10 Lab-Tested Ways to Bring Out the Best in People
The best of human nature—generosity, compassion, cooperation, selflessness—surfaced in these studies. Of course, the goal is to draw out a person's good side, not exploit it. Use your powers wisely.
By Jena Pincott
Discovery #2: Warm the Cockles of Their Insulas
If you want people to act more warmly, offer them a hot cup of coffee and make them hold it for a minute or two. Subconsciously, temperature affects our perceptions—and actions—find studies by Yale University psychologist John Bargh, PhD, and his colleagues.
In one, volunteers who held a warm-pack before playing a game trusted in and invested more money with an anonymous partner than did those whose hands were chilled. It's a quirk of the insula, a prune-sized part of the brain that forms cross-associations between physical and psychological warmth. When you heat people up—even their hands, briefly—they perceive you and everyone else as warmer, and they respond in kind.
In one, volunteers who held a warm-pack before playing a game trusted in and invested more money with an anonymous partner than did those whose hands were chilled. It's a quirk of the insula, a prune-sized part of the brain that forms cross-associations between physical and psychological warmth. When you heat people up—even their hands, briefly—they perceive you and everyone else as warmer, and they respond in kind.
Published 03/08/2013