Flowers, Mostly Green and White
February 08, 2009
I write this with my favorite vase (white) sitting in front of
me. It contains white mums (on green
stems). Often it contains daisies or
white tulips or alstroemeria.
Even the impatiens in the planters outside my front door in summer
are white. It’s not that I don’t
appreciate other flowers (or vases). I
just have this preference. Maybe I like
green and white because they were the colors of both my high school and my
summer camp?
Anyhow, flowers, in general, just make me smile. Do I associate them with good events in my
life like birthdays or Mother’s Day or dinner parties? It doesn’t matter what the occasion is; often
I buy them myself. And I love to buy flowers
for others. So what’s this all about?
Turns out that this is a topic that has been considered by
academics at Rutgers University.
According to a bunch of co-authors of a paper called “An Environmental
Approach to Positive Emotion: Flowers” which was published in Evolutionary Psychology in 2005, the
authors did three different studies that indicated that flowers are a powerful
positive emotion ‘inducer’. ” The study I liked the best showed that flowers
presented to elderly participants (55+ age) elicited positive mood reports and
improved episodic memory.”
Great news for florists everywhere.
Comments