The Effect Of Red Graphic In Risk Avoidance Behavior

After making a series of experiments, Stone and other researchers have proved that there exists a classic "graphical effect" in the field of risk avoidance. That is, compared with the text numbers, the individual will exhibit a stronger risk avoidance behavior if foreground information(the actual number of victims) graphic is shown in the risk information. But in previous studies, no matter it is digital representation or graphic representation, usually, researchers only uses gray or black to present information. However, recent years, the research about the effect of red color shows that red color, compared with the green or blue and other colors, will stimulate the individual’s stronger motive of avoidance behaviors which cause avoidance behavior. Therefore, this study attempts to bring color factors into research on graphic effects, focusing on how individual shows its graphic effects characteristic in the condition of red color.This research designs two experiments to study and present how the presentation of color and digital information influence risk avoidance behavior and its influence mechanism. The first experiment uses 2(showing the color: red, blue) x 2(digital information presentation: bar chart, digital text) with two factors being designed. The result is that each variable shows obvious main effect and the interaction of the two is significant. Specifically, compared with blue color, the individual will exhibit a stronger risk avoidance behavior in the red condition. In addition, compared with blue, the individual will display stronger graphics effect in red condition, which is named "the effect of red graphic " in thesis. The second experiment tries to use another color and contrast it with the color of classical gray in order to study how different presentation influence risk avoidance behavior and its influence mechanism. This experiment adopts 2(showing the color: red, gray) x 2(digital information presentation: scatter diagram, text digital) with two factors being designed. Its result is similar to the first experiment, that is, compared with gray, red color will stimulate individual’s stronger avoidance behavior and it will exhibit a stronger effect in the red graph conditions; the second experiment still explores further, the individual cognitive evaluation of risk information is the mediating in the effect of risk avoidance behavior by the presentation of digital information, and the color monitor the mediator process.The result of this study is that, red effect also lies in the field of risk avoidance and as a warning color, the red color can induce stronger graphic effect. This effect of red graphic can be partially explained by individual’s cognitive on risk information.