If you want your date to warm up to you, a warm cup of coffee or tea might do the trick to some extent.

A recent study found a relatively strong link between the warmth of a drink such as a cup of coffee and the warm feelings in the person drinking it. The experiment conducted by a team of researchers found a strong link between physical and emotional heat.

Researchers found out that people who held a cup of hot coffee for 10 to 25 seconds warmed to a perfect stranger, while holding up an icy drink had the exact opposite effect. The volunteers involved in the study thought the people in front of them were 11% "warmer" after holding a hot drink than after holding a cold drink.

The 41 volunteers of the study were asked to hold a drink while being taken from the lobby to the laboratory. They were then asked to read about a fictional person and say how cold or warm they thought it was on a scale from 1 to 7. The conclusion was that the subjects who were holding a warm drink in their hands thought the fictional character was a warm person.

However, the warmth of the drink had no impact on how volunteers rated other personality traits.

"Our mental processes are not separate and detached from the body," said Yale University psychologist John A. Bargh.

The other study was about warmth and selfishness and the findings were also remarkable.

The 51 volunteers of this study were asked to hold heated or frozen therapeutic pads. They were told that they were helping on the evaluation of a medical product. Once they completed the feedback form, they were given the option of a drink for themselves or a voucher they could give to a friend.

Surprisingly, the volunteers who held warm pads chose the gift for a friend while those who held the cold pads chose a gift for themselves.

"When we ask whether someone is a warm person or cold person, they both have a temperature of 98.6 [Farenheit, 37 Celsius]," said psychology Professor John Bargh from Yale University.

"These terms implicitly tap into the primitive experience of what it means to be warm and cold."