To discuss warmth in human relations, it is helpful to begin with a discussion of its opposite. Such relations are often described as cold, calculated, detached, aloof, and remote. Under these conditions a person can feel ill at ease, barely tolerated, rejected, disliked, unloved, and under constant negative assessment. Warm relations fortunately provide the opposite encounter. Here we find acceptance, lack of a sense of being negatively judged, a feeling of being comfortable and at ease, and a feeling of being liked and loved. The person showing warmth is nonjudgmental, egalitarian, forthcoming, and seeks to establish a friendliness that cultivates intimacy, spontaneity, and lack of guardedness. Paradoxically, under these happier circumstances much greater frankness is allowed without the counterproductive static found in cold relations. With this more agreeable relationship, influence on the behavior of others can grow even in areas of striking disagreement. Under this climate criticism is viewed as constructive, not a blunt instrument used to put one down.
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