TY - JOUR PY - 2011// TI - The Color of Safety: Ingroup Associated Colors make Beer Safer JO - Journal of experimental social psychology A1 - Bartholow, Bruce D. A1 - Loersch, Chris SP - 190 EP - 194 VL - 47 IS - 1 N2 - Individuals display high levels of trust and express feelings of safety when interacting with social ingroup members. Here, we investigated whether cues related to ingroup membership would change perceptions of the safety of alcohol. Participants were exposed to images of beer in either a standard can or a can featuring the colors of their university (i.e., 'fan cans'). We hypothesized that exposure to fan cans would change perceptions of the risks of beer drinking. Results showed that participants exposed to fan cans rated beer consumption as less dangerous (Experiment 1), were more likely to automatically activate safety-related mental content after unconscious perception of beer cues (Experiment 2), and viewed their ingroup's party practices as less dangerous (Experiment 3). These results provide evidence that ingroup-associated colors can serve as a safety cue for alcohol, which may in theory perpetuate alcohol-related risk-taking, already a cause for concern on college and university campuses.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0022-1031 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.09.001 ID - ref1 ER -