Comfortably warm: A momentary lapse of reaffiliation after exclusion

Experiencing the tactile sensation of warmth can affect cognition and behavior across a variety of domains, including affiliation, aggression, and consumer choice. Yet few investigations have provided a theoretical rationale for when and why such effects occur. Five experiments tested the hypothesis that the tactile experience of warmth can satisfy a person's acutely active desire for social affiliation. Across 5 experiments, the tactile experience of warmth (vs. control temperatures) reduced outcomes that would otherwise be aimed at restoring a person's level of social affiliation, but this effect was observed only among people who had just been excluded (not those undergoing a control procedure) and only among people low in fear of negative evaluation-those people known to experience strongly activated affiliative motives following exclusion. Findings suggest that warmth-a sensation signaling the proximity of a close relationship partner-satisfies currently active affiliative motives. More broadly, findings provide a theoretical framework for understanding ways in which effects of sensory primes depend upon the motivational state of the perceiver. (PsycINFO Database Record