A new study published in the British Journal of Social Psychology has added support to female rapper Cardi B’s claim that “a hoe never gets cold.”
Apparently, the study has confirmed why scantily clad women are less likely to catch a chill than their covered-up counterparts, the New York Post reported.
The study, which was called— “When looking ‘hot’ means not feeling cold: Evidence that self-objectification inhibits feelings of being cold” — was co-authored by six scholars, including University of South Florida grad student Roxanne Felig.
According to Felig, 25, the research was partially inspired by the 29-year-old emcee’s vintage viral assertion that “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.”
To test the theory, the group of researchers questioned women as they stood outside nightclubs on evenings when temperatures chilled down into the 40s. They asked the participants to report how cold they felt, before taking their photos and coded them based on the amount of skin exposure.
The researchers also asked the women how intoxicated they felt and how many drinks they had consumed, as their blood alcohol levels may have affected their reaction to the temperature.
The findings discovered that women who were showing ample amounts of skin, dressed in crop tops and miniskirts, felt no colder than women wearing coats and pants.
Despite the puzzling results, Felig told The Post that the findings backed up her “When looking ‘hot’ means not feeling cold” study theory.
“There has been an observed phenomenon of women being seemingly unbothered by cold temperatures despite wearing little clothing, so we conducted a field study to test it,” Felig told The Post. “Women who are highly focused on their appearance … have a diminished capacity to feel cold, regardless of how much of their body is exposed to the cold weather.”
“Objectification theory posits that when women take an outsider’s perspective of their body — when women are highly focused on how they appear externally — it reduces the amount of cognitive resources they have available to appraise their internal states.
“So, when women are in a state of objectification, they are less aware of how hungry they are, their heartbeat … They are just less able to recognize their internal states,” she added.
In simpler terms, the women surveyed were so preoccupied with their appearance that they did not have the time to focus on how cold they were feeling.
Felig also told The Post: “We appreciate Cardi B’s contribution to scientific discovery and hope that she popularizes other phrases that sum up interesting psychological phenomena for us to test!”
The study is the first of its kind. Felig stressed that she disliked calling women “hoes,” and that a woman’s clothing choice were not necessarily connected to her sexual proclivities. But Cardi’s statement was a great way to start off the study.
