Why Do Girls Prefer Pink?
By Leila Sattary
Researchers have discovered that girls have a preference for pink - big surprise! Now whilst there’s a distinct whiff of the bleedin’ obvious about this story, could there be more to it than first meets the eye?One reason that immediately springs to mind for girls liking pink is that people have been influenced by gender stereotypes as they were growing up. If Action Man wore pink and Barbie wore blue then you might expect the colour preferences of boys and girls might be the other way around.
In an attempt to prove there is something more subtle at work than clever toy marketing, a research team from the University of Newcastle tested colour preferences of a mixed group of British and Chinese volunteers.
The group of two hundred volunteers were asked to choose their preferred colour as rapidly as possible when coloured shapes were flashed at them.
Chinese women showed the greatest preference for reds and pinks of any section of the group and women over all preferred reds more than men.Red is a lucky colour in China so that might explain the race difference, but the difference between the sexes is what has got the scientists most intrigued. The researchers say that the results reinforce their case that the red preference of females is not entirely down to our culture. “Evolution may have driven females to prefer reddish colours – reddish fruits, healthy, reddish faces,” says researcher, Anya Hurlbert.
Now Null readers, let’s put on our scientific hats for once. This is far from conclusive proof that there is an underlying mechanism for girls preferring red, or pink for that matter. In fact the study tests absolutely nothing about human evolution at all, only that there seems to be a cultural bias both in Britain and China for women to like red - whoop di doo.
The research group plan further studies in younger age groups to try and strengthen their theory. However, until we find a ‘pink gene’ or a test is carried out where kids grow up in a twisted Truman Show-style world with pink transformers and blue polly-pockets, it’s hard to imagine there’s anything more to this than the ‘pink for a girl, blue for a boy’ tradition.
Get more from Leila or from the Null:
- Interesting - Why Barbie is beautiful
- I knew it - Multi-tasking is genetic
- Woah there - The people who taste colour
- You're yanking my plank - Why magenta isn't a colour
Image: Emma Thompson
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