Attractiveness of Women in Red as an Automatic Phenomenon

The purpose of this study was to test whether there is an automatic basis for the effect of the color red on attractiveness. Participants performed two tasks intended to measure automatic judgments of attractiveness and automatic willingness to approach or avoid a stimulus. They were shown pictures of women wearing red and women wearing blue and I hypothesized that men would judge pictures of women wearing red as more attractive, as previous studies have shown. However, the results did not support the hypothesis and participants rated women wearing blue more positively than women wearing red, with no gender difference. The results are explained partially by an implicit preference for the color blue alone. Though the hypothesis was not supported, the study supports the use of the Affect Misattribution Procedure as an implicit measure of judgment of visual stimuli.