Warming your hands with a cup of hot coffee can change your view of the world around you.

Warming your hands with a cup of hot coffee can change your view of the world around you, US scientists have said, according to the BBC.

Warming your hands can lead to a warmer and more generous view of the world, while cold hands often lead to a lack of trust and reluctance to give, researchers write in the journal Nature.

To assess whether physical warmth makes any difference in judging a person's personality, the researchers asked a group of volunteers to hold warm coffee cups or cold drinks in both hands and then asked them to rate other people's personalities.

They found that those with warm coffee cups judged others more generously, while those with cold drinks were harsher.

In a second study, the researchers found that people with warm coffee cups were more likely to give others a gift.

Describing whether a person treats others as warm as spring or as ruthless as the autumn wind sweeps the fallen leaves often requires consideration of the person's feelings and experiences as a child, the team said.

The connection between touch and trust may be closely related to the insular part of our brain, scientists say. When we touch something hot or cold, this part of the brain becomes active. But again, if someone breaks your trust, it will have the same effect.

Dr. Barger, a professor of psychology at Yale University, is a co-author of this article. He says some people may take advantage of the link between physical warmth and emotional warmth.

The researchers say their experiment may have an impact on marketing because it shows how close the link between body and mind is.