Remember the story of the King Midas
that with the touch fingers could
to turn anything into gold? Indeed the touch of our hands
really possesses extraordinary powers since, even without transforming into
objects, we can still influence the mood of others and their
attitudes. Unfortunately, Western culture is terrified of
possibility of contagion of various infectious diseases or simply for
respect some social norms that sometimes lead to the absurd, loses every
day more and more the memory of how beneficial human contact is. Like this,
consider this article as a brief reminder of the importance at the level
psychological of the physical contact -
skin to skin.
We can start with school:
students who receive a "touch" of support (a pat on the back or on the
arm) from their professors, they tend to show more interest
in the studio and tend to volunteer much more often than
those students who do not receive this "incentive". We then proceed with
the medical field: when people go to the clinic, if the doctor
gives them an empathic touch, patients have the feeling that the visit is
they last much longer and feel much more satisfied. Likewise, the
The doctor's simple touch can affect the effectiveness of the therapy as it is
was able to prove it in the research conducted by the French University of Bretagne – Sur. A series of experiments
developed by Indiana University involved people who would
had to try to communicate a series of emotions through touch to gods
strangers who were blindfolded. People were able to communicate
eight different emotions to strangers with 70% accuracy. But one of the most interesting effects
of the human touch is that it prompts people to give back those
items they had borrowed. In this regard, during the 70s
of the last century, in Wheaton College in the USA, it was built
a curious experiment. A researcher had left a ten piece
cents in a telephone booth. When people felt a slight
touch on the arm were more likely to return the coin after having it
met. During the 80s it developed
another experiment related to the effects of human touch with which you
demonstrated how effective it is in convincing people. On this occasion
participants were asked to sign a petition. When he limited himself
to ask them to sign, only 55% of these did, while that after
having received a light touch on the arm the number of those convinced to sign
rose to 81%. This type of test was repeated several times in the following ed
the results have always been the same. People are even more
inclined to offer their help when they receive a human touch. The experiment
which proves this availability was conducted in a slightly different way, from the
since in this case the participants were not asked verbally to
offer their help. Guéguen, the principal investigator, dropped some
objects on the ground and without saying anything began to recover them; when there was not
physical touch only 63% of the people with him helped him while that after having
received a physical contact gesture as many as 90% of people offered
voluntarily their help. Obviously, in this case we could say that
the human touch generated a compromise between the seeker and the person by making yes
that she felt obliged to help him. Finally, Guéguen himself
developed another human touch study related to encounters
loving. In this case a researcher of about 20 years of age stopped
simply in the street and started asking for the phone number at
girls passing by. On some occasions and absolutely at random, he exercised
a little pressure on the arm of one of these as she asked him for the
number. As we can already imagine, those women who received the contact
physicists were more willing to give their phone number. Guéguen
he claims that this is due to the fact that women appreciate dominance
as a masculine trait, something that becomes even more evident if so
produces physical contact. It is emphasized that in all of these
experiments refers to a very subtle touch on the arm, so that the
person does not feel threatened by physical contact with a stranger. In
at the same time, we must consider that not all people respond to the same
way to the human touch (especially when this comes from a stranger) e
in some cultures this simple contact could even generate gods
contrasts. Thus, it can be said that physical touch is a tool of persuasion
powerful but at the same time it is recommended to use it with common sense.
