A new research has found that merely holding a hot coffee cup leads a person to see others as more generous and caring. Researchers also discovered that warm hands make people more inclined to give than to receive.

Scientists recruited 41 college students for what they thought was personality research. 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.

Those 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. 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.

In the second study, students briefly hold one of those heat or ice pads sold in drugstores for pain, allegedly as part of product-testing. 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.

Students who held the hot pad were more likely to choose a reward for a friend, while those who held the ice pad were more likely to choose a reward for themselves.

So, do you want a hot cup of coffee or iced coffee?

(Via NEWS.scotsman.com)

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