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
mirror neurons for touch?
- confederate touch the hand of participants
- participants watch the confederate touch her own hand
- magnetoencephalography
- same part of brain is activated when being touched or observing others being touched
perceptions of touchers: a person who initiates touch is seen as having: (3)
- the status that gives permission to touch
- the courage and initiative to exercise that status
- a warm personality (i.e. friendly)
impressions of people who touch important
- librarians touched/didn’t touch patrons checking out books
- palm of hand
- approached to fill out survey
- subjects who were touched rated clerk more favorably than those who were not touched
- only 57% of the touched subjects noticed the touch
positive evaluation of touchers
- teachers verbally describe to students how to take pulse
- or actually showed them by touching their wrist
- cover story: heart rate important factor in learning
- watch video of same teacher giving a lecture
- students touched by the teacher in the video gave her higher ratings (M=4.11) than those in the no touch condition (M=3.85) on 1-5 scale
perceptions of touch from family members
- survey 204 adults
- rate appropriateness of different parent-child touches (e.g. sit on lap, quick kiss on lips, give child bath)
- very clear norms emerged
- higher approval for mother vs. father for lap sitting, kiss, and bathing
- mothers are judged to have more freedom to touch their kids
reactions to touch
-variation in reactions to touch is best explained by the degree of congruence between the intimacy of the touch and the intimacy of the relationship
interactive aspects of touch (5)
- decreased arousal (1972)
- growth and development: brain development (1996) and weight gain (1986)
- pain reduction (1997): GATE THEORY-nerves sense pain, pain gate can be shut down by pressure or cold (2006)- ex: squeeze hand
- attentiveness: autistic children (1996); ADD children: massaged had higher attentiveness
- improved mood: adolescent psychiatric patients (bulimia)>massage>better mood (Tiffany Field)
touch and maternal depression (2004)
- during 5 minute play period depressed mothers touch their infants in a more controlling, restraining way
- infants of depressed mothers engage in more self-touching
- infant self-touching is a self-comforting behavior to compensate for lack of positive touch from mother
touch and relationship development (encoding)
- 154 opp. sex couples waiting in line at movie or zoo
- touch recorded on body charts
- couples then approached to fill out survey
- hand to hand: 33% initial stage, 61% intermediate, 35% stable
- touch to waist: 8% initial, 20% intermediate, 3% stable
what are TIE signs?
- a way to say I’m taken ex: wedding ring, for public consumption, intermediate stage may be a tie sign
- stable > don’t need to do that anymore-you know where you’re at who cares if everyone else knows what they think
