title: Mediation of the negative effect of red on intellectual performance.
abstract: This research examines the hypothesis that an attentional process grounded in avoidance motivation-local relative to global processing-mediates the negative effect of red on intellectual performance. This hypothesis was tested in a series of experiments using two approaches to documenting mediation. Experiment 1 established that the perception of red undermines IQ test performance. Experiments 2a and 2b documented mediation via the experimental causal chain approach, and Experiment 3 documented mediation via the measurement of mediation approach. This represents the first demonstration of a mediational process in the domain of color psychology. A call is made to broaden priming research to include color stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Munich, Munich. maier@edupsy.uni-muenchen.de
authors.forename: Markus A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Maier
authors.forename: Andrew J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Elliot
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lichtenfeld