{"id":1038,"date":"2008-11-05T00:18:22","date_gmt":"2008-11-05T00:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2008-11-05T02:07:20","modified_gmt":"2008-11-05T02:07:20","slug":"heat-friends-and-influence-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communicatescience.com\/zoonomian\/2008\/11\/05\/heat-friends-and-influence-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Friends And Influence People"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you want to get close to someone, give them a nice hot cup of tea. Or anything warm for that matter.<\/p>\n

\"Nice<\/a>
Can't beat a nice hot Cuppa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New research suggests that when someone experiences physical warmth, they develop increased feelings of interpersonal warmth – and it all happens without them even knowing.<\/p>\n

Tests by researchers at Yale University and the University of Colorado at Boulder showed that when given a hot cup to hold, a subject would judge another person to have a ‘warmer’ personality. In another test, application of a thermal pad resulted in the person tending to choose a gift for a friend rather than themselves.<\/p>\n

The key to this behaviour is the discovery that a part of the brain, the insular cortex<\/a>, looks after both the physical and psychological versions <\/sup>of warmth information, with feelings like trust, empathy, guilt and embarrassment also implicated.<\/p>\n

So there you go – yet more evidence that we are completely out of control of ourselves. Ho Hum…..<\/p>\n

P.S. Only use a Los Alamos mug if you are looking for that ‘extra warmth’.<\/p>\n

More info. in Science<\/em> Vol.322.No5901.pp.606-607<\/p>\n