Physical Wealth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth

Williams and Bargh (2008) in their article “Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth” conducted experiments that provided support for theory of the linking relationship between physical warmth and mental warmth. The findings showed that tactile experience of warmth activates the feelings of interpersonal warmth and thus influencing people’s judgment and behaviors toward other people without even noticing the influences themselves. The article provided sound explanations for the experiment findings. Seminal attachment theorist Bowley suggested that infants are born with an urgent need of direct physical contact with their caregivers. This need even comes before the need for food and drink. Therefore, the closeness with caregiver is a very important element for physical and mental development. Because of this, there should be a close association between the physical warmth that the caregiver provides and the psychological warmth that one receives. This theory has broad implications on understanding the attachment theory and human mental states. The experiment shows that physical warmth, even not coming from
To discriminate between the two explanations, one can design further experiments. For example, if the evolution theory stands, then the reason why one makes less positive judgments to the others is because one feels unsafe in the environment. Therefore, after responding, the experimenter can ask the participants to hold on for 10 minutes and they can choose either to stay in the experiment room or anywhere else they would love to go but come back after 10 minutes. If one feels unsafe, even unconsciously, he or she would have higher probabilities of leaving the room and then come back than those who feel safe. However, the attachment theory should not influence the participants’ preferences of staying and leaving. This little experiment can tell between the two