Next time a customer comes to your
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Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of coffee. And when you’re doing your
holiday shopping online, make sure you’re holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical sensation (感觉)
of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise
decisions-those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.
Psychologists have known that one person’s perception (感知) of another’s "warmth" is a powerful
determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either "warm" or "cold" is a primary consideration,
even trumping evidence that a "cold" person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early
childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies’ conceptual sense of the world around them is shaped
by physical sensations, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in
1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth "mother" rather than one made of wire, even
when the wire "mother" carried a food bottle. Harlow’s work and later studies have led psychologists to
stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults
with normal social skills.
Feelings of "warmth" and "coldness" in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide
study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as "warm" or "cold" is common to many cultures,
and studies have found those perceptions influence judgment in dozens of countries.
To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh conducted an experiment
which involved 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study’s hypotheses (假
设), handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out
a short information form: The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the
personality of "Person A" based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink
regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink. "We are grounded in our physical
experiences even when we think abstractly," says Bargh.
1. According to Paragraph 1, a person’s emotion may be affected by _____.
A. the visitors to his office
B. the psychology lessons he has
C. his physical feeling of coldness
D. the things he has bought online
2. The author mentions Harlow’s experiment to show that _____.
A. adults should develop social skills
B. babies need warm physical contact
C. caregivers should be healthy adults
D. monkeys have social relationships
3. In Bargh’s experiment, the students were asked to _____.
A. evaluate someone’s personality
B. write down their hypotheses
C. fill out a personal information form
D. hold coffee and cold drink alternatively
4. We can infer from the passage that _____.
A. abstract thinking does not come from physical experiences
B. feelings of warmth and coldness are studied worldwide
C. physical temperature affects how we see others
D. capable persons are often cold to others
5.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Drinking for Better Social Relationships.
B. Experiments of Personality Evaluation.
C. Developing Better Drinking Habits.
D. Physical Sensations and Emotions.
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