PHYSICAL WARMTH & EMOTIONAL FACES

The Effects of Physical Warmth on Perception of Emotional Faces

The Effects of Physical Warmth on Perception of Emotional Faces

Introduction

The study is realted to effects of physical warmth on perception of emotional faces, which in particular aims to find out the perception of emotional faces with respect to genders. Moreover, the study also entails four important aspects of emotions that are very happy, happy, very sad or sad. The aspects of emotions guides in getting the perception based on physical warmth. In relation to this, classic studies interested in the aspects of interpersonal warmth show interesting findings. Harry Harlow (1958) developed an experiment in which a monkey was placed in a cage with two artificially made mothers. One of them was made of wire, but with a source of food attached to it. The other mother did not offer any food, but was made of cloth. Harlow observed that despite the fact that the wired mother offered food, the monkey often seeked for comfort in the cloth mother. This finding suggests that physical warmth is an important aspect of the development of behaviour.

Moreover, Williams and Bargh (2008) also suggest that physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. In one of their experiments, respondents were asked to hold a cup of either warm or iced coffee as a favour to a confederate of the experiment. They found that those who held the cup of warm coffee showed increased empathy when asked to rate personality traits of another person based on a written description. The study also suggests that by feeling physically warm, there is a tendency to engage in pro-social behaviour.

In addition to this, a recent study carried out by Bargh and Shalev (2012) examined how individuals regulate emotional states by changing physical temperature sensations. They concluded that feelings of loneliness may be directly associated with a tendency to take warm baths. In the similar way, individuals submitted to physically cold conditions, tend to show increased feelings of social coldness. Besides it, not only physical warmth and coldness influence ones perception and behaviour. Interesting findings were drawn by Bouhys et al (1995) when investigating how healthy individuals perceive emotional faces when induced to depressed mood. They concluded that these individuals tend to rate negatively the pictures of ambiguous faces. For that reason, this study aims to examine whether the physical warmth is an vital and essential aspect in the perception of emotional faces.

Hypothesis

Ho: Individuals who feel physically warm have no significant difference with individuals who perceive emotions more intensely.

Method

Participants

For the study of effects of physical warmth on perception of emotional faces, it can be said that total 30 respondents are selected which is divided in to 15 females and 15 males respondents. The age group of the participants are from 18 to 35 years of age. Furthermore, randomly sampling is used for the study; moreover, it is known none of the participants suffered from sensory impairments.

Apparatus/Material

A bowl with warm or cold water and a computer with a Power ...