The Best Color for College Student's Rooms

By Emma Cianciulli

          Students living in dorm rooms are more likely to study if their rooms are blue themed, according to a study.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health conducted a study in 2018 about how the interior color of college and university residence halls affects the students living in them. 

“We exploited a unique architectural setting composed by six buildings that differed only for the interior color, investigating pleasantness for each specific color; how this pleasantness related to general chromatic preference, the effects of the interior color on lightness level and lightness satisfaction, and the effect of the color on the residents’ functioning and mood,” the study said. 

The six colors were blue, red, orange, violet, green, and yellow.

There were 443 students who had to live in these buildings for an average of just over 13 months, and then results were collected and analyzed. 

“The blue interior color was considered to promote and facilitate studying activity more than lighter and warmer colors (such as orange and red) that probably were perceived as too arousing. Furthermore, we found an association between a blue color preference and the ‘calm’ rating in the mood scale,” the study said. 

Kelly E. Lewis, 21, said that her room at school is light blue, yellow, and grey. 

“I chose that theme because I absolutely love the color blue and it’s very calming,” she said. 

Rose T. Doherty, a senior at Stonehill College, said her dorm room is pink and white themed, while her bedroom at home is blue. 

In terms of studying in both rooms, Doherty could not say which one she preferred.

In high school her bedroom was not blue, but the same color that her room at Stonehill is now.  

She said, however, that she prefers to study in her pink and white room over any other spot on campus.

“I can study effectively. I can get the same amount of work done in my dorm room versus at the library,” said Doherty. 

In addition to preferring blue colored rooms, the study also said that “In general, there was a strong preference for rooms with a white ceiling.”.

A sophomore at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Nicole J. Burgess said both her room at school and at home have white ceilings. 

Whereas Doherty seemed to go against the reports of the study, Burgess is in agreement with the results. 

Her room at home is a mint green color, while her room at school is navy blue themed. 

“My whole bed is navy, my curtains on my windows which my desk is right in front of, and my lamps,” said Burgess. 

Her preferred place to study throughout high school was always her bedroom, but now she would rather study in her room at school. 

So if blue was the most popular color in terms of productive studying and positive moods, what colors should student’s avoid using to decorate their dorm rooms?

“The interior colors that were evaluated to have the worst effect on studying were red and orange. This effect could be explained considering that long-wave colors can cause higher arousal than short-wave colors,” the study said. 

No one interviewed could confidently say that they had ever seen a red or orange colored dorm room. 

“Sometimes I see accents of red, like photographs or lights, but never completely red. I feel like that would look awful,” said Lewis.

Residence Director Bridget O’Brien has worked at Stonehill College for several years, and was a residence director at the University of Notre Dame before Stonehill. 

O’Brien said between her time at both schools, she has probably seen about 440 different resident rooms. 

She remembers all the walls as being the same off-white or beige color. 

“I’ve never been in a residence hall that had any different of a color,” she said. 

In terms of popular color selections, O’Brien said “I would say of the rooms that have cohesive color schemes, often blue is a selection.”

“In case of a residence hall for male students it is better to restrict the color palette to only blue and green hues, whereas in case of female students the color palette could be more varied, including also red-purple and violet hues. The blue color is to be preferred in study areas. Light colors are to be preferred for preserving an adequate lightness level, and a white ceiling is preferred over a colored one,” the study said.