Words of Warmth - Trust and Sociability Norms for over 26k English Words

Oct 22, 2026

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Warmth (W) and competence (C) are central dimensions used in social judgment, affecting perception, emotion regulation, and outcomes such as hiring and task allocation. Recent research shows warmth splits into two components: Trust (T) and Sociability (S). This work presents Words of Warmth, a large-scale repository of manually derived word-warmth, word-trust, and word-sociability associations covering over 26k English words. The associations are highly reliable, support studies of children’s acquisition of WCTS words with age, and enable bias and stereotype research via case studies.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1 Introduction

Warmth and competence as social cognition dimensions

Stereotype content model and quadrants

Two-factor warmth: trust and sociability

Perceiving W and C through language and social data

Words of Warmth: Trust and Sociability Norms for over 26k English Words SaifM. Mohammad National Research Council Canada [saif.mohammad@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca](saif.mohammad@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca) Abstract Social psychologists have shown that Warmth (W) and Competence (C) are the primary dimensions along which we assess other people and groups. These dimensions impact various aspects of our lives from social competence and emotion regulation to success in the work place and how we view the world. More recent work has started to explore how these dimensions develop, why they have developed, and what they constitute. Of particular note, is the finding that warmth has two distinct components: Trust (T) and Sociability (S) . In this work, we introduce Words of Warmth, the first large-scale repository of manually derived word–warmth (as well as word–trust and word–sociability) associations for over 26k English words. We show that the associations are highly reliable. We use the lexicons to study the rate at which children acquire WCTS words with age. Finally, we show that the lexicon enables a wide variety of bias and stereotype research through case studies on various target entities. Words of Warmth is freely available at: [http://saifmohammad.com/warmth.html](http://saifmohammad.com/warmth.html) 1 Introduction Who goes there: friend or foe? This is a question human beings have asked from the earliest of times to the present day. A large body of social psychology research has shown that warmth (W) (friendliness, trustworthiness, and sociability) and competence (C) (ability, power, dominance, and assertiveness) are core dimensions of social cognition and stereotypes (Fiske et al., 2002 ; Bodenhausen et al., 2012 ; Fiske, 2018 ; Abele et al., 2016 ; Koch et al., 2024) . That is, human beings quickly and subconsciously judge (assess) other people, groups of people, and even their own selves along the dimensions of warmth and competence—likely because of evolutionary pressures (MacDonald, 1992 ; Eisenbruch and Krasnow, 2022) . Assessing W and C was central to early human survival (e.g., to anticipate whether someone will help them build useful things or whether they might steal their resources) . The dimensions of W and C have been shown to have substantial implications on a wide variety of facets, including: interpersonal status (Swencionis et al., 2017), social class (Durante and Fiske, 2017), self-beliefs (Wojciszke et al., 2009), political perception (Fiske et al., 2014), child development (Roussos and Dunham, 2016), cultural analyses (Fiske and Durante, 2016), as well as professional and organizational outcomes, such as hiring, employee evaluation, and allocation of tasks and resources (Cuddy et al., 2011) . W and C are considered to be orthogonal and together they create four quadrants: high W and high C, low W and high C, low W and low C, high W and low C. The Stereotype Content Model (Fiskeet al., 2002) argues that how we perceive others is influenced by whether they are considered to be members of the ingroup (the same country, political affiliation, language, etc.) or outgroup (a different country, political affiliation, language, etc.) . Members of the ingroup are generally considered to be high W and high C, whereas members of the outgroup tend to be perceived consistent with the other quadrants. For example, it has been shown that the stereotypical view towards members of one’s own social class is that they are high W and C, whereas the poor and homeless are perceived as low W (cold) and low C (incompetent), the elderly are perceived as high W and low C, and accountants and business people are perceived as low Wand high C (Fiske, 2018) . These perceptions and stereotypes (influenced by ingroup and outgroup memberships) evoke different emotions and behaviour. For example, a positive event associated with someone in our ingroup (considered warm and competent) evokes pride, whereas a positive event associated

FAQs

What are the primary dimensions of social judgment discussed in the document?

The document explains that warmth (W) and competence (C) are the main dimensions people use to assess others and social groups.

How does the work refine the concept of warmth?

Warmth is modeled as two distinct components: Trust (T) and Sociability (S), which together form warmth-related constructs used throughout the paper.

What is Words of Warmth and what does it provide?

Words of Warmth is a large-scale repository containing manually derived associations between words and warmth, trust, and sociability for over 26k English words, with high reliability.

Oct 22, 2026

Upload by Asher