Today, it is cold, it is raining. It’s finally winter. So we talk regarding the heat, and its impact on us, with a discovery of a team of American psychologists which attests to this effect. And it had never really been studied. Details from Mathilde Fontez, editor-in-chief of the scientific magazine Epsilon.
franceinfo: Would the heat be able to really reassure us, to extinguish our fears?
Yes, it works with the fireplace, mulled wine, soup, hot water bottle… with all the clichés of winter. It also works with a simple heating bag. This is what these researchers used to carry out their tests.
They started from an observation: the central role that heat plays in the survival of mammals, of which we are a part. And a question: are there any stimuli that would automatically trigger a feeling of security in us?
Sensations that would reassure us automatically?
Yes. Because in fact, it had never really been studied. While we are well aware of the stimuli that automatically trigger a behavior of alert, defense.
The typical example is our aversion to spiders, or snakes. This atavistic fear is of little use to us today. It would be more rational to be afraid of cars. But there is nothing we can do regarding it. We inherited it, and it is written in us.
The researchers therefore wanted to test the opposite effect : are there any stimuli that are automatically recognized by us as reassuring.
And they found that heat plays this role …
It totally inhibits fear! Even if it’s just a touch on the hand. Their experiment is very simple: they put objects of different materials, including a hot object, in the hands of volunteers, and they associated them with electric shocks – yes, it’s always a bit risky to volunteer for an experiment. of psychology.
And what they observed was that despite the shocks, the hot object did not trigger any fear. While the others do. The hot object was even able to extinguish the fear of other objects.
And in fact, they noticed that this joined other studies carried out in animals, which already showed this effect of heat: it was observed for example that the baby monkeys, separated from their mother, can easily attach themselves to a plush, only if it is warm. They avoid cold lint.
Puppies have also been observed to calm their distressed barks when they are in a warm room. The heat reassures us. And it’s deeply inscribed in us, like the reaction to the spider …