There is so much that you have uncovered that is fascinating about how colors influence so much in terms of our mood, our behaviors, our physical strength. Let's unpack that.

Yeah. So some of this is my research, some of it's other people's research. And I got interested in color because I can't see color very well. I'm color blind. Oh, you are? I'm color blind. So I'm fascinated by color.

How did you figure out that you're color blind?

It took a while. When I was young, I would get colors right because all the colors in little picture books are so bright and obvious, so that was never a problem. But as I got older, it seemed like I lost the ability to distinguish colors. I think my parents were a bit concerned. They were like, What's going on? There's something going on in Adam's brain. We need to figure this out. So I did a series of tests and they identified that I had certain kinds of color blindness, and so it made total sense. But it's subtle, so you can't pick it up when kids are very young. Sometimes it takes a little while to figure it out. But it made me really interested in color, and in particular in the question of the way I see the world is, whether different from how you do? Do we all see the world the same way? And then assuming that there is some uniformity to that, is that exposure to color influencing us in any way that's predictable? And the answer is yes. There are all sorts of interesting effects.

Let me ask a question. So given that you're colorblind and you are researching the impact that color has on our mood, our emotions, even things like physical strength, it also can influence the actions that you take. Is the Is the color influencing all of us the same way, even if you're colorblind and the color appears slightly duller or if you're colored?

You see what I'm saying? Yeah, 100%. So there are two ways it could affect you. So one of them is Just association. So maybe I see the color yellow and it makes me think of the sun and fire, and I see green and I think of natural environment. So it's just the association. It reminds me of other things that are green or yellow or blue or whatever. The other one is, as you say, maybe it doesn't matter Or if you can actually see that it's green or yellow, maybe it's something about the wavelength that hits your eye, it hits your retina, and your brain is doing something with that information that whether or not you can see that it's yellow or green or red or whatever, you're responding the same way. I think most of it is association for us, that there are certain things that have certain colors, and then that reminds us of those things. So a lot of us talk about blues and greens being more soothing, reds and yellows being more activating, which can be good or bad, depending on what you're looking for. I think if I didn't I knew that a color was red and I couldn't see it and it looked washed out to me, it would have less of an effect for me.

Got it. So what colors affect our moods?

Well, all colors have some effect. They have some effect, not just on mood, but on all sorts of different outcomes for us. There's a really interesting research looking at how the colors that competitors wear in sports affect how they play. So there's some work looking at Olympic athletes in combat sports like judo and wrestling and taekwondo. And in the Olympics, what they did a while ago is they decided that they were going to randomly assign each competitor to either wear blue or red before each bout as a way to just be fair. We're going to randomly pick red and blue, and you're going to get your color, and then you're going to go into the bout. But One of the things that research has discovered was when we wear red, we feel stronger, we feel more dominant. And when you see someone else wearing red, you perceive them as more dominant. And there are very lower order reasons for this. If you look at animals, the animals with more red are more dominant in general. So if you look at 100 birds from the same species, the ones with more red feathers or a redder face will be the alpha birds.

And that's going to be true for apes and other animals as well. So the color red has a really big effect, and it's associated with how well your blood flows through your body and things like that. And it's a signal that someone is strong and dominant. And what you actually find is in these Olympic bouts, when the competitors are evenly matched, if you are assigned to wear red, you win about two-thirds of the time despite being evenly matched. Really? It has a huge effect on these outcomes. Yeah. Wow.

So Dr. Halter, does that mean if I'm going in for a negotiation for a job, I should be wearing red or an interview or a date?

Yes, with a caveat. Okay. So the yes is, yes, it will do that. It'll make you seem more dominant. It also turns out to make people more attractive to others. Really? Which is interesting, too. Yeah. So there's research looking at dating profiles where you have the It's the same picture. You just change every two months the color of the shirt you're wearing. People get much more attention online when they're wearing... It's the same picture, but when they're wearing red rather than any other color. Wow. So there's all sorts of good reason to surround yourself with red. It's true, even if you have a border around your picture and it happens to be a red border rather than blue or green or another color. But red also has other meaning too. It's not a color that we don't notice. So you're signaling something beyond just, I'm dominant and making yourself look more attractive. It's a conscious choice. And so if people are seeing that and drawing other inferences from the fact that you've chosen red, then maybe it's something you don't want to do if it's very unusual in that context, for example. But beyond that, as long as that's not an issue, there is very good reason to wear it.

Wow.

And what colors calm us down?

The most calming colors are generally blues and greens. And I think a lot of that is the association we have with nature, which we discussed. So natural environments are very calming. Water, the sky, trees, leaves, things like that. And so I think a lot of it comes from just the calmness you get with the association with those colors.

So one of your international best sellers, Drunk Tank Pink. Very interesting name. And there's very interesting research about that bubble gum Pepto-Bismo pink color. Can you explain that?

Yeah. So the name is Drunk Tank Pink is a name that was given to this very bright bubble gummy pink color. It was used for a while inside. They were called drunk tanks, where you put people who are aggressive, often drunk. You're trying to calm them down. And researchers found that if these drunk tanks were painted pink, in their words, you could calm these people down much more quickly. Within 15 minutes, they'd be calm.

And did it work?

There's some evidence that it worked. I think the research is a little bit shaky, but there was some evidence that this pink color did calm people down. It got a huge amount of attention in the '80s. There was a 60 Minutes episode about it. It really got a lot of attention. And so I thought it was just a fascinating emblem of the kinds of effects you might see from cues that you might think would have a smaller effect on us. But by being surrounded by those colors, there are huge effects. In fact, the visiting locker room at the University of Iowa has painted Drunk Tank Pink in an attempt to calm down the opposition when they spend time in that locker room. So it's been used in a lot of different contexts more recently.

Yeah. Well, and I think where my mind goes is both to the Miami soccer team, but they're a little bit more bright and also to the beautiful trend of athletes wearing pink for breast cancer awareness, which obviously is signaling something else. But I think that's fascinating. If you're put in a bubble gum pink room that it just dulls your mood a little bit if you're a bit aggressive.

Yeah. Regarding Inter Miami, there are people who when they box, they only wear pink boxing trunks because they think it'll make their opposition a little bit less strong. And so I don't think That's why Inter Miami is pink, and they have that pink uniform. But that's one of the theories. Wow.

Can you talk about mirrors and how you can use them to change your behavior?

Yeah. There's a lot of research looking at what happens when we see a human face. So one of the things that happens when you see a face, particularly eyes, is you feel that you're being watched. And when you're being watched, it changes your behavior in certain predictable ways. So if you think about a store that has a lot of shoplifting, one of the things these stores do, if they can't afford constant surveillance, is they put up more And the mirror is because we are less likely to behave badly when we have to look at ourselves doing it.

Really? Yeah.

Why? Because it basically forces you, not just metaphorically, but to look into your own eyes, literally. And you have to decide, is this the right way to behave? It makes us much more introspective and thoughtful about what we're doing. So there are these really interesting experiments where you say to people, privately, you can toss a coin, and if you get heads, you get a delicious jelly bean, and if you get tails, you have to eat something that's not very nice. And if you let people do that without a mirror, they They all report, Oh, yeah, I got heads. There are a lot of people who report getting heads, more than 50%, which you would expect. So people are fudging the numbers a little bit. When you get them to do that same task in front of a mirror where they're looking at themselves, 50/50. So they become honest again. Really? Yeah. So there are some, I think, interesting implications. One of them that I've always found quite useful is a lot of people might have a cupboard in their home somewhere, maybe in the pantry where they keep their chocolates and things that they want to eat only occasionally.

Mine's in a drawer. Right. Or a drawer.

Or a drawer. When you open that cupboard or when you go into the pantry, one thing a lot of people do now is they'll put up a little mirror. What? So what happens is you're like, I'm reaching for the chocolate. I have to look at myself in my eyes. I have to scrutinize this decision. And sometimes it's fine, but other times maybe I look at myself and I'm like, Okay, fine. I'll leave that chocolate sitting there for a little bit longer. So it basically forces you to be a little bit more thoughtful about your decision.

Well, I could see how that would happen because if you think about opening up a fridge, if there was a giant mirror in there, I'd be like, oh, you again? Okay, shut the thing. So I might actually have to try this, putting a mirror in the bottom of the drawer. Yeah, there you go. Where I have all of our snacks. We call it the snack drawer. So could you use a mirror to cue yourself when it comes to bad habits? Is that an environmental trigger that can be effective in making you stop and think?

Yeah, I think so. So I think what the mirror does is it makes you think more deeply, and it especially makes you think more deeply about doing the wrong thing, where it's something that's contrary to what you think you should be doing because you have to do it in your own presence. It's like you're watching yourself. And so it's a very powerful cue in all those cases.

I love that. I can think of a lot of implications for that. If you're somebody who's trying to cut down on drinking, having a mirror sitting there when you open up the cabinet where the... Okay, I see you. Not so fast today. 20 years of your life is spent just scrolling on your phone?

Looking at your phone. It'll be about, for most of us, 20 years on average. Wait, what? Yeah.