When was the last time you had to tell someone that you needed “to talk?” This question poses so many possibilities, both positive and negative. When you have a positive purpose, then there really is no reason to be anxious. But what if the talk was something that would not sit well with you and/or the other party? What if the talk was about something sensitive that might make both you and the other person uncomfortable? I have been in those situations one time too many and they were not fun at all.
The next time you have to have a talk like one of those, I suggest making sure that there are plenty of cups of coffee to go around. Why? A recent study by psychologists suggest evidence that if a person is holding a warm object in his hand, he is more likely to think kindly of the other person he is interacting with. Of course, nothing beats a warm mug of coffee!
Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale are the ones behind this study. They made use of iced coffee and hot coffee as the test materials. They then asked test subjects – the participants – to rate a person’s personality based on a set of fixed questions. They found out that the participants who held warm coffee saw the other person as “warmer.”
The bottom line is really the correlation between the temperature and the perception of another person’s “warmness.” I am not sure that they tried it with other drinks but hot coffee is good enough as a social lubricant for me!
Originally posted on October 24, 2008 @ 3:46 am