Research Review on Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference

Section 1: Summary 

As gender exists as a culturally constructed schema that is ever-present and unavoidable, its exploration from a developmental psychological perspective is necessary. Gender permeates the inner workings of human society on smaller daily scales, through larger historical frames across time, and individualistically, throughout every human lifespan. The need to understand the impact of gender through these general scopes provides preliminary foundation for research that is situated between gender and childhood development. This is why, superficially, developmental psychologist Jac T.M. Davis and their colleagues conducted in-depth research and analysis with their study and article, Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference. 

Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference commences by delineating the  divided discourse concerning the use of the color pink as an indicator of female gender and femininity within practically every large sector of human society: academic, in government, and in pop and general culture. As this divide is supported with previous research, it becomes increasingly clear that the question lying at the core of this debate is centered around whether pink as a seemingly female-correlated color preference is caused by cultural influence or an innate desire? Further, are these apparent sex differences in color preferences due to a true female gravitation to pink, or to a male-avoidance of pink in its entirety? 

The particular question of the innate nature of color preferences in the context of gender is important as prior to the research presented in this article, there already existed a wide array of analysis, research, studies, and theories that either supported or argued against this innate nature. Davis and their colleagues outline differentiating evidence for two leading psychological perspectives on color preference as an innate trait, explaining that some researchers advocate for an essentialist theory while others (non-essentialists), do not. As essentialism is defined as a theory that states certain groups and categorizations have an inherent, self-evident internal essence, it can be applied to the debate on sex differences and color preferences through a lens that argues for biological and evolutionary processes that have made women inherently predisposed to the color pink. Essentialist theories such as the cone-contrast theory and