Touch Flashcards

1
Q

What is touch?

A

any body to body contact

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2
Q

scientific experiment about touch

A
  • monkey went to the cloth mother rather than the mother with the milk
  • contact = soothing
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3
Q

messages conveyed by touch (7)

A
  • Greeting
  • Hostility
  • Reassurance
  • Instruction
  • Liking
  • Power
  • Sexuality
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4
Q

The Meaning of Touch is Affected By what?

A
  • 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
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5
Q

Heslin’s Taxonomy of Touch

Five Situations/Relations Involving Touch

A

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

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6
Q

functional/professional

A
  • Touch treats the decoder (the touchee) as an object
  • Preforming a professional function on you
  • The least intimate
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7
Q

social/polite

A

• Usually do in greetings, to greet other people
o High-five
o Shake hands

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8
Q

friendship/warmth

A

• 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)

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9
Q

love/intimacy

A
  • People in a romantic relationship
  • People more inclined to enact in private
  • Could also be a parent holding a small child
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10
Q

sexual arousal

A

self explanatory

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11
Q

Culture and Touch

A
  • Contact vs. noncontact cultures
  • Arabs > Americans
  • Costa Ricans > Americans
  • Italian & Greek > British, Dutch, French
  • Different meanings in different cultures (e.g. same sex touch)
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12
Q

sex differences

A

A. Intimate Touch

• Gerarard’s golden standard touch chart

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13
Q

Reactions to intimate touch 2 studies (1975/1976)

A
  • 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
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14
Q

Sex Difference and Marital Status, Controlling for Age

A
  • 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
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15
Q

M  F vs. F  M

A
  • 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
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16
Q

Relational Stage and Touch

A
  • 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
17
Q

M-F Differences in Touch in Sports

A
  • 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
18
Q

personality and touch: need for touch

A

• “need for touch” = preference for extraction and utilization of information obtained through the haptic system

19
Q

two dimensions of need for touch

A

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

20
Q

examples of measurement types for need for touch

A

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

21
Q

Extraverts are activated by touch

A
  • 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
22
Q

decoding: the effects of touch on others

A
  • 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
23
Q

purchasing and spending

A
  • 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
24
Q

Touch and psychological well-being (2013)

A
  • 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
25
Q

mirror neurons for touch?

A
  • 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
26
Q

perceptions of touchers: a person who initiates touch is seen as having: (3)

A
  • the status that gives permission to touch
  • the courage and initiative to exercise that status
  • a warm personality (i.e. friendly)
27
Q

impressions of people who touch important

A
  • 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
28
Q

positive evaluation of touchers

A
  • 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
29
Q

perceptions of touch from family members

A
  • 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
30
Q

reactions to touch

A

-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

31
Q

interactive aspects of touch (5)

A
  • 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)
32
Q

touch and maternal depression (2004)

A
  • 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
33
Q

touch and relationship development (encoding)

A
  • 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
34
Q

what are TIE signs?

A
  • 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