michael draper annamarie elmer hanover college. personal touch defined physical contact between...
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PREFERENCE FOR TOUCH AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO
OTHER PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS
Michael DraperAnnamarie ElmerHanover College
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Background
Personal touch definedPhysical contact between two
people that is non-erotic by nature and is not out of the realm of everyday experience
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Touch and Development
Harlow, 1958: Contact comfort Infant monkeys prefer the company of the cloth
“mother” than the wire “mother” who provided it with food.
Orphanages: lack of physical and emotional attachment causes mental handicaps
Montagu, 1971: Tactile experience plays important role in physical, emotional, and intellectual development
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Role of Touch in Adulthood
Whitcher & Fisher, 1979: in a hospital setting, participants benefitted from
therapeutic touch
Hertenstein, Keltner, & App, 2000 Touch communicates distinct emotions
Toronto, 2001 Touch, along with empathic behavior, is an
effective tool in psychoanalysis
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Touch and Empathy
Empathy A sense of shared experience, including emotional
and physical feelings, with someone or something other than oneself
Empathy is emotional connection with another, touch is physical connection with others
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Touch and the Big Five
Big Five: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism Openness, extraversion, and agreeableness will
positively correlate with one’s preference for touch.
Neuroticism will negatively correlate No significant correlation between preference for
touch and conscientiousness.
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Hypothesis Preference for touch and empathy will be
positively correlated Preference for touch and the Big Five
characteristics of agreeableness, openness, and extraversion will be positively correlated
Preference for touch will be negatively correlated with neuroticism
There will be no correlation between preference for touch and conscientiousness
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Pilot Study: Method
Online Study Psychological Research on the Net (Krantz,
2007) Developed Preference for Touch Scale
50 scenarios Refined Study
10 scenarios
*Questionnaire included informed consent, demographics, and debriefing form
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Scale Development
Started with 50 questions Factor analysis
Sorted by factor loading and took top 10
Reliability α = .916
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Main Study: MethodParticipants
Online Study N = 144
Dropped 15
N = 129 Males – 32
Predominately Caucasian (85%)
Age: 18 - 60 Mean = 25.42
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Main Study: Touch Scale Touch
10 questions rated on a 7 point Likert Scale
Developed by the authors for the purposes of this study Holding a small child’s hand while crossing the street
Sleeping close to your best friend in bed On the first date, your date touches you on the hand
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Main Study: Empathy
• Empathy– Multi-Dimensional Emotional
Empathy Scale (Caruso & Mayer, 1999).
– 30 questions rated on a 5 point Likert scale– Ex: The suffering of others deeply
disturbs me– Certain pieces of music can really move
me
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Main Study: Big Five
Costa and McCrae, 1992 Big Five Personality Inventory
10 questions ranked on a 7 point Likert Scale Anxious, easily upset Sympathetic, warm Dependable, Self-Discliplined
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Main Study: Procedure
Informed consent Demographics questions 10 question Touch Scale 30 question Empathy Scale 10 question Big 5 Scale Debriefing form
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r(127) = .303, p < .01
Em
path
y S
core
Touch Score
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Results
Trait 1 Trait 2 r p- value
Agreeableness Empathy r = 0.436 p = .01
Agreeableness
Touch r = 0.381 p = .01
Conscientiousness
Openness r = 0.446 p = .01
Empathy Touch r = 0.303 p = .01
Extraversion Empathy r = 0.377 p = .01
Openness Touch r = 0.186 p = .05
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Regression Results
Empathy is a significant predictor of preference for touch b = 0.32, p < 0.01
Gender is not a significant predictor.
Ran regression using gender and empathy as predictors of preference for touch
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Agreeableness is a significant predictor of preference for touch b = 0.395 , p <0.01
Gender is not a significant predictor
Ran regression using gender and agreeableness as predictors of preference for touch
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Regression Results (con’t)
Openness is no longer a significant predictor for touch when controlling for gender
Shows that openness is a weak result overall
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Discussion
Relationship exists between touch and empathy
Regression shows that empathy and agreeableness are related to preference for touch
Neuroticism and Openness This study may not have accurately tested for
comparing either of these personality traits with touch
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Agreeableness and Touch Agreeableness: a tendency to be
compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others. Compassion can be shown by hugging An antagonistic person would not want to
touch another or be touched Agreeableness related to touch
Our results provide insight as to the relationship between preference for touch and an overall more agreeable and empathic temperament.
Montagu (1971): touch is related to a persons’ overall well-being.
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Future Directions
Even distribution of males to females
Test validity of our touch scaleExperimental environment
Develop a scale that separates between “touch-giving” and “touch-receiving”
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Questions?