Study: Why Girls Like Pink

by Victoria Revay | August 23, 2007 at 10:05 am

2367 views | 14 Recommendations | 8 comments

Our natural tendencies to pick up a blue shirt for a little boy and a pink skirt for a girl may not be (completely) at the mercy of the marketing gods, this according to a study publsihed in Current Biology. The study examined British and Chinese volunteers -- both men and women -- to assess whether certain colour preferences were culturally shaped. And although both sexes tend to prefer blue, women picked the redder shades of blue -- more purple hues, while the men picked a blue-green shade. Maybe this is the reason why men that wear pink shirts often give off a certain "vibe."

Ling speculates that the color preference and women's ability to better discriminate red from green could have evolved due to sex-specific divisions of labor: while men hunted, women gatherered, and they had to be able to spot ripe berries and fruits. Another theory suggests that women, as caregivers who need to be particularly sensitive to, say, a child flushed with fever, have developed a sensitivity to reddish changes in skin color, a skill that enhances their abilities as the “emphathizer.”

115

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:35 on August 23rd, 2007

I always thought that color preferences were, to some extent, a learned behavior. Some guys can totally pull off pink clothing (dress shirts are rather popular), though I prefer colors that hide dirt better.

lavendarlady

at 14:01 on August 23rd, 2007

I read years ago that pink or red was a colour picked by the females of the human race "to attract the males" ... it resembling the colour of blood (source of life) and thus supposedly making even the most colour blind male notice them.

Auntie P

at 10:16 on August 24th, 2007

I don't like pink! I do like purple though.

Auntie P

at 10:16 on August 24th, 2007

I don't like pink! I do like purple though.

Victoria Revay

at 10:48 on August 24th, 2007

The article also mentions reddish hues that could have been the colours of berries, which the women picked or the colour of a sick person when their cheeks get flushed.

Interesting either way.

twilight

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 23:58 on August 24th, 2007

Victoria Revay, this a good little gem of a story. Thank you.

artsmith_satx

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:05 on August 25th, 2007

Ghorghinahn

at 07:30 on August 30th, 2007

we are trained from birth to behave like little boys or little girls; parents buying certain colors to decorate a baby's pad even before birth, the coloring set to properly welcome the respective gender, and it continues in attitudes, behavior toward and treatment of a girl or a boy, complete with life-altering platitudes such as "boys don't cry" and "girls are sugar and spice and everything nice" until as adults we are spinning in circles unable to fully attain our gender expectations while simultaneously cut-off from really experiencing a bias-free gender, due to the false representations of our elders.