title: Psychological aspects of white.
abstract: An attempt is made to answer the questions: Is white a color? How do we see fluorescent and non-fluorescent whites? What is the psychological and symbolic significance of white? A qualitative study was based on a sample of 1818 people from 24 differentiated groups from the age of 6 upwards. Two techniques were used in the enquiry: the well-known word association test, and a non-verbal method, new to psychology, which was devised specifically for the purpose of defining the psychological significance of white by emotional reference to a set of grey shades, a set of chromatic colors and a set of simple shapes. In a quantitative study, a sample of 1994 people were asked their reactions to fluorescent and non-fluorescent whites. This work was supplemented by linguistic investigations of the anthropological and physiological significance of white. The conclusion reached is that white meets a psychic need in man. Almost all the respondents attributed the characteristic of "whiteness" only to fluorescent whites.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003116:Color; D003118:Color Perception; D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005453:Fluorescence; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010209:Paper; D011584:Psychology; D013649:Taste