to determine the level of anxiety in cases where verbal testing is difficult or impossible (for example, when examining children). The color preferences of people with anxiety are also being investigated ^{[18; 19]} and the possible effect of anxiety on color perception ^[20].

The second key topic is the study of the effects of color on anxiety and the ability of certain shades to increase or decrease its level. Most of these studies use a limited set of primary colors as stimuli, most often including red, yellow, blue, and green, and the main conclusion is that exposure to red ^[6] and yellow ^[21] increases anxiety levels, while blue and green have the opposite effect ^[22].

The research presented in the article is aimed at obtaining new empirical knowledge that is important for the subsequent theoretical understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of the relationship between anxiety and color cognition.

The object of research is color cognition, which is understood as a system of culturally conditioned mental (cognitive) processes initiated by the perception of color, its categorization, correlation with other categorical structures and affective markers stored in memory, and subsequent verbal and nonverbal communication, and cognition is interpreted in the broadest sense of the word, starting from the retinal mechanisms of color discrimination and ending with the nature of sociocultural stereotypes of the creation, choice and application of color (see sub-section: ^[23]).

The subject of the study is the influence of anxiety levels on color associations with anthropologically significant concepts.

The purpose of the study is to test the hypothesis that the level of anxiety significantly affects the system of color associations, which leads to a re–description of its structure and density, a change in the frequency of shades with certain chromatic characteristics and the transformation of color images of individual concepts.

Method

Participants. The experiment involved 100 people (23 men and 77 women) aged 17 to 24 years (average age 19.71, SD=1.72). None of the participants had any problems with color perception and color discrimination.

Before starting the experiment, all participants had their anxiety levels measured using the Taylor Anxiety Scale (TMAS) adapted by V. G. Norakidze ^[24].The scale included 50 questions to which participants had to answer "yes" or "no." If the answer coincided with the expected answer indicated in the questionnaire key, it was awarded 1 point. The anxiety level was determined by the sum of the points received by the respondent.

Depending on the overall score on the Taylor Anxiety scale, the participants were divided into 3 groups:

Group 1: 0-15 points – low anxiety level (N=35, 6 men and 29 women).

Group 2: 16-24 points – average anxiety level (N=38, 7 men and 31 women);

Group 3: 25-50 points – high level of anxiety (N=27, 9 men and 18 women).

Incentives. The study used a palette of 9 color samples from the NCS natural color system. It included saturated shades of four simple colors (Y – yellow, R – red, B – blue, G – green) and four composite colors (Y50R – orange, R50B – purple, B50G – blue-green, G50Y – green-yellow) (Table 1).

Table 1. Color samples of the experiment.

The symbols are given in accordance with the NCS color system.

Experimental procedure. The participants in the experiment were asked to compare color palette samples with 26 concepts (warm–cold, sad–joyful, calm–restless, near–far, young–old, female–male, fast–slow, strong–weak, fake–sincere, cheap–expensive, safe–dangerous, healthy–sick, I–others) and independently enter the code of the selected shade in the form. All color samples were presented to the participants simultaneously. The duration of the selection was not limited. The same shades could be chosen several times, that is, the same colors could be used as associations with different concepts (see references: ^{[25; 26]}).

Data analysis. The study database comprised 2,600 responses, which were then divided into three groups depending on the identified anxiety level of the study participants. The analysis of the obtained data from the associative experiment was carried out using cognitive interpretation procedures, which allowed us to draw tentative conclusions about the features of mental processes in the respondents' minds (see appendix: ^[27]).

To assess the degree of diversity of the obtained color associations, the Shannon, Simpson, and Margalef indices were used (see references: ^{[28; 29]}).

The Shannon diversity Index was calculated using the formula:

where i are the various associations, is the probability of encountering a certain association in the sample, which is calculated using the formula , is the number of associations of a certain type, N is the number of responses.

The Margalef index was calculated using the formula:

where s is the number of types of associations, N is the number of responses.

The formula was used to calculate the Simpson index:

where ni is the number of associations of a certain type, N is the number of responses.

Results and discussion

The experiment revealed some features of the color association system in people with different levels of anxiety. The differences were manifested (1) in the structure and density of the set of color associations; (2) in the frequency of selected shades from different groups; (3) in the color images of individual concepts.

(1) The structure and density of color associations

To compare the structure and density of the obtained color associations, we calculated the Shannon, Margalef, and Simpson indices (Table 2), which are traditionally used in ecology, each with specific goals.

Table 2. Diversity indices in groups with different levels of anxiety

The Shannon index (1), which is used in environmental studies to determine biodiversity and reflects the complexity of the community structure (in our study, the structure of a set of color associations), was less important in Group 3 (high anxiety) than in the other two (H1 = 4.924264; H2 = 4.89128, H3 = 4.847994). The continuous decline in the values of the Shannon index indicates that the level of anxiety is inversely proportional to the degree of complexity of the structure of color associations.

The Margalef index (2), which in biodiversity studies allows us to draw conclusions about the species richness and density of species in a certain area, and in relation to our material shows the variability of color associations, was higher in Group 1 (low anxiety level) compared with the other two groups, where this indicator was approximately the same (d1 = 29.1428; d2 = 27.69849; d3 = 27.5925).

On the contrary, the Simpson index (3), which allows us to determine the dominance of certain community species (in our case, different color associations) and increases with the dominance of one or more species, was half as low in Group 1 (D1 = 4070,194; D2 = 8739,146; D3 = 8005,193).

The recorded decrease in the Shannon and Margalef indices with an increase in the Simpson index suggests that in the structure of color associations in groups with increased and high levels of anxiety, there is a decrease in the number of types of associations and an increase in the dominance of individual connections.

(2) The frequency of selected shades from different groups. In terms of the frequency of the selected tone, a preference for red (S 1080-R) and gray (S 4000-N) was found in all groups (Fig. 1); however, in Groups 2 and 3, where the anxiety level was higher, the popularity of red in building associative connections with various concepts was slightly lower (cf. Fig. 2 on the left). Respondents with higher anxiety were also significantly less likely to use yellow-green (S 1075-G50Y), orange (S 0585–Y50R) and blue (S 2065-B) a little less often. On the contrary, they chose blue-green (S2060-B50G) much more often and yellow (S 0580–Y) a little more often. In general, the scheme of constructing color associations was more similar in Groups 2 and 3.

Figure 1. Frequency of tone selection in groups with different levels of anxiety

Based on the results of previous studies, according to which not only tone correlates with an increase in anxiety levels, but also an associative group of preferred shades ^[19], we divided all chromatic stimuli into two blocks (warm colors, cold colors) and calculated the ratio of warm and cold color choices in groups with different levels of anxiety. Such an analysis showed that with increasing anxiety, there is a decrease in the number of warm color choices and, conversely, cold shades become more popular (Fig. 2 on the right).

Figure 2. The ratio of the choice of shades of different tones (red, blue-green, yellow-green) (left); warm and cold colors (right)

in groups with different levels of anxiety

(3) Color images of individual concepts. An extended comparative analysis of the color images of individual concepts made it possible to establish that with an increase in the level of anxiety, not only the ratio of cold and warm shades among color choices changes noticeably, but also the color representation of the concepts warm and cold themselves (Fig. 3). In particular, the proportion of orange in the color image of the warm concept decreases (by 15% in Group 2 and 7% in Group 3) against the background of an increase in the frequency of yellow (by 17% in Group 2) and bright red (by 6% in Group 2 and 10% in Group 3). Among the shades chosen for the associative description, the proportion of blue increases (by 8% in Group 2 and by 10% in Group 3) and blue-green (by 17% in Group 2 and by 19% in Group 3).

Figure 3. The most noticeable differences in the color images of concepts

in Groups 1 (left) and 3 (right)

Since previous studies have found a significant difference in the color representation of people with increased anxiety of their mood compared to the control group, we conducted a detailed comparative analysis of the concepts of restless and sad. In earlier studies, the vast majority of anxious participants in the experiment used shades of gray to describe their condition, which they verbally characterized as restless, depressed, and joyless ^[17]. At the same time, the same trend was observed both in people who took antidepressants and in participants who coped with anxiety without medication. In our case, the differences in the color image of the restless concept were mostly yellow-green and red. There were no statistically significant differences in the chromatic structure of the sad concept.

At the same time, we found that as the level of anxiety increases, the color images of the concepts joyful, masculine, feminine, expensive, safe, fake, sincere noticeably change. In the meaning of blue, the semes of cold (by 6% in Group 2 and by 8% in Group 3) and male (by 28% in Group 3) are enhanced. Purple is much less often associated with feminine and expensive, but more often with fake. Green, blue-green, and yellow-green are more often associated with safe and less often associated with young (Fig. 3).

Conclusion and conclusions

In general, the study confirmed the hypothesis that a change in the level of anxiety significantly affects the system of color associations, and allowed us to draw a number of important conclusions about what exactly is happening.

(1) The experiment showed that the degree of anxiety correlates with the associative group of preferred shades: with increasing anxiety, the proportion of warm shades decreases markedly, the proportion of cold ones increases. Moreover, as the level of anxiety increases, the color representation of the concepts warm and cold also changes noticeably.

(2) To a lesser extent, the level of anxiety was associated with the tone of the preferred shades: in all three groups, "red" and "gray" associations dominated among the participants' choices, and the differences in the frequency of other selected tones, with the exception of red, blue-green and yellow-green, were rather weak.

(3) The key conclusion of the study is the pronounced prominence of individual chromatic values in the structure of color associations in groups with a higher level of anxiety: there is a decrease in the number of connections and an increase in the dominance of individual associations. This result is in good agreement with the conclusions of previous studies that, with an increase in the degree of anxiety, more stable associative connections of individual anthropologically significant concepts with color are formed, primarily with regard to the color representation of one's own state and mood (see, for example, ^[17]).

We emphasize that in this experiment we set ourselves the task of testing the correlation of the degree of anxiety with only one chromatic characteristic – tone. Research should be continued on other chromatic characteristics, primarily saturation and lightness. Earlier studies of anxiety (see, for example, ^{[17; 18]}) give every reason to believe that its increase may correlate with an increased predisposition to choose dark, achromatic, and unsaturated shades. We also do not exclude that the established differences may have cross-cultural specifics and differ among representatives of the same culture of different ages and genders.