Reflection #8

How does room decorations (wall colors, lights, posters, and more) impact the way children develop? At home, my room is painted blue, and my brother’s room is painted green. However, coming to college, my dorm room is white. When I first moved in, I felt as if my room was very sterile, and it even brought some discomfort to me because the white made it seem less homey. I wonder if the different colors of rooms can elicit different responses in a child or even impact their temperament. Moreover, I now take all my classes with just light coming in from my window because it makes me feel more relaxed. Does the amount of light in a room influence a child’s attitude? I think that different colors tend to be associated with different feelings; what I mean by this is that I think most people associate red with anger, blue with sadness, yellow with happiness, and more. However, these colors could also represent completely different feelings in other people. I want to know if colors could “trigger” different responses in a child’s temperament. Children could also be more attracted to brighter colors because they are more flashy and tend to draw more attention. Color-emotion was observed in a study in which 30 boys and 30 girls were asked to verbally express their feelings towards certain colors. Emotional responses to brighter colors tended to be positive, while emotional responses to darker colors tended to be negative. However, these color-emotion associations could easily be linked to idiosyncratic and gendered experiences. Moreover, positive responses for bright colors and negative responses for dark colors were more strongly associated with females, and males tended to have a more positive response to dark colors than girls (Boyatzis, Varghese, 2010). I wonder if these color-emotion relationships can be so severe to impact a child’s emotions when the color is significantly prevalent in the child’s environment or surroundings. Light is known to affect our circadian rhythm which can impact how much sleep we get. When we are sleep deprived, we tend to be more irritable and in a bad mood. Light can also increase cognitive performances. However, I am not sure if these factors impact children like they do for adults. ​Chris J. Boyatzis & Reenu Varghese (1994) Children's Emotional Associations with Colors, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 155:1, 77-85, DOI: 10.1080/00221325.1994.9914760 via /r/PSY205_01_Oxford https://ift.tt/3eoOQAz