Physical and social warmth: Warmer daily body temperature is associated with greater feelings of social connection.

Growing evidence suggests that physical warmth and social warmth-feeling socially connected to others-are linked. In particular, thermoregulatory systems that maintain a relatively warm internal body temperature may also support feelings of social connection. However, it is unknown whether and how feelings of physical and social warmth fluctuate together across time in daily life. To this end, the current study examined tympanic temperature, a measure of internal body temperature, and feelings of social connection assessed multiple times a day over 1 week. Consistent with hypotheses, moment-to-moment changes in tympanic temperature covaried with feelings of social connection across assessments. Thus, warmer body temperatures, in the nonfebrile range, were associated with greater feelings of social connection, and cooler body temperatures were associated with lower feelings of social connection. These findings provide further evidence for the link between physical and social warmth and contribute to an understanding of the dynamic fluctuation of affective experience across time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).