Have you ever wondered how some women can walk around wearing very little on cold winter nights?
Well, a new study published in the British Journal of Social Psychology has confirmed why scantily clad women are less likely to feel colder than someone who dresses in actual winter gear.
Roxanne Felig, a postgraduate student in social psychology at the University of South Florida and one of the authors of a study explains the research was partially inspired by Cardi B who may have been onto something when she famously sang, “it’s cold outside but I’m still looking like a thottie — because a hoe never gets cold.”
“It seemed like what Cardi was saying was that she was too focused on how she looked and what she was wearing to feel cold,” a deadpan Felig explained via TikTok. “We wanted to test that — scientifically — and so we did. And it’s true.”
In order to test what they call “objectification theory,” the researchers surveyed women as they stood outside nightclubs on evenings when temperatures dipped down. They asked the participants to report how cold they felt, before their photos were taken and coded for the amount of skin exposure.
They also asked the women how many drinks they had consumed, as their blood alcohol levels may have affected their reaction to the cold weather.
The results revealed that women who were wearing less clothes, felt no colder than women wearing coats and pants.
“Objectification theory posits that women take an outside perspective of their body so when women are highly focused on what they look like externally it reduces the amount of cognitive resources they have available to appraise their internal states,” the study explains.
“Self-objectification, the internalisation of an observer’s appearance-based perspective of one’s body, has been theorised and demonstrated to reduce body awareness among women.”
And there you have it. I guess Cardi B was right, after all.