Table of Contents
BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 453
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST453 – PASSAGE – 2
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 453
READING PASSAGE – 2
Physical Touch Affects Emotional Mood
A. Scientists have discovered that the hardness of a chair directly influences the way someone feels about another person. In an astonishing study, volunteers given wooden seats were less flexible while negotiating the price of a new car than people who sat on a padded cushion. The finding is part of an astonishing series of experiments that reveal the links between our attitudes to other people – and the texture of objects all around us.
In one experiment, people given a soft blanket to hold were less likely to judge someone as rigid or strict than those handed a hard wooden block to play with. In another experiment, people who were given heavy clipboards to hold rated job applicants as more serious than people given a lightweight board – even though both groups of job applicants were identical.
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B. The findings suggest that the behavior of everyone – from high court judges and teachers to job interviewers and politicians – is influenced by something as mundane as the seat they are using, or the feel of the pen in their hand. Researchers who carried out the experiments believe the link between touch and emotion goes right back to early childhood. Physical concepts such as roughness, hardness and warmth are among the first that infants develop – and the study suggests that these are crucial to how people eventually develop ideas about people and relationships such as understanding the meaning of a warm smile or a hard heart.
Christopher Nocera, who led the study at Harvard University said, Touch remains perhaps the most underappreciated sense in behavioral research. People often assume that exploration of new things occurs primarily through the eyes. While the power of vision is irrefutable, this is not the the whole story. Our work suggests that greetings involving touch, such as handshakes and cheek kisses, may in fact have critical influences on our social interactions in an unconscious fashion’.
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C. The researchers carried out a set of experiments on volunteers to test how objects’ weight, texture and hardness unconsciously shape judgements about other people. The results, published in the journal Science, make fascinating reading. In one experiment, 86 volunteers were invited to a lab, seated in either wooden chairs or soft seats and asked to imagine shopping for a new car at a dealer’s.
After being told the sticker price of the car they were invited to write down their first offer price and a second price, assuming the dealer rejected the first offer. Those in hard chairs were less flexible in their haggling skills and were far less willing to drop their prices during the negotiations, the researchers found.
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D. Another study asked 49 volunteers to examine a piece of soft blanket or hard block of wood before looking at a scenario set in a workplace describing a meeting between a boss and employee. The scenario was designed to be ambiguous – and included friendly conversation between the characters as well as an exchange of sharp words.
Volunteers who were given the hard block of wood to handle judged the employee to be more rigid and stricter than those who had been given a blanket to hold. In a third experiment, a similar scenario was given to volunteers after they had completed a five piece jigsaw. Half the volunteers were given a smooth puzzle while the others were given one covered with sandpaper. Again, those who were given the rough object rated the relationship between the characters as harsher and more adversarial than those given the smooth jigsaw.
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E. Even the weight of a clipboard can influence someone’s attitude, the study found. The researchers asked 54 volunteers to give their impression of a job applicant by reading their CVs. When the CVs were given to the volunteers on heavy clipboards, they were rated as far more serious than when the identical CVs were attached to flimsy, lightweight clipboards.
Dr John Bargh of Yale University, who took part in the study said, “It is behavioral priming through the seat of the pants. Our minds are deeply and organically linked to our bodies. Not only is touch an important sense for exploring the world, but it also shapes our understanding of it, reflected in the use of everyday phrases such as take the rough with the smooth’, ‘have a soft spot for someone’ or ‘a prickly situation’.
F. Past studies have shown that people judge strangers to be more generous and caring after they have held a warm cup of coffee, rather than a cold drink., “Physical experiences not only shape the foundations of our thoughts and perceptions, but influence our behavior towards others, sometimes just because we are sitting on a hard instead of a soft chair.
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Questions 15 – 22
Complete the table below. Write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
| Purpose of Test | Test Procedure | Test Findings |
| To find out how the weight of an object influences behavior | Volunteers evaluate CV on either heavy or lightweight clipboards | Volunteers with heavy clipboards rated job applicants as (15)________ about the job position. |
| To find out how the (16)__________ of an object influences behavior | Volunteers arrange a (17)_________ before reading about a conversation between two people. | Volunteers were less likely to characterize the interaction as difficult if the pieces were (18)__________. |
| To find out how the hardness of an object influences behavior | Volunteers hold hard or soft objects before watching a scene that takes place in a (19)___________. | Volunteers were more likely to view the worker as strict if they held a (20)__________. |
| Volunteers engage in mock (21)__________ over the price of a car. | Volunteers in (22)_____________ showed more movement between offers. |
Questions 23-26
Complete the sentences using the list of words and phrases A-H in the box below. Write the correct letter, A-H.
NB. You may use any letter more than once.
23. The way people view the outside world is directly affected by the physical touch oftheir ……………
24. Soft textures are thought to encourage people to demonstrate a greater degree of ………
25. Hard materials may encourage people to display feelings of ……………..
26. The sense of touch is reflected in the use of language, including common …………..
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A. Aggression
B. Experiences
C. Expressions
D. Flexibility
E. Influences
F. Interactions
G. Perceptions
H. Surroundings
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Question 27
Which is the best alternative title for the reading passage?
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C, or D.
A. Use your eyes more than your hands if you want to talk tough
B. Touch: the most important sense in human communication
C. Sit on a comfortable chair if you want a good bargain
D. A hard chair can give you a hard heart
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ANSWERS
15. MORE SERIOUS
16. TEXTURE
17. JIGSAW PUZZLE
18. SMOOTH
19. WORKPLACE
20. WOOD BLOCK
21. NEGOTIATIONS
22. SOFT SEATS
23. H
24. D
25. A
26. F
27. D
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