Prisons come in a rainbow of colors, like gray, dark gray, and… this other shade of
gray.
But sometimes…
they come in pink.
And not just any pink; specifically, this exact shade of pink: Baker-Miller pink.
Why?
Well, it has to do with the very messy history of color psychology.
This story begins in the 1940s with this guy: Swiss psychologist, Max Lüscher.
You see, Lüscher had basically invented the world’s first Buzzfeed quiz, which could
allegedly determine someone’s psychosomatic state and even measure certain hormones using
just their favorite colors.
Participants would rank these 8 colors in terms of personal preference and then be grouped
into a particular personality category based on their choices.
You can actually still take this test online if you’re having some kind of identity crisis;
it told me I was a total Miranda.
But—as you might’ve already guessed—this is just complete pseudoscience, and a good
example of the Barnum effect; basically, people will accept any vague description of their
personality as being true because people are complex… and also not very smart.
But, many years later, a Tacoma-based psychologist named Alexander Schauss read up on the Lüscher
test and had an idea: maybe instead of our hormones and emotions changing our perception
of colors, our perception of colors could change our hormones and emotions.
So, Schauss started doing what I do at the Museum of Modern Art: looking at random colors
to see if he felt anything.
And sure enough, it turned out that the colors seemed to have an effect on his cardiovascular
system; some would raise his heart rate, and others would lower it.
But one color in particular stood out; after mixing one gallon of pure white indoor latex
paint with one pint of red trim semi-gloss outdoor paint, he got this color, and looking
at it lowered his heart rate so much that he became physically weak.
But seeing as he might just be a really crummy superhero whose superpower is looking at colors
and whose kryptonite is this exact shade of pink, he decided to show it to 153 other people.
153 men, specifically, because women hadn’t been invented yet.
It turns out, he wasn’t alone: after showing these men the color for a minute and then
testing their grip strength, he found that they were up to 23% weaker than they were
after they looked at blue.
Now, there were some problems with this experiment, but we’re going to put those in our “problems
to deal with later” box and deal with them later.
For now, all you need to know is that this experiment happened and the US government
wanted to find a use for it.
Admittedly, it was the same year that they were trying to find a use for actual magic,
so this wasn’t exactly a high bar.
But, in 1979, two directors of a Naval correctional institute in Seattle named Gene Baker and
Ron Miller—hence the eventual name Baker-Miller pink—decided to paint two cells top to bottom
with the color to see if it would reduce aggression.
And, unlike the magic, it worked like magic: the facility reported a significant reduction
in violent or hostile behavior after just 15 minutes of exposure to the pink clink.
Now, seeing as a fresh coat of hypnotic paint was a lot easier than, like, actually making
real changes, Baker-Miller pink started popping up everywhere.
Other jails started using it, but so did psychiatric hospitals, youth clinics, and even locker
rooms—the football teams at Iowa and Colorado State actually painted their opposing team’s
locker room Baker-Miller pink in the early 1980s, which is why, to this day, the WAC
has a rule that both teams’ locker rooms must be painted the same color.
Baker-Miller pink became especially popular across the pond, if by “pond” you mean
everything between the United States and Switzerland.
The Swiss penal system has used a slightly diluted version of Baker-Miller pink in 30
cells across ten of their prisons, and in several more drunk tanks in their police stations.
But—uh oh—it’s time to open our “problems to deal with later” box, because now it’s
later.
Let’s go ahead and read our problem: it says, “Alexander Schauss isn’t very good
at his job.”
Well, it turns out, Schauss’s heart-rate hypothesis might not be airtight.
A lot of people have tested it since, and there have been mixed results.
Some, like this study, seemed to agree that it could lower blood pressure.
Others, like this study, failed to replicate the results.
And one just found something completely out of left field, which is that it acted as an
appetite suppressant.
Fun fact: that’s why Kendall Jenner’s house is that color.
Who needs calories when you have pink?
So, whether or not Baker-Miller pink literally lowers your heart rate is a bit of an open
question, but the fact of the matter is: it definitely seems to do… something.
The Naval correctional institute did see a drop in violence, the Swiss prisons have reported
more relaxed inmates, and Kendall Jenner does have a bangin’ beach bod year-round.
But if it’s not an automatic biological reaction, then what is it?
Well, some researchers have speculated that there’s a cultural element at play here
as well—since the color has mostly been tested on men, and this shade of pink is particularly
effeminate, it may be the case that seeing pink calms men down the same way listening
to Pink!
does: by bringing out their inner femininity.
And really, that’s how a lot of color psychology works—it depends on culture.
When Disney decided to bring Disneyland to Europe, they also brought along a heavily
purple color-scheme; in the United States, purple is often associated with magic and
royalty, but—and this may shock some of my viewers—the whole world is not the United
States.
In predominantly-Catholic France, this purple color scheme wasn’t perceived as magical,
but rather as incredibly drab and depressing, since they associated purple with crucifixion
and death.
If these Baker-Miller pink tests were conducted before World War II, when pink was seen as
more masculine and energizing, they might’ve not turned out so peacefully.
So, what’s the lesson here?
Is the lesson that we’re stupid for painting our jails pink?
Is the lesson that culture has more of a grip on our psychology than we thought?
I don’t know.
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