"It's very interesting from a neuroscientist's perspective that there are those similarities." Caroline Zink of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the new research. "Parts of the brain that we know process physical attributes, whether it's motor movements or physical pain - the same circuitry more and more is seen with more mental qualities," said Dr. Indeed, other research has found that the same brain region that processes physical temperature changes, called the insula, also processes feelings of trust and empathy associated with social warmth. Really the test was which trinket the students chose as a thank you for participating: An ice-cream coupon or bottled drink for themselves, or one for a friend. Then researchers recruited 53 different students for a second study, having them briefly hold one of those heat or ice pads sold in drugstores for pain, allegedly as part of product-testing. Yet there were no differences between the two groups on ratings of honesty, attractiveness or strength, traits not associated with either warm or cold personalities. Students who had held the hot cup saw the person as more generous, sociable and good-natured than those who had held the cold cup - all traits that psychologists consider part of a "warm" personality, the researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science. Inside the lab, the students were given a description of a fictitious person described as industrious, cautious and determined, and then rated that person's presumed personality traits. A lab worker escorted each participant up the elevator of Yale's psychology building and casually asked for help holding her cup of coffee - either hot or iced - while she recorded the student's name on a clipboard. Williams, the study's lead author, says in a news release, "At a board meeting, for instance, being willing to reach out and touch another human being, to share their hand, those experiences do matter although we may not always be aware of them.It took a sneaky study to find out: Scientists recruited 41 college students for what they thought was personality research. "Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer - more generous and trusting - as well." "It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well," Bargh says. The people who had held the warm pad were more likely to choose the reward for the friend. After the "test," they were offered a reward for themselves or a treat for a friend. Participants thought their role was to evaluate the product. In the second experiment, 53 participants were asked to hold either a hot or cold therapeutic pad. "These terms implicitly tap into the primitive experience of what it means to be warm and cold." "When we ask whether someone is a warm person or cold person, they both have a temperature of 98.6," Bargh, co-author of the paper, says in a news release. Participants who had held the warm coffee were much more likely to score the pretend person as warmer than those who had held the iced coffee. Participants were then asked to evaluate the person's personality using a questionnaire. Once in the testing room, participants were given a packet of information on an unknown person described with words like intelligent, skillful, industrious, practical, and cautious. Half the participants were asked to hold a cup of warm coffee and half were asked to hold a cup of iced coffee. The participant did not know the coffee was part of the experiment. In the elevator on the way up, the tester casually asked the participant to hold his cup of coffee while he recorded some information on his clipboard. A tester met each participant in the lobby of the building where the tests were being conducted. The first study included 41 college students with an average age of 18.5. They found that holding warm things may actually make people view others more favorably and may also make people more generous. Bargh, PhD, professor of psychology at Yale University, conducted two studies on undergraduate students to assess how temperatures affect emotions. Lawrence Williams, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and John A. 23, 2008 - You're probably familiar with the expression, "cold hands, warm heart." Now there's science to show the opposite is true.
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