The year 1931 stands out in the history of research about mentally ill people’s favourite colours. That summer, Siegfried E Katz of the New York state psychiatric institute and hospital published a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology called Colour Preference in the Insane.
Assisted by a Dr Cheney, Katz tested 134 hospitalised patients with mental health problems. For simplicity’s sake, he limited the testing to six colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. No black. No white. No shades of grey….
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.
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