Effects of Coloring, Line Drawing, and Erasing on Mood and Physical Condition

ABSTRACT Although coloring has been shown to reduce anxiety, its positive effects have not been fully investigated. Therefore, this study investigated the positive effects of coloring on physical condition and mood through two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants ( n = 21) colored three figurative designs (portrait, flower, and landscape) using 12 colored pencils (pink, orange, light orange, brown, yellow, yellowish green, green, light blue, blue, purple, and black) and rated their mood and physical condition before and after coloring using the Likert scale. The results of the ANOVA (within‐subjects) showed that coloring had a positive effect on mood and such effects did not differ based on the design of the coloring image. In Experiment 2, the main drawing process was divided into three tasks: line drawing (tracing lines) ( n = 41), coloring ( n = 31), and erasing ( n = 18). The participants' emotions before and after each task were compared and the degree of increase was analyzed. Participants rated their mood and physical condition before and after each task, as in Experiment 1, and rated the degree of increase in emotion using emotion words. The results of the ANOVA (within‐subjects and between‐subjects) suggest coloring had the most positive effect on mood and physical condition compared to drawing and erasing. With regard to emotional changes, we found that coloring had the most positive effect, while erasing had the most negative effect. As shown above, coloring suggested a greater positive effect on mood, physical condition, and emotion compared to line drawing and erasing. This may be because coloring involves more judgment‐based tasks, such as selecting colors to match the design. In other words, compared to the other tasks, coloring might be the activity that bears the highest cognitive load and therefore offers the greatest amount of satisfaction.