Colour and emotion
The colours of optimism
Optimism is rose-tinted in a dozen languages and sunny yellow in design. At New Year it is red in China, white in Brazil and yellow in the Andes.
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Optimism is the expectation that things will go well, and its colours are light and bright: sunny yellow, rose pink, sky blue and fresh green. Language gives pink the leading role. Speakers of French, German, Spanish, Japanese and English all see a good future through rose-coloured glass. Custom gives the role to whatever colour a culture wears at the start of something, such as red at Chinese New Year or yellow at a Hindu wedding. Research supports only the general rule that light colours go with good feelings.
What studies find
Optimism is seldom tested by name. The nearest findings concern joy, hope and contentment. The 2025 review by Jonauskaite and Mohr found that light colours are linked with positive emotions and dark colours with negative ones, across hues and across the 64 countries covered. Yellow and orange go with cheerful, lively feelings, pink with gentle ones, and white with hope. In the 30-nation survey these patterns held everywhere, with local variation. All of this is about what people say colours mean. The review stresses that there is no good evidence yet that looking at a bright colour makes a person feel, or act, more hopefully.
In language
The French see 'la vie en rose'. Germans look through a 'rosarote Brille', rose-red glasses. Spanish speakers see everything 'de color de rosa', and Japanese speak of a rose-coloured life, bara-iro no jinsei. English has the rosy outlook, and adds the bright side, the silver lining, the golden opportunity and blue-sky thinking. Hindi wishes someone an 'ujjwal bhavishya', a bright and shining future. The pessimist's colours are the reverse. Germans 'see black' (schwarzsehen) and the French 'see everything in black'. Across these languages optimism is a matter of light and tint, a wash laid over the same world, and that is close to what the word means.
Around the world
New beginnings show a culture's optimistic colour. At Chinese New Year, doors, lanterns and gift envelopes are red for good fortune. In Brazil, crowds dress in white on New Year's Eve, a custom with roots in Afro-Brazilian religion, to ask for peace in the year ahead. In Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and neighbouring countries many people wear yellow underwear that night for luck. In India a dab of yellow turmeric and red kumkum marks new account books, invitations and doorways as auspicious. In Japan, red and white together promise a happy outcome. Each is a small bet on the future, made in colour.
Where it is used
The yellow smiley face, drawn in 1963, became the world's shorthand for a cheerful outlook. Political campaigns reach for sunrise colours, yellows, light blues and fresh greens, when they want to promise better times. Start-ups, children's brands and travel firms do the same. Weather maps show fine days in yellow. Colour forecasters name an optimistic shade most years, and yellow returns to the list whenever times are hard. Used with restraint, a light warm palette makes a page feel open and friendly. Used everywhere, it can ring false. Optimism in colour is most believable when the content beneath it gives real grounds for hope.
Optimism in colour, place by place
To see 'la vie en rose', life in pink, is to see the good in everything. Édith Piaf's 1940s song carried the phrase around the world.
At the Spring Festival, doors are hung with red couplets and children receive money in red envelopes, hongbao, as a wish for a fortunate year.
On New Year's Eve, crowds on Brazilian beaches dress in white, a custom rooted in Afro-Brazilian religion, to ask for peace in the coming year.
Many people wear yellow underwear on New Year's Eve, a popular custom said to bring luck and prosperity in the year ahead.
Turmeric yellow and red kumkum mark new beginnings as auspicious: wedding invitations, the first page of account books, the doorway of a new home.
Red and white together, kohaku, are the colours of good omen, used on gift envelopes and decorations for weddings and New Year.
An optimist looks through a 'rosarote Brille', rose-red glasses, while a pessimist is said to 'see black', schwarzsehen.
From the table of meanings
Gold stands for wealth. It is paired with red on New Year decorations, wedding invitations and shop signs to wish for a prosperous year.
Luck and prosperityOptimismSource: Color in Chinese cultureGold jewellery is bought on Dhanteras and Akshaya Tritiya, two days held to be lucky for it. A bride's gold is both ornament and her own store of wealth.
Luck and prosperityWeddings and marriageOptimismSource: Akshaya TritiyaOn New Year's Eve, street stalls in Lima sell yellow underwear, yellow flowers and yellow paper garlands. Wearing yellow at midnight is held to bring good luck.
Luck and prosperityOptimismSource: New Year's EveIn the south, families bring home branches of yellow apricot blossom, hoa mai, for Tet. A tree that flowers on New Year's morning is taken as a good sign.
Festival and celebrationLuck and prosperityOptimismSource: Ochna integerrimaColours that carry optimism
Sources and further reading
- Rose-colored glasses on Wikipedia
- Jonauskaite and Mohr, Do we feel colours? A systematic review of 128 years of research (Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 2025)
- Jonauskaite and colleagues, Universal patterns in color-emotion associations (Psychological Science, 2020)
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage: Spring Festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of the traditional new year
Original text by the Rang desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Meanings of colour vary from place to place and person to person. If we have something wrong, tell us.