The psychological effect that colour has on the human brain is often dismissed as trivial and pseudoscientific, something that is relatively unimportant in the scientific realm. Whilst this may be true – similar experiments often achieve different results, disproving theories more often than legitimising them – the psychology of colour is nonetheless an interesting area of study that aims to reveal the effects that colour may have on one’s personality and emotions. One particular colour, Baker-Miller Pink, adorns the walls of prison facilities, sports changing rooms and Kendall Jenner’s dining room because of its purported psychological power. The colour’s founder, Dr Alexander Strauss, worked tirelessly to prove that this shade of pink can both calm the mind and decrease muscle strength. it is impossible to ignore, however, that both the colour pink and the passive qualities that are supposedly the physiological effect of Baker Miller Pink have historically been gendered as feminine. This leads us to query whether the connection between Baker-Miller Pink and tranquillity of the mind is nothing more than an attempt to reinforce gender stereotypes, or the grounds of a legitimate scientific experiment that has been undermined since it’s conception over 30 years ago.
In 1969, Dr Alexander Strauss became interested in the physiological effects of colour on the brain when reading a book by the Swiss psychiatrist Max Lüscher, who believed that colour preference gave clues about one’s personality. Lüscher conducted a test where patients were given 8 different coloured cards, with each colour representing a different emotional meaning, that they had to place in order of preference. His theory followed that because the colour selections were guided in an unconscious manner, they showed the patients as they truly are, not who they perceive themselves to be, thus acting as an indicator of the patient’s personality. Strauss noted from Lüscher’s work that “a number of subject’s choice of colour preferences correlated with psychological and physiological changes. Since emotional changes ae related to the endocrine system, could colors reflect hormonal changes in humans?” He then asked, “could colors cause hormonal changes?”
With the help of photo biologist Dr John N. Ott, Strauss observed that a particular shade of pink, P-618, affected muscle strength and influenced the cardiovascular system. Whilst this colour had no effect on the cardiovascular system of someone who was rested, it lowered the heartrate and pulse of someone who had been exercising. Because of this result, he began to wonder if the colour could have a positive effect on human aggression. To test this theory, Strauss turned to the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, where he was teaching an Innovative Treatment Techniques and Correctional Research course. He wanted to test his theory by painting a correctional facility the shade of pink that he had created. This was met with disdain and resistance, a reaction that he believed was in large part due to the colour being a shade of pink. Strauss finally found support in two military officers at the U.S Naval Correctional Centre in Seattle – Commander Miller and CWO Baker. Miller and Baker proceeded to paint the interior of one of the admissions cells at the centre in the shade now known as Baker Miller Pink. Rates of assault before and after the cells were painted pink were monitored for over 100 consecutive days. Once the experiment had ended, the report stated that “since initiation of this procedure on March 1, 1979, there have been no incidents of erratic or hostile behaviour during the initial phase of confinement”.
This experiment, however, has been met with some criticism; James E. Gilliam and David Unruh conducted a similar controlled experiment to Strauss’s at the Santa Clara County jail to find that not only did aggressive incidents continue whilst the facility was painted Baker-Miller Pink, the number of incidents was higher than in the pre-pink months. Football teams, too, have used the colour in an attempt to gain a psychological advantage over their opponents: in the 1980’s, the University of Iowa football team painted their visitor’s changing room at Kinnick Stadium pink, hoping that the shade would curtail the aggression of the opposing team and allow the home team to gain a competitive edge. The women’s Norwich City football team employed the same strategy in 2018 but, after their 4-3 loss to West Bromwich, proved that the theory doesn’t always work.
Some of the opposing team’s football players reported feeling humiliated by the perceived insult of the pink rooms, a feeling that was shared by inmates in a Swiss prison that conducted a similar experiment to Strauss’s. One inmate said it was degrading to be held in a cell that looked like “a little girl’s bedroom”. Herein lies the crux of the controversy: the implication that a colour that has historically been associated with girls will reduce aggression is a narrative that reinforces dangerous and futile gender stereotypes. The statement made by the Swiss inmate is not the first time something feminine has been seen as degrading (think anything in popular culture, or how men dressed in women’s clothing are instantly thought of as less worthy of respect) but it is nonetheless shocking that something as arbitrary as a colour carries such a cultural, and gendered, significance.
Is it just coincidental that the colour most associated with girls is one that psychologically elicits the compliance and submission that is expected of women, or could Strauss’ theory have some legitimate grounds as pink has, after all, not always been associated with femininity? Originally, according to architectural historian Annmarie Adams, pink wasn’t always a colour associated with girls. She traces this switch back to Nazi Germany. Before the Second World War, it was not uncommon for boys to be dressed in pink, and girls to be dressed in blue. But in the same way that the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a yellow badge, they forced gay men to wear a pink badge. Since then, the colour pink has been thought of connoting non-masculine tropes and has been categorised alongside character traits that are also seen as non-masculine: passive, emotional and inactive.
The theory of Baker-Miller Pink relies, simply, on the need to keep people small, to make someone cower out of their aggression and instead to admit defeat, stay quiet. it is surely not a coincidence, then, that these actions have been historically expected of women: whilst men can be loud, wage wars and take up space, women are often pushed aside, forced to take up as little space as is humanly possible. Is it possible that the results of Strauss’ experiment were simply the result of the internalisation of gender constructs, and there is no psychological work at play other than the subject simply making the association between pink, women, and weakness?
On the other hand, what Strauss aimed to achieve is similar to the aims of the present-day feminist movement; simply to remove aggression and hostility from the world. It is impossible to ignore that whilst the colour pink elicited reactions that are gendered as feminine, the colour blue, often associated with boys, did not elicit the aggression that we associate with men. The gender binary is damaging to all of us; the emotion-hiding, power-driven persona that the patriarchy requires of men is just as harmful to society as the persona enforced on women. Perhaps Strauss was onto something, not merely because he fronted a new scientific approach to understanding emotions and their triggers, but because he saw a way to achieve what we all want - peace.
Cover image by Angélique Stehli
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