Evolutionary basis to why women like pink

[Spin Echo]

A nod to this thread

link

Women really do prefer pink, researchers say
11:45AM Tuesday August 21, 2007

The study indicates women have a preference for pink.
LONDON - Boys like blue, girls like pink and there isn't much anybody can do about it, researchers said in one of the first studies to show scientifically that there are gender-based colour preferences.

Researchers said these differences may have a basis in evolution in which females developed a preference for reddish colours associated with riper fruit and healthier faces.

Recent studies have suggested there is a universal preference for "blue," and there has not been much previous evidence to support the idea of sex differences when picking colours, said Anya Hurlbert, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University who led the study.

"We speculate that this sex difference arose from sex-specific functional specialisation in the evolutionary division of labour," she wrote in Current Biology. "There are biological reasons for liking reddish things."

In the study, the researchers asked a group of men and women to look at about 1,000 pairs of coloured rectangles on a computer screen in a dark room and pick the ones they liked best as quickly as possible.

Afterwards, Hurlbert and colleagues plotted the results along the colour spectrum and found that while men prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.

"Women have a very clear pattern. It's low in the yellow and green regions and rises to a peak in the purplish to reddish region," she said. Hurlbert believes women's preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue. "When you add it together you get the colours they intrinsically like, you get bluish red, which is sort of lilac or pink," she said. For men, thinking about colours was less important because as hunters they just needed to spot something dark and shoot it, Hurlbert said.

As for Eve, Hurlbert added, maybe there was a different reason she picked that apple. "Red was the colour of a good ripe fruit," Hurlbert said.

I'm not sure what I make of this. Their study involved using men and women from both the UK and China to pick out the colours they most prefered. It still seems to me the difference in preference could stem from socialisation. Anyone know whether the Chinese use pink and blue gender specifically?

[Winston Blake]

In the study, the researchers asked a group of men and women to look at about 1,000 pairs of coloured rectangles on a computer screen in a dark room and pick the ones they liked best as quickly as possible.

Afterwards, Hurlbert and colleagues plotted the results along the colour spectrum and found that while men prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.

How can they possibly know that this is evolutionary, with no social influence?

As for Eve, Hurlbert added, maybe there was a different reason she picked that apple. "Red was the colour of a good ripe fruit," Hurlbert said.

There are a lot of fruits that aren't red, and a lot of poisonous ones that are.

Frankly, the more articles I read about evolutionary psychology, the more they seem like ad hoc Just So Stories.

[Broomstick]

1) I am a woman and I loathe pink

2) Eve and her apple never existed

3) What about cultural influences and social conditioning?

[Dooey Jo]

It still seems to me the difference in preference could stem from socialisation. Anyone know whether the Chinese use pink and blue gender specifically?

I'm not sure, but you could probably get a big difference depending on which part of China you choose. For instance, in Hong Kong it wouldn't be surprising to see a lot of Western symbolism, and the marketing companies would very much want specific gender stereotypes to target. In other parts it could be different. Here's something, though I don't know where they get their information from.

How can they possibly know that this is evolutionary, with no social influence?

Evolutionary psychologists often seem to assume that if a large (or not, as the case may be) number of people share a preference, and especially if there is a difference between genders, it must be due to biology (and specifically natural selection, as apparently in this kind of evolution, nothing comes about as side-effects of other things). I don't know how they justify throwing out cultural influences.

One could also note that red is one of those colours that many poisonous animals and plants use as a defence, so a natural preference for it could be very dangerous.

[Hillary]

Hilarious.

They have discovered that more women than men like pink. The obvious answer is that after years of upbringing and social pressure on girls to like the colour pink, we find that it has worked.

But no - we can't have something that obvious. Let's try and back fit an evolutionary theory into it.

As has been pointed out, red fruit is often poisonous. Healthy faces are not usually red either.

And someone ought to point out that red and blue mixed is not "sort of...pink"

[Ypoknons]

There's no special significance to either color, but I feel like that places like Beijing and Shanghai have in the last 20-plus years since opening up been subject to enough foreign influence. I can't say much for rural areas.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There's no special significance to either color, but I feel like that places like Beijing and Shanghai have in the last 20-plus years since opening up been subject to enough foreign influence. I can't say much for rural areas.

Urbanized China has definitely popularized many western traditions and is highly exposed to them to be sure.

This claim is seriously the height of silliness. How many pink fruits are there again? The evolutionary trend would either be toward yellow or red if it was there at all, since that's by far the shades of the vast majority of fruits, particularly in Africa where we evolved rather than more obscure cultural reasons. And lots are green, too...

Anyway, why would evolution need this, seriously? We already have enough brain processing power to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy foods. This would be a superfluous "adaptation".

[Rye]

When someone says "apple" to me, I think green, not pink.

Surely male and female humans have the same diets in the wild, why would one prefer one colour of fruit with a selective advantage and the other be satisfied to eat the inferior foodstuffs?

Totally unconvinced, especially given in Britain pink and blue used to be associated with the opposite genders to the modern association.

[Junghalli]

Frankly, the more articles I read about evolutionary psychology, the more they seem like ad hoc Just So Stories.

As Lewontin (whose views, incidentally, I am not necessarily endorsing) points out in The Biology of Ideology the big problem with evolutionary psychology is that you can give virtually any behavior a possible biological basis if you think hard enough.

[ArmorPierce]

This claim is seriously the height of silliness. How many pink fruits are there again? The evolutionary trend would either be toward yellow or red if it was there at all, since that's by far the shades of the vast majority of fruits, particularly in Africa where we evolved rather than more obscure cultural reasons. And lots are green, too...

Anyway, why would evolution need this, seriously? We already have enough brain processing power to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy foods. This would be a superfluous "adaptation".

“RED hat, no knickers” goes the old saying, and now Ohio University biologists think they know why we see red as such a sexy colour. Their study of primate evolution says that we originally evolved the ability to see reds and oranges vividly because it enabled primates to pick berries and fruit from leafy green backgrounds.

They claim in The American Naturalist that once primates evolved the ability to see red and think “Mmm, tasty”

I've heard the theory about the ability to see red long ago. You people are quick to dismiss scientific studies.

[ArmorPierce]

Since some people are unable to comprehend this, allow me to make it clear. It is believed that back in the hunting/gathering timeline of human history, the men tended to hunt while the women tended to gather. The article does not suggest that men and women differed in diet.

[Exonerate]

I might be a bit more inclined to believe this study if it were conducted on babies/infants from various cultural backgrounds, but these researchers can't seriously prove color preference is an evolutionary adaptation by testing adults.

[Dooey Jo]

I've heard the theory about the ability to see red long ago. You people are quick to dismiss scientific studies.

Who said that humans are unable to see red? And remember that there was no such thing as a hunter/gatherer when primate colour vision evolved.

[Rye]

And remember that there was no such thing as a hunter/gatherer when primate colour vision evolved.

So what? There wouldn't need to be in order to specialise marginally later. But yeah, the lack of uniformity of pink = women across societies and even the exact opposite a century ago should really make it clear that it's mostly social, not biological. Vibrant colours in fruit makes them more noticeable (also, several colourful fruit have important stuff for our diet in them, strawberries, blueberries, oranges, etc), I think that's all that's needed for our attraction to bright colours.

[Dooey Jo]

And remember that there was no such thing as a hunter/gatherer when primate colour vision evolved.

So what?

So you can't say that women prefer red colours because primates are used to eat red and orange fruits, as both genders there search for the same kinds of food. I don't know exactly what ArmorPierce wanted to say with that quotation, but a hard-wired preference for red would mean that it's actually men's supposed biological preference for blue that would need explaining. Then again, that piece doesn't actually say that primates prefer red colours, just that they can see them, which is huge duh, so if it's not meant as an explanation to the study in the OP, I don't know how it's relevant...

[ArmorPierce]

So you can't say that women prefer red colours because primates are used to eat red and orange fruits, as both genders there search for the same kinds of food.

As Zuul said, there is no reason that it could not evolve first and then specialization to take place later on in evolution. In fact, it's most probable thing to happen for the most part. For example, hands evolved before the first hunter gathering humans did. Hands later specialized. Do you get it or do I need to go more into depth about it?

I don't know exactly what ArmorPierce wanted to say with that quotation,

The quote was for the purpose for people whom questioned the evolution of primates ability to see red and the biological reason(which is the commonly accepted reason) that this article's hypothesis is built upon.

but a hard-wired preference for red would mean that it's actually men's supposed biological preference for blue that would need explaining.

Did you people read the article or not? It feels like debating a bunch of fundies throwing around strawmans. Here, allow me to quote the article

while men prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.

They both still have a preference for blue! just that women tended to prefer the pinker end of the blue spectrum! Furthermore, your blue question doesn't make sense, previous studies had stated it previously to be true and it still remains true.

Then again, that piece doesn't actually say that primates prefer red colours, just that they can see them, which is huge duh, so if it's not meant as an explanation to the study in the OP, I don't know how it's relevant...

That's because your a dumbass that didn't read the previous posts and the article correctly. I'm not saying that the scientists are correct or not, what I am saying is that the reply posts that are disproving these scientists are throwing around strawmans and anecdotal evidence thinking that that disproves the article when posters such as yourself didn't even correctly read the article and are sounding like a bunch of foaming at the mouth fundies.

[ArmorPierce]

For the record, I personally believe that too much is often read into certain things with wild ideas seeming to crop up. Such as one that I heard that female fuller lips was supposed to mimic the vagina and make the man think about it and therefore sex. I find this hypothesis an unnecessary explanation. Whether or not the article's hypothesis about it being evolutionary or cultural tainting ti towards pinkish in women remains an open question.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This claim is seriously the height of silliness. How many pink fruits are there again? The evolutionary trend would either be toward yellow or red if it was there at all, since that's by far the shades of the vast majority of fruits, particularly in Africa where we evolved rather than more obscure cultural reasons. And lots are green, too...

Anyway, why would evolution need this, seriously? We already have enough brain processing power to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy foods. This would be a superfluous "adaptation".

“RED hat, no knickers” goes the old saying, and now Ohio University biologists think they know why we see red as such a sexy colour. Their study of primate evolution says that we originally evolved the ability to see reds and oranges vividly because it enabled primates to pick berries and fruit from leafy green backgrounds.

They claim in The American Naturalist that once primates evolved the ability to see red and think “Mmm, tasty”

I've heard the theory about the ability to see red long ago. You people are quick to dismiss scientific studies.

Where are you getting this idea that all fruits and berries in Africa are red and orange? Do you eat any fruit at all, or just Burger King? As a matter of fact a lot of highly poisonous foods are bright red to the point that we're taught to associate that colour with danger in survival training, and, in fact, red is normally associated in the human brain as a colour of danger, not of something good. There are noticeably more green and yellow fruits out there which are healthy for humans, especially in Savannah-like areas where we evolved as opposed to, say, the Indonesian tropics where we did not, than there are ones that are red and orange. It's being dismissed because it doesn't make sense.

[ArmorPierce]

Well,

According to a study of chimps and monkeys in the forests of Uganda, red and green vision allows primates to select tasty young red leaves among the green hue of the trees.

sheds new light and further evidence.

They found that apes and monkeys can choose fruit using only yellow/blue vision but the animals had to see red and green to find the most nutritious young leaves which often have a tinge of red that sets them apart from the green forest.

"There is a very definite reward for being able to see red and green - that is higher protein food that is easier to digest," said Professor Lucas.

"Most people in the past have thought that red-green vision was important for finding fruits," he told BBC News Online. "We think it is more to do with finding leaves for food which often start out as red when young then change to green, in the Tropics.

"If animals feeding on these leaves can see red and green, they would be able to choose a young, red leaf rather than a tough, old one."

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And there's no sex differentiation in leaf-eating, so the support for the article's claims is...? Oh, that's right, nowhere at all.

[Mobiboros]

From what I remember, it was a long time ago, from the small amount of evolutionary bio I took. Plants developed brightly coloured leaves, fruit and petals to attract animals because the animals would eat the fruit then carry the seeds away and crap them out someplace else.

It wasn't that animals developed colour sight to see the fruit so much as animals had colour sight and plants fruit got brighter and more colourful because animals found them easier so the brighter plants were the ones who's genes spread.

I could be remembering this very wrong though as it's been a while.

[ArmorPierce]

And there's no sex differentiation in leaf-eating, so the support for the article's claims is...? Oh, that's right, nowhere at all.

Red herring. I was not debating the validity of the experiment and conclusion in the article with you. Nowhere did I mentioned the article in my posts that were in reply to you, I was arguing about the evolution of the ability to see red in primates. You failed to see that I wasn't defending the conclusion of the article but rather attacking several posts that were setting up a strawman argument , or failed to understand that the article drew conclusions made by previous studies done by scientists, such as blue seemingly the universally preferred color. As you can see by the fact that I never actually said and that I subscribed to the conclusion of the article. You can read my post here:

For the record, I personally believe that too much is often read into certain things with wild ideas seeming to crop up.

Whether or not the article's hypothesis about it being evolutionary or cultural tainting ti towards pinkish in women remains an open question.