Chromophobia#Terminology

Names exist that mean fear of specific colors such as erythrophobia for the fear of red, xanthophobia for the fear of yellow and leukophobia for the fear of white. A fear of the color red may be associated with a fear of blood.

In his book Chromophobia published in 2000, David Batchelor says that in Western culture, color has often been treated as corrupting, foreign or superficial.{{cite book|last=Galt|first=Rosalind|title=Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LQrLoj3WcEAC&pg=PA44|access-date=22 August 2014|year=2011|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231153478|pages=44–}} Michael Taussig states that the cultural aversion to color can be traced back a thousand years,{{cite book|last=Taussig|first=Michael|title=What Color Is the Sacred?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o2rZRWxejmQC|access-date=22 August 2014|date=2009-05-01|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226790060}} with Batchelor stating that it can be traced back to Aristotle's privileging of line over color.{{cite book|last=Ratliff|first=Jonathan|title=The Exploration of Color Theory in Museum Education Using Works Found in the J. B. Speed Museum's Collection|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V3SCzxk3PVEC|access-date=22 August 2014|year=2009|isbn=9781109300321}}{{Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

In a study, hatchling loggerhead sea turtles were found to have an aversion to lights in the yellow wave spectrum which is thought to be a characteristic that helps orient themselves toward the ocean.{{cite journal|last1=Witherington |first1=Blair E |last2=Bjorndal |first2=Karen A |jstor=1446101 |title=Influences of wavelength and intensity on hatchling sea turtle phototaxis: implications for sea-finding behavior |journal=Copeia |volume=1991 |issue=4 |year=1991 |pages=1060–1069 |publisher=American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists|doi=10.2307/1446101}}{{cite book|title=Florida Marine Research Institute Technical Reports|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TtFJAAAAYAAJ|year=1996|publisher=Florida Marine Research Institute}} The Mediterranean sand smelt, Atherina hepsetus, has shown an aversion to red objects placed next to a tank while it will investigate objects of other colors.{{cite book|title=Psychological Bulletin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tIK3AAAAIAAJ|year=1911|publisher=American Psychological Association}} In other experiments, geese have been conditioned to have adverse reactions to foods of a particular color, although the reaction was not observed in reaction to colored water.{{cite book|last1=Commons|first1=Michael L.|last2=Herrnstein|first2=Richard J.|last3=Wagner|first3=Allan R.|title=Acquisition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rXdRAAAAYAAJ|access-date=23 August 2014|year=1982|publisher=Ballinger Publishing Company|isbn=9780884107408}}

The title character in Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie has an aversion to the color red caused by a trauma during her childhood{{cite book|last1=Stromgren|first1=Richard L.|last2=Norden|first2=Martin F.|title=Movies, a language in light|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s3hZAAAAMAAJ|access-date=23 August 2014|date=July 1984|publisher=Prentice-Hall|isbn=9780136043072}} which Hitchcock presents through expressionistic techniques, such as a wash of red coloring a close up of Marnie.{{cite book|last1=Raubicheck|first1=Walter|last2=Srebnick|first2=Walter|title=Scripting Hitchcock: Psycho, The Birds, and Marnie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xW6kxB-nXSUC&pg=PA53|access-date=23 August 2014|year=2011|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252036484|pages=53–}}

The term colorphobia can also be used to refer to its literal etymological origin to refer to an apprehension towards image processing on one's vision and its visual perceptual property.{{cite book|last1=Harper|first1=Molly|title=Nice Girls Don't Live Forever|date=2009}} However, the term's association with a racial component has been used by public figures such as Frederick Douglass.{{cite book|last1=Stephens|first1=Gregory|title=On Racial Frontiers|date=1999|page=1}}

Leukophobia often takes the form of a fixation on pale skin. Those with the phobia may make implausible assumptions such as paleness necessarily representing ill health or a ghost.{{cite book |title=An Excess of Phobias and Manias: A Compilation of Anxieties, Obsessions, and Compulsions that Push Many Over the Edge of Sanity |page=114 |first=John G. |last=Robertson |location=Los Angeles |publisher=Senior Scribe |year=2003 |isbn=9780963091925 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r4PgawVAzB8C&q=leukophobia }} In other cases, leukophobia is directed more towards the symbolic meaning of whiteness, for instance in individuals who associate the color white with chastity and are opposed to or fear chastity.{{cite book|last=Adamec|first=Christine|title=The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxieties |edition=3rd |year=2009|page=509}} In Paul Beatty's novel Slumberland, leukophobia refers to racism.{{cite book |title=Slumberland |page=[https://archive.org/details/slumberlandnovel00beat/page/185 185] |first=Paul |last=Beatty |location=New York |publisher=Bloomsbury USA |year=2008 |isbn=9781596912403 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/slumberlandnovel00beat/page/185 }}

• List of phobias

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Color topics}}

Category:Color

Category:Phobias