Gender vs. Car Colors

Background Research

We began our background research by searching on Google. The first key words that we used to search were “car color vs gender”. The URL of the first website we found is listed as follows: http://prezi.com/m9upinpofrnf/gender-vs-car-color/ . This website was made by students in Oswega, NY explaining their research and results on the same study we’re doing. The students, however, were mainly focused on the colors black and white. They predicted men would prefer the color black, while females preferred white. They noted the genders of drivers in cars of these two colors at a mall. They found insufficient evidence to suggest that gender had to do with preference of car color. We continued to search for other experiments on our topic, however, we failed to come across any other studies on our topic. Most studies done on gender vs cars have been on brands of cars vs gender. We decided to focus more on just colors vs gender, because it makes sense that a person's color preference doesn't change when it comes to cars. We googled the words “color preference and gender”, and one of the results was: http://www.sherwin-williams.com/home-builders/color/education/sw-article-pro-theroleofgender.html. This website informs about the favorite and least favorite colors between genders. Surprisingly, the data shows that women and men have similar likes and dislikes when it comes to color. For example, both men and women dislike the colors brown and orange and they both like the colors green and blue. However, there are differences. Women, on a large-scale, said their absolute favorite color was purple, but men strongly dislike the color. We continued to search for information and came across the site: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/gender-and-color/?wide=1. The site gives pie graphs on the favored and least favored colors of both gender, similar to the first website. The graphs support the information found on the first website. 0% of the surveyed men said purple was their favorite color, but a wide amount of women said it was their favorite. Also, both green and blue are popular between the two genders and both brown and orange are unpopular. However, two of the most popular car colors, black and white (at least what we thought to top colors), aren’t showing high percentages for “favorite color”. At this point, we started thinking maybe color preferences actually do change when it comes to cars. However, if we consider that it doesn’t change, our research shows that the colors green and blue for cars should be extremely popular. The site also mentions that men generally favor brighter colors while women favor softer colors. We found this information to be shocking. Stereotypically, females are supposed to like pink (a bright color), and yet, the study showed that men liked it more. So, we hope our data can shed some light on this information. In summary, our entire research session showed the following results: gender is not associated with car color preference, men and women like and dislike similar colors, and that men like brighter colors compared to women liking softer colors.

We did this project because we wondered if color stereotypes were true and if it applied to cars. The problem that is intended to be solved by doing this study is if there is any relationship between genders and the preference of car color. The key issue raised is age. Color preferences for car colors might change depending on the age of the person. In our study, we are only asking the opinions of teens, which isn’t concrete evidence for other age groups.