But someone's reaction to a smile is on a more instinctual level. I'm pretty sure that smiles carry a universal meaning for people going as young as infancy. So, it doesn't seem misguided to look for these effects that happen outside of a particular cultural context.
On some level this is obviously true. The important question is on what level? Blue being male coded, socially construed. Blue being perceived as colder probably not, which leans me towards sadness association being real. Something to test.
On a related note I listened to an Agnes Callard podcast we here she used small girls as examples of experts, on prettiness, as that’s the thing they care about disproportionately much. Thus the fact that they agree pink and purple are the prettiest colors is evidence this is in some real way true. I thought that was interesting as my son’s favorite colors at the time were purple and mauve. He’s now moved on to pink. I’m persuaded that something like an objective ranking of color pleasantness exists. Obviously you can self-modify to like things, like architects self-modify to find Brutalism and other crimes a against beauty good, or how people grow to like coffee.
I don't disagree. In my post I was primarily thinking about the author's assertion that these instinctual reactions are not verifiable, which I disagree with. We probably have more in common here than you realize.
One thing it sounds like Callard didn't cover in her podcast was the movement toward instinctual and social reactions. It may be possible that pink has some intrinsic beauty, but how many of the subjects only thought to provide that opinion after being influenced in some almost imperceptible way by their peers?
One thing the pandemic showed us is that people can relatively easily be made to believe something without sufficient evidence if that belief gives some benefit for them personally (i.e. anti-vaxxers). Given that most news today is consumed only through the headlines of news articles, its stands to reason that even briefer pieces of information could have just as large an influence. This is mostly why I take issue with what seems to be the overall goal of the article.
> Obviously you can self-modify to like things, like architects self-modify to find Brutalism and other crimes a against beauty good, or how people grow to like coffee.
This seems a little biased, particularly with beauty and flavor being given as objective properties. Are you sure something subtle on your screen didn't elicit an emotional response before you posted this?
No earthly idea. My strong update to it being true is based mostly on a single small child whose close contacts weren’t attempting to push any color preferences.
>> Obviously you can self-modify to like things, like architects self-modify to find Brutalism and other crimes a against beauty good, or how people grow to like coffee.
> This seems a little biased, particularly with beauty and flavor being given as objective properties. Are you sure something subtle on your screen didn't elicit an emotional response before you posted this?
If, the first time a human tastes alcohol or straight black coffee they like them there is something wrong with their taste buds or elsewhere. Alcohol is poisonous. Coffee is bitter, it’s aversive. I’m slightly less confident in “things that are fruit or flower colored” are pleasant to look at, but not much. Brutalism being more pleasant to look at than biophilic, ornamented buildings I consider self-evident, on the same level as “A park is more pleasant to look at than Park Avenue.”