- Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the US.
- National Wear Red Day, which is observed on the first Friday in February, helps raise awareness about women's cardiovascular health.
- Studies suggest there may be other benefits of wearing red, too.
- In one study, people who wore red rated themselves higher in attractiveness and sexual appeal than people in blue did.
- In another study, researchers found that wearing red was associated with a higher probability of winning in the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Since 2003, National Wear Red Day has been observed on the first Friday in February every year. The day was created as part of an initiative to raise awareness about women's heart health by encouraging people to wear red.
But studies have found that many women are unaware of this fact and often do not consider heart disease to be a primary health concern. Not to mention, dangerous misconceptions, like the belief that heart disease disproportionately affects men, and misinformation about heart attack symptoms in women continue to be barriers to prevention and treatment.
National Wear Red Day aims to help dispel these myths about heart disease in women. And studies suggest there may be other benefits of wearing the bold color, too.
Wearing red might give you a boost of confidence.
In a study published in 2017, researchers from Germany had 180 university students wear either a red or blue shirt. In two of the three experiments, participants were told to sit in front of a mirror and observe their own reflections before completing a survey. In the third, participants took photos of themselves instead of looking at their reflections.
Students who wore red subsequently rated themselves higher in attractiveness and sexual appeal than students who wore blue did. But researchers noted that this effect may have certain limitations: People who are insecure may feel even worse when wearing red as the color might bring unwanted attention to them. The confidence boost may also disappear over time if someone wears red every day.
It's also possible that it may not be the color itself that makes people perceive themselves as more attractive, but rather the sheer fact that red draws the eye's attention. "The increase in attractiveness could just evolve from the fact that people start to notice the object/person and judge it/he/she," the study's corresponding author, researcher Anne Berthold, told PsyPost in 2017.
Men may be more attracted to women when they wear red.
In a groundbreaking study from 2008, psychologists Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta Kayser found that the color red led male participants to view a female stranger as more attractive and sexually desirable.
In a series of five experiments, Elliot and Kayser asked heterosexual male undergraduates to look at a photo of a woman and rate her attractiveness. Participants all saw the same woman, but researchers randomly changed the color of the photo's border, alternating between red and white, gray, blue, or green. In one experiment, the woman's shirt was digitally colored either red or blue while the border remained the same.
Across the board, participants found the woman in red more attractive. They were also more interested in asking her out on a date and willing to spend more money during the date.
In other studies, researchers have found that waitresses in red received bigger tips from male customers; women wearing red lipstick were approached more quickly and more often by men in a bar; and men were more likely to email the same woman when she wore red, as opposed to other colors, in a photo on her online dating profile.
Likewise, women may be more drawn to men when they wear red.
Following his 2008 study, Elliot and colleagues looked at the effect of the color red on women's attraction to men. In a study from 2010, across seven experiments, female participants rated men as more attractive and sexually desirable when they looked at a photo of them on a red background or wearing red clothing.
Elliot and his colleagues also found that women viewed men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money, and more likely to " climb the social ladder," which they presented as an underlying reason for the so-called "red effect."
Wearing red may give you a competitive edge.
Red coloration is associated with higher levels of testosterone and dominance in many animal species. Scientists have shown that the bold color is a sexually selected trait among certain lizards, fish, and monkeys, just to name a few. Interestingly enough, humans may benefit from a similar competitive advantage — at least in sports.
In 2005, evolutionary anthropologists Russell Hill and Robert Barton found that wearing red was associated with a higher probability of winning in the 2004 Summer Olympics. In their study, Hill and Barton looked at four combat sports — boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling — in which athletes were randomly assigned to wear red or blue outfits and protective gear.
If color had no effect on the outcome of the matches, the number of winners in red would have been " statistically indistinguishable" from the number of winners in blue. But across all four sports, Hill and Barton found a consistent and statistically significant pattern in which athletes who wore red won more fights than those who wore blue. The two researchers found similar results when they analyzed the outcome of the Euro 2004 soccer tournament.
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