The Secret to a Confidence Boost?: Dopamine Dressing
Dopamine Dressing???
Unfortunately, dopamine dressing is not dressing that you can put on a salad that will send a surge of positive chemical stimuli into your brain. What this is, in reality, is simply dressing in bright and vibrant colors in order to boost your mood. This trend has been catching on like wildfire in the last year or so, and I want to talk about some of the more exciting aspects of this topic here on our oddities blog in a way that matters more to us. There are some unusual business tactics and fun facts that we can go over on this topic. So, let’s talk about the weird and wonderful world of color psychology and the role it plays in our moods and feelings!
Color Psychology
Color psychology plays a much larger role in our everyday lives than we often think it does. From McDonald’s to banks, there are loads of big businesses that spend millions of dollars and thousands of “man-hours” on colors and the roles that they play in their organizations. When you take into consideration the actual emotional and chemical responses that our bodies have to these different specific wavelengths of light that reach our eyes it is obvious why so much attention is paid to them. Some colors have been shown to make people more hungry or less hungry, and some colors have been shown to make people feel more trust or more fear. Taking these things into consideration it is easy to see where food businesses can use colors to make people feel hungry and places such as banks can use colors that make people feel more trust in them. Let’s go over the specific colors and what they have been shown to do to us in our everyday lives and visit the weird world of forced emotional responses that big businesses are flooding us with on a daily basis.
Orange
The color orange has been shown in some studies to increase feelings of hunger. This color shows warmth and boldness and can make the viewer feel excited and more apt to join in socialization. Colors like orange and red have also been shown in some studies to make people appear more attractive to other individuals. How weird is it that wearing a certain color can affect the attractiveness of the person wearing that color? It has actually been shown with objective data analysis in scholarly studies that this has a positive correlation. I guess if you are going on a first date you should wear warm colors in a bold way such as orange or red. Good to know… joking Chelsidermy owner!
Blue
This color has been shown to be an appetite suppressor in some studies, which is a stark contrast to the aforementioned color orange. This is a color that has been shown to make people feel more trust, calmness, and stability. It also has been shown to make people feel more stability in whoever or whatever the color is found on. This is a major reason why you see so many banks using this color prominently in their logo. With a business that needs to gain the trust of its clients in handling their hard-earned money, a trick like this is certainly valuable for them to implement. You may not even notice they are doing this, but it plays its role in your choices more than you know. Try to pay attention now when you are going through your day. Look at what colors are used in logos, ads, buildings, and more. Think about why they are using those colors, and what they are trying to make you feel, and think of them while using them.
Pink
This color has been shown to have calming effects on violent offenders in prison. Pink has been shown to promote feelings of love and innocence. Maybe after the first date where you wore red or orange, you wear some pink on your second or third date. Just food for thought. It makes sense that not as many businesses have found a great use for this color over some of the others. The calming and innocent feelings don’t really push the customer or potential customer tp purchase items and/or services.
Yellow
Oddly enough, some studies have shown that putting babies in the presence of extremely high amounts of the color yellow induces an emotional response that makes them cry. What an odd outcome to an experiment for a color that has been also shown in different studies to elicit feelings of happiness and joy. Maybe it simply comes down to the fact that this study used SO MUCH YELLOW. I think too much of any color would make anyone feel upset. Washing out all other colors with one color is simply too much and overloads the senses. Not to mention it is such a bright and vivid color like yellow. This could easily be considered a confounding variable.
When it is used in the right way by companies or by you in your wardrobe, it has been shown to make people feel joy and happiness, however. Not only this but it has also been shown to make people have feelings of intellectual energy. So apparently if you want to look smarter wear some yellow in your outfit. That, or just don’t make so many fart jokes.
This color has a lot going on with it and one of the coolest things to talk about with yellow is its possible effects on metabolism. There have been studies that have shown the possible correlation between the color yellow and an increase in basil metabolic rate in the viewer. This is not to say that you can just paint the walls in your house with the color yellow and bingo bango you’ve achieved a 12-pack. It just means that there is enough of a physical reaction to be able to measure its effects on the human body, but that is still incredibly insane!
Red
This color is probably the most emotional response-driving color of them all. It has strong effects on people in the form of anger, love, danger, and passion. So much comes from this color, and it is deeply rooted in us over thousands of years to be on the careful watch for things that incorporate this color. Think about poisonous animals, blood, and fire. There are so many reasons in the natural world to have it hardwired into our neurological systems to keep watch for this color. Being safe and procreating are two of the most important topics for the continuance of our species, and certainly being on the lookout naturally for the color red will help keep us safe.
It has been shown to be able to increase heart rates and tighten our senses. A lot of food businesses use the color red in a big way because it helps grab attention and make snap decisions have a better chance of happening. This is definitely important for places such as fast food restaurants that are trying to gain your business as you are driving down the road in a quick manner.
For us, we can use a better understanding of this color to help us in job interviews, on dates, and in other scenarios in life. If you want to get a bigger emotional reaction out of a certain situation, person, or even yourself; wearing red may be in the cards for you. Pop some red into your wardrobe and see how you feel.
Green
Obviously, the color green is incredibly prominent in nature. This makes it obvious that it gives us feelings of growth, nature, and tranquility. It has been shown to promote feelings of peace and balance. Reducing stress is a big driving factor for a lot of us nowadays, so maybe consider painting some walls in your home this color in order to help you feel more relaxed and at ease. As for dressing in the color green, it can be added in order to make yourself or others feel more relaxed and peaceful. This is a great tool to have in your bag of tricks and certainly a weird bit of knowledge that you can use to better your life.
Purple
This color is closely associated with luxury. Chelsea doesn’t think so though, she says it sounds like a bathroom color. She specifically says “It’s a soapy color. It’s a bathroom color.” I am dating a weirdo…
Creativity, wisdom, and spirituality are all things that are also closely associated with the color purple. Think kings of old. Purple is easily one of the hardest colors to make dyes for, especially in the distant past. This means that only royalty and higher-class individuals were able to afford and wear items with the color purple on them.
It has been shown to stimulate creativity and calmness. If you choose to implement this color into your wardrobe know that it will have an effect on you and those around you and will help y’all feel some calmness. It’s a very artsy color, so if you are into making music, painting, or anything like this maybe you add in some purple to your outfit more often.
Brown
Brown just makes me think of a whole lot of puns about poop.
All joking aside, it has its place in making us feel protected oddly enough. It gives us feelings of comfort and stability. It also makes us have thoughts of nature as well as having feelings of reliability. So, if you feel like a wood nymph and you are extra earthy, or maybe you are working a security detail; think about adding in some brown to your outfit. This might be why a lot of sherriffs offices have their uniforms made to be primarily brown.
Black
We are getting into some really interesting territory here with the color black. The color black is often associated with sophistication and elegance. This color is also used for authority reasons and elicits feelings of mystery. Black like the endless void of space, or my girlfriend’s soul… If you need to be taken seriously it is probably a great idea to base a lot of your outfit on black, but it isn’t exactly the best option for dopamine dressing though.
If you need a good reason to wear it, look no further than the well-known effect that the color black has on our bodies in the slimming variety. I guess, in a way, you could say black can be used in dopamine dressing. Certainly, you could use this as an excuse if you are a goth or scene or something.
White
Last, but not least, the color white makes its way into our article about color psychology and dopamine dressing. While I do think that it is pretty obvious that white doesn’t perfectly fit into the whole idea of dopamine dressing, it certainly still has its place.
White makes most people think of cleanliness, purity, innocence, and simplicity. It has been shown to have calming effects like other colors in this article, but also gives feelings of openness. This seemingly pure color is hard to keep clean, but when you do and you wear it correctly it can have a positive effect on your own mental state as well as those around you. Mixing this color with other colors, especially black, can be beneficial in many ways. The good ol’ fashioned panguin suite is a perfect example of this effect. A white shirt with a black jacket, tie, and pants set up makes a clear indication of being clean, powerful, elegant, and the like.
In conclusion, there are tons of ways that colors affect us in our everyday lives. Bussinesses use colors in order to get us to buy more, and we can use colors to help us feel better or better our chances in different times of our lives. Go out and think about how you can use dopamine dressing and color psychology in your life and pay attention to what color psychology does to you. You might be surprised.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my article!