Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
Emotion. 2012 Feb;12(1):154-62. doi: 10.1037/a0023527. Epub 2011 May 23.
Classic and contemporary research on person perception has demonstrated the paramount importance of interpersonal warmth. Recent research on embodied cognition has shown that feelings of social warmth or coldness can be induced by experiences of physical warmth or coldness, and vice versa. Here we show that people tend to self-regulate their feelings of social warmth through applications of physical warmth, apparently without explicit awareness of doing so. In Study 1, higher scores on a measure of chronic loneliness (social coldness) were associated with an increased tendency to take warm baths or showers. In Study 2, a physical coldness manipulation significantly increased feelings of loneliness. In Study 3, needs for social affiliation and for emotion regulation, triggered by recall of a past rejection experience, were subsequently eliminated by an interpolated physical warmth experience. Study 4 provided evidence that people are not explicitly aware of the relationship between physical and social warmth (coldness), as they do not consider a target person who often bathes to be any lonelier than one who does not, with all else being equal. Together, these findings suggest that physical and social warmth are to some extent substitutable in daily life and that this substitution reflects an unconscious self-regulatory mechanism.
经典和当代的人际知觉研究表明，人际温暖至关重要。最近关于具身认知的研究表明，身体的温暖或寒冷会引发社交的温暖或寒冷感，反之亦然。在这里，我们表明人们倾向于通过应用身体温暖来自我调节社交温暖感，显然他们没有意识到这一点。在研究 1 中，衡量慢性孤独（社交冷漠）的得分越高，就越倾向于洗热水澡或热水澡。在研究 2 中，身体寒冷的操作显著增加了孤独感。在研究 3 中，通过回忆过去的拒绝经历引发的社交联系和情绪调节的需求，随后通过插入的身体温暖体验得到了消除。研究 4 提供了证据表明，人们并没有明确意识到身体和社交温暖（寒冷）之间的关系，因为他们不会认为经常洗澡的目标人物比不经常洗澡的人更孤独，其他条件相同。总的来说，这些发现表明，身体和社交温暖在日常生活中在某种程度上是可以替代的，这种替代反映了一种无意识的自我调节机制。
