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perception
Holding a warm drink makes you perceive others as kinder.
In a 2008 study by Williams and Bargh, participants holding a warm coffee cup judged a stranger as having a warmer personality than those holding iced coffee, though subsequent attempts to replicate these findings have failed.
The original finding is widely cited but lacks successful replication in larger, independent studies.
Your judgment of someone's character is being shaped by the temperature of your hands.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Williams & Bargh, 2008, Science
- What the check found
- While the study exists, the effect is not a robust scientific consensus; later, larger studies failed to replicate the finding.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.