The effects of moral context on the colours of guilt and pride

Abstract

ABSTRACT There is little evidence on what colours are associated with moral emotions of guilt and pride and how a change in moral context alters colour-emotion associations. We have addressed this by manipulating the context of (im)moral vs. environmentally (un)friendly behaviours. This is because environmental behaviours are classified as moral, yet they are often driven by different moral motives. We wanted to find out whether this difference could be captured by colour-emotion associations with guilt and pride. We have used an online colour picker to examine over 400 UK participants. The results of the RGB colour model revealed that guilt was most commonly associated with red, black, green, and violet colours. However, the colours of immoral behaviours were much darker than the colours of environmentally unfriendly behaviours. In contrast, pride in moral behaviours was mostly associated with pink, violet, green and blue, whereas pride in environmentally friendly behaviours was mostly paired with green, suggesting that moral context, indeed, has an impact on colour-emotion associations of guilt and pride. In addition, our study has uncovered that colour-emotion associations of guilt and pride are comprised of a certain colour signature, rather than a single colour, and this signature varies with the alteration of context. Our study contributes to developing research in both colour and environmental fields.