Touch Flashcards
What is touch?
any body to body contact
scientific experiment about touch
- monkey went to the cloth mother rather than the mother with the milk
- contact = soothing
messages conveyed by touch (7)
- Greeting
- Hostility
- Reassurance
- Instruction
- Liking
- Power
- Sexuality
The Meaning of Touch is Affected By what?
- What part of the body is touched
- What part of the other person’s body touched the self
- How long the touch lasts
- How much pressure is used
- Whether there is movement after contact has been made
- Whether anyone else is present
- If others are present, who they are
- The situation
- The relationship between the persons involved
Heslin’s Taxonomy of Touch
Five Situations/Relations Involving Touch
1) Functional/professional
• Touch treats the decoder (the touchee) as an object
• Preforming a professional function on you
• The least intimate
2) Social/polite
• Usually do in greetings, to greet other people
o High-five
o Shake hands
3) Friendship/warmth
• Want to convey their friendship and their liking
• Differences between sexes for how they use this/portray this
• Issues of context
o More likely in social situations (if alone, may be confused with sexual tension)
4) love/intimacy
• People in a romantic relationship
• People more inclined to enact in private
• Could also be a parent holding a small child
5) sexual arousal
functional/professional
- Touch treats the decoder (the touchee) as an object
- Preforming a professional function on you
- The least intimate
social/polite
• Usually do in greetings, to greet other people
o High-five
o Shake hands
friendship/warmth
• Want to convey their friendship and their liking
• Differences between sexes for how they use this/portray this
• Issues of context
o More likely in social situations (if alone, may be confused with sexual tension)
love/intimacy
- People in a romantic relationship
- People more inclined to enact in private
- Could also be a parent holding a small child
sexual arousal
self explanatory
Culture and Touch
- Contact vs. noncontact cultures
- Arabs > Americans
- Costa Ricans > Americans
- Italian & Greek > British, Dutch, French
- Different meanings in different cultures (e.g. same sex touch)
sex differences
A. Intimate Touch
• Gerarard’s golden standard touch chart
Reactions to intimate touch 2 studies (1975/1976)
- Nguyen et al. (1975)
- Men and women agree on what kind of touch signifies sexual desire
- They differ in their reactions
- Men: sexual touch (+)
- Women: sexual touch (-)
- Presumably not married
- Nguyen et al. (1976)
- The relationship btw sexual touch and men’s (+) reactions was very weak
- Women: sexual touch (+)
- This sample was married
Sex Difference and Marital Status, Controlling for Age
- 305 adults aged 18-69
- survey measure of reactions to touch to different body regions from an intimate partner
- touch to nonintimate body regions: men’s reactions = positive than women’s
- touch to intimate body regions: men’s reactions more positive than women’s
- unmarried men responded more positively to intimate touch than married men did
- pattern holds even after statistically controlling for age
M F vs. F M
- Observation of 4500 dyads in public
- M F = M M touch
- M initiate more touches but F reciprocate so M = F
- F may touch less earlier and more later in relationship development
Relational Stage and Touch
- Men initiate more touch in casual romantic relationships
- Women initiate more touch in married relationships
- In young (< 20 years) couples, men initiate more touch
- In older couples (20s, 30s, 40s) women initiate more touch and men touched rarely
M-F Differences in Touch in Sports
- College softball & baseball teams observed
- Males performed more hand other body part touch (e.g. butt slap, head shake)
- Females performed more hand hand touches (e.g. low five, hand slap, hand pile, potato fists, glove tap, etc.)
- Females performed more intimate touch (e.g. team hug)
- M: touch mostly after (+) events
- F: touch after both (-) and (+) game events
personality and touch: need for touch
• “need for touch” = preference for extraction and utilization of information obtained through the haptic system
two dimensions of need for touch
o INSTRUMENTAL: outcome-directed issues associated with a purchasing goal
o AUTOTELIC: touch as an end in and of itself; hedonic-oriented response seeking fun, arousal, sensory stimulation, and enjoyment
examples of measurement types for need for touch
o (I) The only way to make sure a product is worth buying is to actually touch it
o (I) I place more trust in products that can be touched before purchase
o (A) I like to touch products even if I have no intention of buying them
o (A) Touching products can be fun
instrumental need for touch is negatively associated with making purchases over the internet or by phone from a catalog
autotelic need for touch is positively associated with impulse buying
Extraverts are activated by touch
- personality inventory
- mechanical tactile stimulation to the index finger and 5th finger of subjects
- extraversion was positively correlated with brain activation in the somatosensory cortex
- especially true for touch to Left hand (activated R hemisphere)
- R hemisphere processes social information
decoding: the effects of touch on others
- In the right setting, it can make people feel positive about the toucher
- it can help the recipient self-disclose and talk about him/herself
- people comply with requests more when lightly touched
purchasing and spending
- cocktail waitress touched near shoulder of patron for 3-4 sec (or not)
- people touched ordered more drinks during stay
- servers touch restaurant patrons on shoulder (or not)
- people who were touched left larger tips
Touch and psychological well-being (2013)
- dating couples
- electronic diary 4x a day for 1 week on their touch
- touched from partner led to better mood in decoder
- touch led to better mood (act of touching-encoder-better mood)
- receiving touch during 1 week led to better psychological well-being 6 months later on
