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It’s interesting to consider why the color red sends the same message everywhere: danger, hot, stop. It also means dominance–athletes wearing red (as the Giants did in the recent Superbowl) seem to win more often.

It could be explained because red is the color of fire, but it’s unlikely that it would assume the same meaning in almost every culture–unless it’s part of human evolution. Primate studies reveal that this may indeed be the case.
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We’ve written before about the power of red. Now it turns out that a preference for pink?the traditional color for girls?may be hardwired into women’s brains.

Studies show that both sexes prefer blue. In New Scientist, Roxanne Khamsi quotes researcher Anya Hurlbert as saying, “Going back to our ‘savannah’ days, we would have a natural preference for a clear blue sky, because it signaled good weather. Clear blue also signals a good water source.” Despite this, women seem to have a special affinity for colors in the red spectrum. Hurlbert thinks this may be because color vision evolved in humans in part to help females spot ripe fruit such as red berries.

…And Anne Strieber recently discovered that you can have big adventures when you wear a pink cap!
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The Spurs, the new NBA champs, wear black and white, but the Chicago Bulls, longtime NBA winners, wore red, andpsychologists think it wasn’t just Michael Jordan who gavethis team such an edge–it was their red uniforms too.

In the U.K., psychologists tracked the success of differentteams in four Olympic sports. In the Olympics, athletes donot wear national colors, but are randomly assigned eitherred or blue. The reds regularly win more competitions thanthe blues.
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Women can see more different shades of red than men becausethe gene for seeing red is on the X chromosome. Women havetwo copies of this, while men have only one.

Researchers analyzed the DNA of 236 people from around theworld and also found 85 variations of another gene on the Xchromosome that controls perception of the color green. Thismay be why 8% of men are color-blind (and have troubleseeing both red and green) while few women have thiscondition, because with two X chromosomes, it’s more likelythey’ll have at least one good copy of each gene.
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