Hot Coffee Goggles

When you have a warm beverage in your hand, people magically become nicer. In a test conducted by Lawrence Williams, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, subjects were given either a hot or cold cup of coffee, and were “then given a brief fictional description of ‘Person A’ and asked to rate 10 personality traits based on the summary. The hot brew made them more likely to rate people as ‘generous’ and ‘caring.’” According to Williams, the “effect is quite meaningful and astonishing.” Looks like there’s some upside to global warming: The people we’ll be fighting for scarce resources won’t seem quite as evil.