Temperature as a ground for social proximity

Literature in interpersonal relations has described the sense of intimacy towards others in terms of physical closeness and warmth. Research suggests that these descriptions should be taken literally. Past work (IJzerman & Semin, 2009) revealed that temperature alterations affect the construal of social relations. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) suggest that such findings are unidirectional. However, recent research indicates that the recollection of social exclusion induces perceptions of lower temperature (Zhong & Leonardelli, 2008). In this work, we elaborate on these findings to provide new insights into processes central to interpersonal relations. In the current report, we hypothesized and found that a) actual physically induced experiences of proximity induce perceptions of higher temperature. Moreover, we show that b) verbally induced social proximity. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.