Preference for Touch and its Relationship to Other Personality Characteristics

1. Preference for Touch and its Relationship to Other Personality Characteristics Michael Draper Annamarie Elmer Hanover College

2. Background • Personal touch defined • Physical contact between two people that is non-erotic by nature and is not out of the realm of everyday experience

3. 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 experienceplays important role in physical, emotional, and intellectual development

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. Scale Development • Started with 50 questions • Factor analysis • Sorted by factor loading and took top 10 • Reliability α = .916

10. Main Study: MethodParticipants • Online Study • N = 144 • Dropped 15 • N = 129 • Males – 32 • Predominately Caucasian (85%) • Age: 18 - 60 • Mean = 25.42

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. Main Study: Procedure • Informed consent • Demographics questions • 10 question Touch Scale • 30 question Empathy Scale • 10 question Big 5 Scale • Debriefing form

15. Empathy Score Touch Score r(127)= .303, p < .01

16. Results

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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.

22. Future Directions • Even distribution of males to females • Test validity of our touch scale • Experimental environment • Develop a scale that separates between “touch-giving” and “touch-receiving”

23. Questions?