Women prefer pink and evolution is to blame, according to a story making the rounds today. Given that it’s summer and light-hearted news is in vogue, it’s unsurprising that this story has splashed around the world, from Los Angeles (LA Times) to London (The Independent) to Beijing (Xinhuanet). “The explanation might date back to humans’ hunter-gatherer days, when women were the primary gatherers and would have benefited from an ability to home in on ripe, red fruits. Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference,” according to Anya Hurlbert, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University (press release).
So let’s look at Hurlbert’s research (in Current Biology). About 200 people aged 20 to 26 were asked to pick which of two colours their favourite was for a number of pairs. She did not find anything to contradict a much-reported universal preference for blue. Here’s what she did find (from the paper again): “[W]hile both males and females share a natural preference for ‘bluish’ contrasts, the female preference for ‘reddish’ contrasts further shifts her peak towards the reddish region of the hue circle: girls’ preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue.” So women don’t prefer pink, per se — they seem to prefer slightly redder shades of blue than men.
So what causes this pinkish preference? It’s hard to say. These differences are found in the early 20s when social conditioning towards colour stereotypes is already well established. Hurlbert also found that Chinese participants in the trial had a slightly stronger preference for red shades than the British, which she suggests may be because in China red is the colour of good luck. The researchers “speculate” about biological origins and evolutionary reasons for it — which seems to have been translated as ‘scientist find it’s in the genes’ by some of the press.
Which is not to say there is no genetic link: studies on children have been inconsistent thus far. In children, where social influences may not be so strong, some have found no evidence of colour stereotypes (Zentner in 2001) while others have found “sex identifications and toy preferences were highly consistent with adult colour stereotypes” (Picariello in 1990).
UPDATE – 22/08/07 (click through)
In the Guardian today columnist Zoe Williams asks: “When are at least the decent universities – like, for instance, Newcastle – going to introduce some kind of cost-benefit analysis into their research programmes? How much will this knowledge benefit humanity, and at what cost to our academic credibility?”
Some sections of the bloggosphere are also a little agitated by this study. Mark Hoofnagle on Denialism points to the Second Innocence blog: both criticise the study.
Over at feminist blog The F Word Louise Livesey also has harsh words:
“…She goes on to claim the development of liking the colour “pink” (or lilac or red, she doesn’t seem too sure) is based on the fact that “”Red was the color of a good ripe fruit,” … Only it isn’t. Red is the colour of (some) ripe fruit if you grow up in moderate climates like the UK. But in the tropical zones where humans originated ripe fruit would be yellow (banana), orange (the eponymous orange), green (custard/Chinese apples), black/purple (many sorts of berries) and actually many other colours. Red is usually accepted to be a sign of danger in foods because more species of poisonous berries are red compared to other colours.”