poster AIC 2012 Interim Meeting, Taipei - In Color We Live: Color and Environment Color preferences: a British/Indian comparative study Valérie BONNARDEL 1, 2 , Sucharita BENIWAL 1 , Nijoo DUBEY 1 , Mayukhini PANDE 1 , David BIMLER 3 1 AP-NID Color Research Lab, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. 2 University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom. 3 Massey University, New-Zealand. ABSTRACT A gender difference in color preference among British participants has been repeatedly reported in independent studies (Bonnardel et al., 2006; Ling et al., 2006, Bonnardel & Lanning, 2010). While both males and females showed a preference for blue-green colors, females additionally expressed a preference for pink-purple colors. To investigate the robustness of gender difference in color preference in a different culture, we tested 81 young adult Indians from a School of Design and compared them to 80 young British students in Psychology. Results confirm a gender difference in color preference of the same nature in the Indian and British samples with a preference among females for pink and purple colors. Cultural differences were only observed among females; in contrast to Indian females, the Bristish females prefered lavender to orange colors. 1. INTRODUCTION In context-free situations, people are willing to rank colors in order of preference or to indicate a preferred color when given several different options. Results on color preference are not unanimous on the subject of gender differences. Eysenck (1941) emphasised the strong agreement between males and females in color choice, in contrast, McManus et al. (1981) reported a greater preference for red among females. More recently, Ling et al. (2006) tested 171 British participants (92F) and 37 (18F) Chinese participants using 8 different hues presented in pair on a color monitor. Plotting the proportion of trials in which a given color was chosen provided a color preference curve for each subject. Data were subjected to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with 3 Components accounting for 79% of the total variance. Due to the resemblance of the two first components to the theoretical color- opponent mechanisms (blue vs. yellow and red vs. green) data were interpreted in terms of b- y and r-g mechanisms which could account for 70% of the total variance. A gender difference was observed across British and Chinese samples. In average, females had positive weight on the r-g mechanism (preference for reddish vs. greenish) while males showed the reverse pattern. Furthermore, while the same pattern was obtained within the Chinese sample, there was an overall increase in preference for reddish colors for the two genders. Finally, an overall preference for blue was reported across participants . In an experiment by Bonnardel et al. (2006), 103 participants were tested (50 young and 53 older adults) in a triadic task in which 3 of the 21 Munsell samples were presented on each trial. Color preference curves and Multidimentional Scaling analysis revealed a gender preference confirming females’ preference for pink-purple colors, although gender difference was less prominent among elderly people. Using Bimler and Kirkland's (2009) triadic test made of 16 printed Munsell samples, a similar gender difference in color preference was replicated with 80 young adults (Bonnardel and Lanning, 2010). To extend the robustness of the gender