The microteaching session I prepared was called “Colour Associations in Dresses.” Based on historical/popular documentations of concepts such as the “red dress effect” and Coco Chanel’s “little black dress” and the empirical literature on the psychology of colours in both clothing and everyday objects (e.g., Elliot & Maier, 2014), I aimed to both challenge and demonstrate the common psychological associations people have with certain coloured dresses. Another, takeaway message from the session concerned a demonstration that people are both similar to each other and also unique from one another – the two opposites can and should be observable in human behaviour, which is an often-overlooked narrative in scientific research.
The session was planned in the following structure: 1-2 minutes of outlining the structure of the session to the participants, 8 minutes of telling participants to think of and note free associations in relation to the following imaginary objects: white dress, black dress, red dress, green dress, and blue dress (where participants write down as many things that come to their minds as they imagine these objects in front of them), 2 minutes of noting all the associations in Padlet, 2 minutes of general discussion regarding how the session felt, 5 minutes of discussing the associations in relation to the literature, and 1-2 minutes of debriefing.
There were two notable deviations from the initial plans. Firstly, given that the microteach session was no longer planned to be in person, I had to improvise from using a real object to using an imaginary object– I asked people to imagine dresses of different colours prior to beginning the free association task. Secondly, I did not expect there to only be two participants. Given that part of the later activity was to discuss consensus across people, there was always the risk of being presented with two people who happen to be entirely different in their way of thinking so as to nullify – unluckily – any form of consensus.
Despite these unwelcome circumstances, all went to plan. For both participants, white dresses were associated with purity, wedding, and a form of cleanliness. Black dresses were associated with funerals yet also something chic/classic. Red dresses were seen to be associated with ideas of confidence and strength/boldness (see visualisation below).
I then went through some empirical evidence (e.g., published papers) to discuss human associations with certain colours. However, I also took the opportunity to emphasise the nature of human-based data: where there can be consensus, there will inevitably also be variations between people – either caused by certain cultural backgrounds (accountable) or by pure personal preference (unaccountable). The debriefing was cut short due to the time limit.
Some feedback I received was the following: I could have improved on time management – for example, green and blue dresses could have been omitted. Also, for the free association task, I could have done the free association task for each item one by one instead of lumping all dresses into 8 minutes – this may have induced some ambiguity in the instructions. Importantly, the post-task session did not include much discussion regarding the application of this activity in the context of fashion.
I agree with these suggestions. Should this activity be developed into a one-hour seminar session, I will most definitely take these suggestions into consideration.
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Reference
Elliot, A.J. and Maier, M.A., 2014. Color psychology: Effects of perceiving color on psychological functioning in humans. Annual review of psychology, 65, pp.95-120.