The present study is an attempt to investigate implicit associative relations in the Japanese, which appear to exist between nuclear-related verbal concepts and colors. Selections of verbal stimuli and subjects were dictated by the following considerations. “Nuclear power plants” and “Peaceful use of nuclear power” were chosen as the two verbal stimuli to elicit color-names. The former was assumed to have more negative connotations. Two groups of subjects participated in the testings-those who live closely to nuclear power plants, and those who work in nuclear-related domains as professionals. It was speculated that the professionals should hold more favorable attitudes toward nuclear-related events than do the offsite residents. Patterns of color-name association were examined both between the two subject groups and between the two verbal stimuli. In the subject comparison, a high rank-order correlation was obtained for “Peaceful use” while, for “Nuclear power plants”, the correlation was significant but clearly lower. In the concept comparison, a significantly greater difference was found in the offsite residents than in the professionals. It was also found that colors such as ORANGE, GREEN, BLUE, LIGHT BLUE and PINK connote acceptance while colors such as RED, GREY, and YELLOW, imply rejection. It was possible to conclude that the offsite residents showed a greater degree of negative attitudes toward the nuclear-related concepts than did the professionals by way of the color symbolism.
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