Hi, it's Sam here.
Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday.
So I knew I wanted to study psychology pretty early in life.
I love that the field of psychology is constantly evolving.
and new branches emerge often.
One field that I read about recently is called embodied cognition.
And this field looks at the ways in which our physical senses, our sight, smell,
taste, sound, and touch, subconsciously influence our behavior, our emotions, and our decisions.
By becoming aware of how our sensory perception affects behavior,
we can harness their influence to improve our lives and the lives of others.
I'd like to highlight a few experiments that point out some interesting interactions between our perception and our behavior.
In one experiment,
researchers looked at how a participant's generosity was affected by holding hot or cold objects.
They told the participants that they wanted them to review a therapeutic pad that was either hot or cold.
After they reviewed the product, they then asked them to choose a reward.
They could either choose a refreshment for themselves, or a gift card for a friend.
Among the warm pad reviewers, about half chose the gift card for a friend.
Only 25% of cold pad reviewers did the same.
And there are many other experiments that have shown that simply holding warm objects,
like a warm cup of coffee, makes us more generous and willing to cooperate.