The Effect of Scarf and Skin Color Combinations on Moral Perception

ABSTRACT

This study employed a psychophysical experiment to examine how scarf‐skin color combinations are related to moral perception. A total of 44 scarf‐skin color combinations, comprising 11 basic scarf colors and 4 skin color levels, were evaluated using 16 moral perception scales. The results revealed that moral perception was sufficiently represented by three factors: Moral Integrity, Moral Reserve, and Moral Authority. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between these three moral perception factors and color attributes. Moral Integrity was mainly associated with hue difference and chroma difference between scarf and skin colors. Moral Reserve showed different patterns depending on scarf chroma: for low‐chroma scarves, skin lightness showed the strongest positive association, whereas for high‐chroma scarves, hue difference showed the strongest positive association. Moral Authority was associated with several color attributes, including hue difference, color difference, lightness sum, scarf chroma, skin hue angle, and skin lightness. These exploratory findings suggest that moral perception of scarf‐skin color combinations depends not only on the color attributes of the scarf's color but, more critically, on the relational color attributes between the scarf and the skin.