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George Loewenstein on Hot and Cold Affect

Social Science Bites

CHAPTER

The Empathy Gap

When we are in an affective state, we behave very differently. The worst mistakes we make are when we're in a cold state because we just can't imagine what it feels like or how we would behave if we are in a hot state. And vice versa. I call the former cold to hot empathy gaps and the latter hot to cold empathy gaps. In that study, we asked undergraduates to answer a series of questions either when they were in an unaroused state, in acold state, or in a hot sexually aroused state.

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