Mark Wieczorek

File this one under “even I didn’t fully expect that.” I’m a strong believer in the power of the subconscious mind, and that people make decisions before they ever consciously consider the reasons for them.

At Yale, they had a number of students bump into the lab assistant who was holding a lot of books. The assistant asked them to hold a cup of coffee and The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

That’s pretty serious - just a small thing like that their characterization of the person changed.

Read: The Subconcious Brain - Who’s Minding the Mind? - New York Times

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