Blue And Pink: The Study Of Color-gender Metaphor

Young children’s environments are saturated with gender-typed hues, as early childhood is atime when developing gender stereotypes are prominent. A notable example of gender-related cuesis color with blue items essential for boys and pink items obligatory for girls. If the automaticprocessing encompasses strong color-sex associations then these otherwise innocuous linkage mayserve to precipitate gender stereotyping by creating a direct associative pathway through whichstereotypic beliefs can be triggered and expressed. It is clear that efforts to promote gender equalityhave been rewarded with a reduction in people’s tolerance of sexism in educational andoccupational events. Tracing in a number of visual texts such as magazines, advertisements, filmsand literatures, you could find gender stereotyping continues to pervade public life, albeit in a lessexplicit form. Benevolent sexism blocks women from reaching the upper echelons of education,government, and industry, and frustrates their confidence. Noting the critical interplay betweencultural and cognitive factors in the establishment of stereotypical beliefs, the current studyconfirmed the color-gender association phenomenon pervaded though social culture. Grounded inmetaphor theory, this article investigated the processing mechanism during the effect of color ongender cognition. The investigation explored the profound meaning to color-gender associationwhich set details of metaphor mapping through similarity of conceptions.The current investigation contained three studies, integrally demonstrating the commonplacecolor-gender metaphor thought (i.e., pink is for girls, blue is for boys). Study1testified the linkageof blue-male and pink-female which set the stage for the automatic activation of gendercategorization. On the basis of metaphor theory, similarity was regarded as the key point to explainthe mechanism of automatic activation. In Study2, similarities suggested by pilot surveys ongender and color associations, were the double parts. In Study3, the critical role of similarity wasverified for color-gender linkage, and indicated metaphorical thinking was different from divergentthinking.In practical terms,(1) as the to-be-categorized stimuli, participants responded more quickly ontrials in which name were presented in gender-matching (e.g., male names presented in blue) thangender-mismatching (e.g., male names presented in pink) colors, thereby demonstrating the impactfrom the color cues (the experiments in Study1).(2) The collected associational words of colorand gender submitted to cluster analysis. The words were clearly divided into6groups: blue-malerelative word, pink-female relative word, male singly relative word, female singly relative word, blue singly relative word, and pink singly relative word. Particularly we focused on the former towgroups, which were the similarity of color-gender (in Study2).(3) The effect of similarity oncolor-gender linkage was indirectly confirmed by priming paradigm. Compared to priming by thegender-relative informational pictures of color, color-matching effect was weakened under thepriming level of neutral informational pictures of color (the experiments in Study3). Across theseexperiments, the findings indicate that, despite prohibitions against stereotyping, seeminglyinnocuous societal practices may continue to promote this mode of thought.We expected to weaken the stereotyping association between color and gender. There shouldbe a drive to minimize triggering of gender-relative process by environment. The current study hassome point of theoretical significance to be helpful considering the direction and conditions ofmetaphor mapping in detail. Also it would complete the limitation of metaphor-focus study byphenomenon-focus method. Applications of the current inquiry highlight the need to acknowledgethe importance of categorical beliefs that are culturally imparted to children, as well as thecognitive processes through which these metaphor thinking impact on cognition and behavior.