Feeling unloved? Take out your phone and dial 5683.

Have you ever noticed that performing certain behaviors sometimes makes you feel specific emotions? For example, imagine sitting across a table with someone who was sitting in a significantly smaller and shorter chair than yours – sitting in a larger chair might actually make you feel more powerful. If you were then asked to switch chairs, you might suddenly feel more subordinate. Researchers from the University of Würzburg in Germany explored this phenomenon in another way, and found that simply dialing certain strings of numbers can induce positive and negative emotions.

Sascha Topolinski and his students studied whether or not merely typing a specific combination of numbers on a cell phone might change your emotional state. In order to do this, Topolinski devised a set of numeric sequences which correspond to positive and negative words. Participants (who were told they were part of a study on ergonomics) were then given a cell phone which had stickers over the buttons so they were able to see numbers, but were not able to see letters.  After typing each numeric sequence, they were asked how pleasant the action of dialing the numbers was.

On average, participants preferred dialing numbers relating to positive words. Interestingly, each sequence only included numeric-word pairings that didn’t necessitate dialing the same number twice in a row. Therefore, it could be ruled out that people may be used to, for example, hitting the number 5 three times to reach the letter, “L” and so forth. Simply dialing 5683 could make participants feel like what they were doing was a pleasant activity.

Topolinski points to a psychological concept called, “embodiment”, which proposes that particular movements in your body can make you think of a related idea, to explain his findings.  In an interview with Science Daily about this study, he suggests that this study opens a new door in embodiment research. He explains that in essence, participants were all doing the same behavior – typing numbers on a phone. However, because of the different pathways in typing each sequence, he was able to induce specific positive and negative feelings.

So the next time you begin to feel a little blue, take out your phone and dial away! Better yet, change your phone number so people who call you having a feeling of being loved before you even pick up the phone.

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Further Reading:

Beber, J. (2011). To text or not to text? Dating and your mobile phone.

Topolinski, S. (2011). I 5683 You: Dialing Phone Numbers on Cell Phones Activates Key-Concordant Concepts Psychological Science, 22 (3), 355-360 DOI: 10.1177/0956797610397668