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EVEN IN STONE AGE, GIRLS HAD THING ABOUT PINK

Girls love pink

Tuesday August 21,2007

By Mark Blacklock

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THE adage “pink for a girl, blue for a boy” dates back to the Stone Age, scientists have discovered.

They say that cavemen and women were probably as colour-conscious as the modern world’s fashion victims.

But the prehistoric preferences may have had more to do with survival than looking good.

Newcastle university’s Professor Anya Hurlbert said: “The explanation might date back to humans’ hunter-gatherer days.

“Women were the primary gatherers and would have benefited from an ability to home in on ripe, red fruits. Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference.” She speculated that evolution also played its part in men’s preference for blue.

“Going back to our ‘savannah’ days, we would have a natural preference for a clear blue sky because it signalled good weather. Clear blue also signals a good water source,” she said.

Research just published in the scientific journal Current Biology shows that colour preference can be broken down into two elements – red-greenness and blue-yellowness.

Newcastle university scientists say people choosing colours in each spectrum are generally divided by gender.

Hundreds of young men and women were asked to select, as rapidly as possible, their preferred colour from each of a series of paired, coloured rectangles.

The test revealed that women preferred the pink and lilac end of the red-green spectrum.

A small group of Chinese were included in the study to see if cultural background makes a difference – but the results were similar.

The researchers plan to modify the colour-choice test for infants to further test the “nature versus nurture” theory.