Why are coffee shops a popular dating spot? Because having a hot cup of coffee in your hand makes you see others in a more positive light, which helps spawn new relationships and maintain old ones – does that sound like crazy talk? But Dr. Brent, who has been doing research on relationships, will use the following article to show you that it might not be crazy!
Embodiedcognition, also known as embodiment, is an emerging field of study in psychology. Embodied cognition theory focuses on the strong connection between physiological experiences and mental states. Physiological experiences “activate” psychological feelings and vice versa. In short, people smile when they are happy, and if they smile, they tend to become happier.
Smile and be more positive
Don’t believe me? Try this: hold a pen in your teeth and don’t let your lips touch the pen. Ever notice how this looks like a smile (or at least looks like a smile). The key is that this is using the very same facial muscles that are mobilized when smiling. However, “forcing” oneself to smile tends to put people in a more “positive” state of mind, although sometimes they don’t realize it. Under this possibility, subjects who held the pen with their lips (which prevented the “smiling muscle” from contracting) made a more positive evaluation of the same cartoon than those who held the pen with their teeth, thus allowing the “smiling muscle” to contract.
It’s easy to think that people tend to nod when they agree with someone and shake their heads when they disagree, although sometimes this tendency is not readily apparent. Interestingly, when hearing the same passage (e.g., raising college tuition), subjects who nodded held more positive attitudes toward the passage than those who were asked to make a head-shaking gesture.
When you want to talk about a relationship, cover it up first
This sounds cool, but what does it have to do with sexuality? The beginning of a relationship requires that two people have some level of mutual attraction. An important part of “attraction” is whether the other person feels friendly, kind, generous, and generally “warm”. Since people generally tend to label people they like as “warm” and those they dislike as “cold” (and those who look sexy as “hot”), the researchers wanted to Researchers wanted to know if the physical sensation of “warm” or “cold” affects people’s perceptions of others. Starbucks can help answer that question.
In a recent study, subjects were asked to hold a hot coffee (like a latte) or a cold coffee (like a Frappuccino), and then rate their overall impression of others. For the same person, those who held a hot coffee were more likely to rate them as “warm” in terms of interpersonal relationships than those who held a cold coffee.
This “hot and cold” effect also affects whether a person would like to give a gift to a friend or keep it for themselves. The subjects in the study were sometimes given small gifts as a reward for being “guinea pigs”. In one study, the small gift was a bottle of drink or a $1 gift certificate to an ice cream store. The subjects could choose to keep the goodies for themselves or pass them on to friends. Subjects holding a warm icy hot pad were more likely to pass the swag on to a friend than those holding a cold icy hot pad.
In another study, the researchers sat the subjects in wobbly chairs (which gave them a sense of instability). When these subjects were asked what qualities they wanted in a partner, they wanted a partner who was “stable” (trustworthy, reliable, etc.) more than those who sat in a stationary chair.
This embodied cognitive effect can actually affect people’s satisfaction with the relationship they are in. When both partners go to work in the same direction or via a similar route (e.g., driving northwest on the same road from home), they are more satisfied with their marriage. In fact, there is experimental evidence that people tend to prefer people who go in the same direction as they do in a hallway to those who go in the opposite direction as they do. Well, if you and I go in the same direction, then we obviously have a heart-to-heart.
So what’s the practical value of all this? If you want to develop a relationship with someone, you have to find a way to get Ta to walk down a loose pebbled path in the same direction with just a pen in his teeth or a hot coffee in his hand. It’s not the conventional method, but, still, it’s worth a try!