Kate
Middleton in a red dress designed by Alexander
McQueen.
Chris Jackson/Getty
Images
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.
Today, heart disease remains the number one killer of women in
the US, deadlier than all cancers combined. As many as one in three women die from
cardiovascular diseases and strokes every year.
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.
Rihanna
in a red Giambattista Valli dress.
Tim
P. Whitby/Getty Images
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."
Professional
road bicycle racer Esteban Chaves.
Francois Nel/Getty Images
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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