The Subjects As Colors

Throughout our school days, our academic lives were dominated by the four main categories of classes: Science, Social Studies, English, and Math. For some reason, most people seem to agree that each of these classes corresponds to a particular color. Basically, a relatively universally accepted mental correlation between school subjects and colors exists. I know of no finite explanation for why human beings make these associations between subjects and colors, but there's probably some detailed psychological theory behind it. Maybe our pairings are the result of preexisting schema that we as individuals and as members of a particular culture and society have developed. It may also be based on a memory of color-coding systems for class materials used in schools when we were younger or the colors of textbooks we once had. Regardless, this seems to be a common topic of discussion across the internet.

My inspiration for this article was sparked by a poll I conducted on Twitter that was preceded by a tweet outlining how I personally identify each subject by color. There was some debate over the colors that correspond to Math and English, which is what prompted me to create the poll, but the final results reflect my personal opinion, as you can see.

While these are by no means reliable or generalizable results, I found it interesting that regardless of how a subject is specifically perceived in terms of color, most individuals still find some sort of correspondence between the two separate elements. In other words, most people associate the subjects with colors, even if these associations don't match up from person to person. Interestingly enough, though, most people seem to pair Science with green, probably because of the various environmental and biological elements and processes that are actually green. Also notable is the idea that Math and English are each either red or blue (an idea that has sparked some debate). It has been argued that a subject could be associated with red because both that subject and the color hold a sense of tension and hostility for the individual.

With that, I encourage you to continue the discussion in the comments section of this article with your theories and your identifications for the subjects in terms of color! I have to admit, though, that regardless of what anyone says, in my opinion, Math is red, English is blue, Social Studies is Yellow, and Science is green.