PREFERENCE FOR TOUCH AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO

OTHER PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

Michael DraperAnnamarie ElmerHanover College

Background

Personal touch definedPhysical contact between two

people that is non-erotic by nature and is not out of the realm of everyday experience

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Scale Development

Started with 50 questions Factor analysis

Sorted by factor loading and took top 10

Reliability α = .916

Main Study: MethodParticipants

Online Study N = 144

Dropped 15

N = 129 Males – 32

Predominately Caucasian (85%)

Age: 18 - 60 Mean = 25.42

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

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

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

Main Study: Procedure

Informed consent Demographics questions 10 question Touch Scale 30 question Empathy Scale 10 question Big 5 Scale Debriefing form

r(127) = .303, p < .01

Em

path

y S

core

Touch Score

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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”

Questions?