Red vs. Blue: Which Team Should You Choose?

[Jamie Madigan writes about the overlap between psychology and video games atwww.psychologyofgames.com. Follow him on Twitter@JamieMadiganor on Facebook.]

Chess may have its "black vs. white" color scheme, but for video games it's often "red vs. blue." It's the kind of matchup that you find in dozens of games once you go looking for it, whether it's the color of your avatar, the heads up display, or both. Sometimes you're randomly assigned to a team when you join, but other times you can choose. Is there any advantage to picking red? Or blue?

Yes. Well, maybe. A bit.

I just finished reading the book Drunk Tank Pink and Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behaveby Adam Alter. One chapter deals with how the color of a uniform can affect performance in a competitive sport. Alter cites a 2005 study that looked at Olympic athletes participating in one-on-one "combat sports" like boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling. The rules of the Olympics stipulate that one competetor is randomly assigned a blue outfit while the other gets red. Thus it was a great opportunity for a natural experiment on the effects of uniform color on performance.

The researchers found that those wearing red uniforms won a statistically significantly larger portion of their matches:

Hill and Barton's theory (which is also Drunk Tank Pinkauthor Adam Alter's theory) is that throughout nature the color red is associated with heightened agression, dominance, and testosterone levels (think mating season and/or fighting season). Skin gets flushed and animals display the red bits of their bodies while engaging in dominant and aggressive behavior. I know; it sounds a bit far fetched in the context of humans participating in sports, but the idea is simply that wearing the color red primes competitors to think more about being particularly aggressive and dominating. That is, it makes thoughts about those concepts come to mind quicker and more easily. In sports like boxing or tae kwon do where agression makes you more competitive, this matters. Wearing red, the researchers argue, essentially makes it just a little easier for you to get pumped up and visualize the kind of behavior that wins bouts. And the competitor in blue might compound the effect by perceiving his/her red opponent as more intimidating or imposing. This might even all be subconscious. Probably is, in fact.

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Red vs. Blue: Which team should you choose?