“Holding a warm drink causes people to perceive others as more friendly or warm.”

The seminal peer-reviewed study by Lawrence E. Williams and John A. Bargh, published in Science (2008), demonstrated through two experiments that physical warmth (holding a hot coffee cup) primed participants to perceive a target person as having a significantly warmer personality (e.g., more generous, caring) compared to those holding a cold drink. This effect was subconscious and specific to warmth-related traits, with no differences on unrelated traits.

In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a “warmer” personality (generous, caring); in study 2, participants holding a hot (versus cold) therapeutic pad were more likely to choose a gift for a friend instead of for themselves. Thus, a brief warm or cold physical experience influenced participants' subsequent interpersonal judgments of a target person... Consistent with this prediction, participants primed with physical warmth were more likely to choose the gift for a friend (54%) than for themselves (46%).

Participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a “warmer” personality (generous, caring); ... those primed with physical warmth were more likely to choose the gift for a friend (54%) than the gift for themselves (46%). In summary, experiences of physical temperature per se affect one’s impressions of and prosocial behavior toward other people.

In a paper published in the Oct. 24 issue of Science, Williams details a study he conducted with Yale University's John A. Bargh that shows a link between the way unsuspecting subjects rated a hypothetical person's personality and whether or not they had held a warm or cold beverage just prior to the test. People who had briefly held the hot coffee cup perceived the target person as being significantly 'warmer' than did those who had briefly held the cup of iced coffee.

We hypothesized that experiences of physical warmth (or coldness) would increase feelings of interpersonal warmth (or coldness), without the person's awareness. In study 1, participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a “warmer” personality.

In the October 24, 2008 issue of the journal Science, Yale University psychologists show that people judged others to be more generous and caring if they had just held a warm cup of coffee and less so if they had held an iced coffee. In a second study, they showed people are more likely to give something to others if they had just held something warm and more likely take something for themselves if they held something cold.

A study conducted with 143 participants found that warm deep pressure increased feelings of social connection compared to warm light pressure and neutral deep pressure, suggesting that sensory information contributes to social connection.

Holding a warm cup of coffee was enough to make people think strangers were more welcoming and trustworthy, while a cold drink had the opposite effect, a study found. The warmth of a drink also influenced whether people were more likely to be selfish or give to others, researchers report in the journal Science.

Researchers have found that when people hold a hot drink for even a short amount of time, they are more likely to judge others as having a 'warm' character. The insula, or insular cortex, of our brain is the place where we both form judgments of others and where our body’s homeostasis is regulated. Thus, as we hold hot beverages, our interpersonal experiences such as compassion, trust, generosity, and empathy are positively influenced.

Williams and Bargh (2008) reported that holding a hot cup of coffee caused participants to judge a person's personality as warmer... These experiments featured large effects (r =.28 and.31), small sample sizes (41 and 53 participants), and barely statistically significant results.

Those who held the warm beverage rated the individual as significantly more “interpersonally warm” compared to those who held the cold beverage (Williams and Bargh 2008). However, Chabris et al. (2019) attempted to replicate the findings of Williams and Bargh (2008) using more rigorous methodology... and found no evidence that holding a hot or cold object influenced participants' judgments or generosity.

The Williams and Bargh (2008) coffee study is one data point among many that bear on this question. Since its publication there has been a surge of further research on the association between physical and social warmth, especially in neuroscience and medical science. Chabris et al.'s (2019) findings demand careful consideration... we sit- uate Chabris et al.'s (2019) findings in the broader literature by providing a summary of the range of evidence bearing on the warmth priming effect, and offer some thoughts as to why Chabris et al.'s (2019) findings diverged from those of Williams and Bargh (2008).

Exploring the metaphorical links between physical and social temperature... researchers found that participants perceive others as ''warmer'' after they held a warm rather than cold cup of coffee (Williams & Bargh, 2008b; see also Ijzerman & Semin, 2010) and experience a room as physically colder after having been socially rejected (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008). Despite a long tradition of compatible theorizing, embodiment has only recently developed into a distinct theoretical approach in social psychology.

We ran two experiments and one we asked participants to hold either a warm beverage or a cold beverage on their way to the lab and then once they got to the lab they were asked to evaluate a stranger's personality um and what we found was that the people who held the warm beverage viewed the stranger as being a warmer person warmer in terms of being more generous more sociable um better natured compared to people who help the cold beverage.

Accumulating data suggest that the perception of physical warmth is connected to social warmth... It has been shown that the exposure to hot objects was associated with a warmer disposition and selecting a present for a friend.