We’ve all done it; found a fascinating article or tik tok video which describes some obscure piece of scientific information and believed it word for word. Only to find with a quick google search, how misleading the video or article really was. A reminder to not believe everything you read on the internet- it’s a humbling experience for most. But, this phenomenon has been occurring for decades, if not years.
If you are familiar with prison systems or mental health facilities and their history in the United States, you’d know there’s a handful of prisons across the country with bright pink admission cells. Yeah, that’s right - bright, bubblegum pink. Specifically, the shade of pink used in all of these cells is known as “Baker-Miller Pink”. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, American psychologist Andrew Schauss conducted an experiment whose results claimed that Baker-Miller Pink was associated with reduced physical strength and therefore physical aggression.
Despite small effect sizes and several flaws in the experimental design, which were unable to rule out the effects of the experimenter and many other confounding variables, two of Schauss’ colleagues, naval officers Gene Baker and Ron Miller, were fascinated by the results of the experiment. Without consultation, they mixed paint exactly to Schauss’ formula and began to paint the admission cells at the naval base they ran, the now eponymous Baker-Miller Pink. Over the span of a few months, they collected data on the rates of assault or violence in inmates before and after being placed in the all-pink holding cell. Afterwards, they boldly claimed to have had “no incidents of erratic or hostile behavior during the initial phase of confinement.” Impressive, right?
This perceived success of both Schauss’ and Baker and Miller’s research resulted in scores of prisons as well as mental health facilities to paint their cells Baker-Miller Pink, thinking they’d see reduced aggression in the inmates. In fact, the idea that a shade of pink could reduce aggression became so popularized and sensationalized, that the University of Iowa’s football team decided to paint their opposing team’s locker room Baker-Miller Pink, in hopes of reducing the aggression of the opposing team and giving Iowa a competitive edge.
While there was some evidence to claim Baker-Miller Pink caused a reduction in aggression, most of the research was poorly conducted, unreplicable, or anecdotal. Several researchers in the following years and as recently as 2014, attempted to replicate Schauss’ experiments in a standardized fashion. However, they all failed to support Schauss’ hypothesis and found no significant results which suggested any association between Baker-Miller Pink and tranquility.
Much like internet users who take click-bait research headlines or tik tok videos made by *questionable* sources for truth, these prisons and their faculty essentially painted a bunch of rooms pink for no reason when a quick peek at the “limitations” section of the research article would have saved them their time and money. Anything to avoid actually understanding what might be making these individuals act so aggressively in the first place, right?
The controversy of Baker-Miller pink highlights an entire subset of research which attempts to draw conclusions about how color impacts our behaviors, perceptions, and moods. Color has long been the subject of research for interior designers, marketing teams, and psychologists, among many others. You may have heard of the association of reds and yellows to increased appetite, illustrated by the iconic McDonald’s logo, or maybe that blue is associated with soothing and calming.
Given that a majority of the information our brain receives is via visual stimuli, it makes sense that color plays a large role in how we view our environment and subsequently, our reactions in these environments. However, what the controversy of Baker-Miller Pink also highlights, is the importance of considering the whole picture. Next time you see a video or article claiming a new product or practice will magically solve your problems, take a second to consider what information might have been purposefully omitted or disregarded- you might avoid “coloring yourself pink.”
-Hirangi Patel