Warmth, cold, and people's feelings

Friday, April 24, 2009

Rejection and social isolation make people physically feel cold, says an article published in Psychological Science by Canadian psychologists.

They carried out an experiment in 2 groups of people. The first group was asked to recollect an event from their real life when they were rejected, for example expelled from a club. Another group had to remember when they were accepted in a group.

Then, representatives from both groups were asked to estimate temperature in the room they were in. The first group of people, who remembered about rejection, tended to feel it colder in the room compared to the representatives of the second group.

”It is amazing. We have discovered that experiencing social isolation makes you feel cold literary. It is probably the reason why people use comparison of the temperature when describing this feeling,” one of the researches, Dr. Chen-Bo Zhong says.

In another experiment volunteers played a virtual game with a ball. Some participants were passed the ball, others were ignored.

Then, during the break, participants were suggested food in a cafe: warm coffee, crackers, coca-cola, apples and warm soup. It showed that “unpopular” players who were not passed the ball chose warm food more often than other players.

Such behavior can be explained by a feeling of cold caused by isolation, the scientists say.

The authors of the article say that it may work the other way round: real cold may strengthen the feeling of isolation. They suppose that in such way, in addition to lack of sun light, cold times promote winter depression.

Scientists recommend increasing temperature in a room when holding important meetings. They think it may improve interaction and increase understanding within a group.

What scientists miss in this interesting study is that the same effect can be achieved by autotraining or tummo meditation which are used to spread a feeling of warmth in the body. After such meditations people become less focused on their failures or solitude and more on looking for a way out and establishing new social relations.