How many of us remember playing ‘butterfly, butterfly which colour do you want choose’ back in school? Little did we realise then that colours too could depict our personality. With years of research by colour psychologists the characteristics of certain colours has been identified to cause an emotional response in people. Here is an interesting colour test. Choose a colour and check what it has to say to you. The colour you choose first says a lot about your personality.

Red represents passion and energy. Red in the first position means you are impulsive and have a will to win. You are a good leader. You want to expend your horizons and live a life to the full. Red if chosen in the seventh or eighth position means your desire for life and thirst for adventure have become less. You enjoy a pleasant and colourful environment. You are interested in many areas of life. You are capable of accomplishment when consciously focused and persistent.

Yellow represents happiness and relaxation. Anyone who chooses yellow in second, third or fourth place is positive, optimistic person who always looks to the future - never backwards. You find life easy, and problems simply do not exist for you. Free from worry, you lead a carefree life; but this does not mean that you are lazy. You can be extremely hard working, although not consistently. If you choose yellow in first place means that you are ambitious and eager to please. When yellow is in the later part of the spectrum, you have had your hopes and dreams dashed and you feel isolated and disappointed, often becoming defensive and withdrawn.

Green represents firmness and resistance to change. If you choose it in the first place, you are persistent, possessive and quite selfish. You are a high achiever and an accumulator of ‘things’-like a penthouse, a BMW, a Rolex, a holiday flat, a compact-disc player. You want to be recognised and need to impress but worry about the prospect of failure. If green is a later choice, your ego has been bruised and you have been humbled by the resistance to your progress. Consequently you can be highly critical, sarcastic and stubborn.

Violet represents mystery. The person who prefers violet wants to find a mystical, magical relationship. Both mentally and physically immature, you are stuck in a dream of wishful thinking and fantasy. Often violet appears in the later part of the sequence, it indicates that the person choosing it is more mature and has outgrown the ‘fantasy’ vision of life, confronting harsh reality head-on.

Brown is the colour of physical well-being and is an indicator of how healthy you think you are. If you put brown in fourth or fifth place, you are not very concerned about your health and body. This means you are probably in good shape. Those worried about illness tend to put brown earlier in the sequence. If you choose brown as your favourite colour, you are restless and insecure. If brown is in eighth place, you don’t care enough for your body and you may not be as healthy as you think. Placing brown early also indicates the importance of a secure environment: refugees often pick brown first.

Grey is a neutral and represents a point between two contrasting and motivations. Grey in the first position means that you want to shut yourself off from everything and remain uncommitted, so that you can swing with opinion and emotions. You hate joining anything with ‘group’ connotations and are an observer rather than a doer. Those who choose grey in the eighth position seek to join everything, eager and enthusiastic. Such people will try absolutely everything in their efforts to achieve their goals.

Blue represents calmness and loyalty. A person who favours blue is sensitive and easily hurt. You never panic and are in total control of your life and content with the way it is going. You desire to lead an uncomplicated and worry-free life and are prepared to sacrifice certain goals in order to achieve this. You need a stable relationship without conflict. Perhaps, as a side effect of contentment, you tend to put on weight. The later blue appears in the sequence, the more unsatisfied you are and the more you feel the need to break from the ties that restrict you. But you probably aren’t unfeeling enough to walk out on a family or job; instead, you will suffer in silence.

Black is the negation of colour and means ‘No’. Anyone who chooses it in the first position (which is rare) is in revolt against their fate. Chosen second, it means you are prepared to give up everything else to achieve what you want. It is normally put in seventh or eighth place, representing control of one’s destiny and a balanced outlook. If yellow precedes black in the first two positions, then a change is on the way.