Crisis always has a mood or color.  The psychiatric literature frequently refers to this dimension of people in crisis as affect.  In crisis communication, color refers to the mood or disposition of the individual in crisis.  Does he seem depressed, angry, agitated, anxious, fearful; how would you describe the individual’s mood?  Using colors is a convenient way for us to communicate information about an individual’s mood or affect and to describe and understand the three major or most observable moods or affective states.

It may be helpful to think about several people in different situations.  As an exercise, think about these individuals.  What kind of mood are they in?  Using a word or short phrase to describe each person’s mood, think about whether they seem happy or sad, angry or loving, tired or energetic, optimistic or pessimistic, and so on.  Crisis communication is unlike most other forms of communication.  Developing a knack for describing an individual’s mood or tone in a word or short phrase will help in recognizing and understanding this dimension of crisis situations. …

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