Colour psychology

HUM-381 / 2 credits

Teacher:

Language: English

Remark: Pas donné en 2022-23 - Une seule inscription à un cours SHS+MGT autorisée. En cas d'inscriptions multiples elles seront toutes supprimées sans notification

Summary

The media frequently report on how color influences one's emotions and well-being. We teach students basic skills to critically understand and interpret these claims analyzing empirical studies in affective color psychology.

Content

Color is widely considered powerful in shaping psychological processing. Popular media frequently report on how color influences emotions and fosters well-being. However, many of these claims are based on marketing strategies and not empirical findings. When looking at the existing literature, these claims are less convincing, or rather, the evidence for many claims is yet missing. The current seminar will introduce and discuss ways to study and test the relationships between color and psychological functioning. With psychological functioning we refer to cognitive and affective processes such as perception of and conceptual associations with color and affect. The discussions will be based on experimental as well as survey studies. The objective of the course is for students to become aware of problems of causality, proof of popular statements and critical thinking regarding statements that can be widely read and heard in the public domain.

Keywords

cognition, color psychology, perception, language, emotion, affect

Learning Prerequisites

Required courses

none

Recommended courses

none

Important concepts to start the course

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the student must be able to:

Search for relevant literature
Describe previous research including their weaknesses and strengths
Discuss research articles within a larger context
Demonstrate the ability to integrate different, or ideally opposing viewpoints
Formulate your reasoning in oral and written form
Justify a constructive synthesis of the treated literature
Defend your conclusion based on the former learning outcomes

Transversal skills

Assess progress against the plan, and adapt the plan as appropriate.
Plan and carry out activities in a way which makes optimal use of available time and other resources.
Communicate effectively with professionals from other disciplines.
Give feedback (critique) in an appropriate fashion.
Summarize an article or a technical report.
Demonstrate the capacity for critical thinking
Make an oral presentation.
Take feedback (critique) and respond in an appropriate manner.
Access and evaluate appropriate sources of information.

Teaching methods

Course - seminar style of 90 minutes

Introduction of a course-relevant research topic, presentation of key studies and critical discussion of existing empirical work.

We support students

- in their literature search

- in their preparation of the oral presentation

- in their preparation of the course summary

Expected student activities

-Present and discuss your scientific account of a popular statement in an oral presentation

-Write a brief summary of your presentation (half a page)

-Write 3 summaries (0.5-1 page each) of 3 presentations given by your peers.

-Contribute constructively to the disussion and outcome of the other presenters.

Assessment methods

- Evalutation of the oral presentation

- Evaluation of the summary of the oral presentation

- Evaluation of the three summaries of presentations given by your peers

Supervision

Office hours	No
Assistants	Yes
Forum	No
Others

Resources

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

Bibliography

to be provided in the course

In the programs

Semester: Fall
Number of places: 80
Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
Subject examined: Colour psychology
Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks

Reference week

	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22

Légendes:

Lecture

Exercise, TP

Project, other