Cold and lonely. These two concepts seemed permanently paired in the English language. Listen to any country music song and you'll hear it. And what about warm and fuzzy? Why is it that we so often use temperature words to describe emotions in lyrics or poems or just every day conversation? New studies suggests that the linguistic link between emotional experience and physical sensation might not be so accidental. University of Toronto researchers Zhong and Lonardelli found that study participants describing an experience of being excluded or rejected actually felt colder than those who talked about positive, inclusive experiences. 4.5 degrees F colder, to be exact. In this experiment the individuals describing negative experiences estimated the room temperature to be almost 4 degrees colder (That's about 2 degrees in Celsius.) Emotions, it seems, really can influence our physical experience.
Interestingly, the reverse holds true as well: Your physical world influences your attitudes and largest toward others. To demonstrate this, researchers Williams and Bargh asked Yale University students to hold a cup of coffee for them-as a favor-during an elevator ride to the study location. Students who were asked to hold hot coffee subsequently described a third person as having a much warmer personality than those asked to hold iced coffee. Similarly, in a subsequent study, participants asked to test and rate a warm therapeutic pad demonstrated greater generosity than those who rated a cold one.
So the next time you want to make a good impression on someone, you may not need to buy them a cup of hot coffee. Instead you just ask them to hold yours.
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