Welcome to the post-touch era

By now, we all know that COVID-19 brought and will continue to bring substantial changes in the way we live. We are all in the search for the ‘new normal’; for the habits we will form in this different social, cultural, and economic setting that will come to live in the coming months. And while some facets of it are still murky and no one can tell if they are here to stay, the social distancing measures are likely to keep affecting the way we interact with others, especially when it comes to touching other people.

A number of societies, the US and UK ones for example, already frown upon interpersonal touch, to avoid any allegations of wrongdoing or for other reasons. It is highly likely that in the ‘new normal’ we will be even more cautious to touching others, to say the least.

Another trend that speeds up in the current situation is the boom in online sales, especially for certain categories like food and house- and personal cleaning items. Even if it decreases compared to its current size when our access to brick and mortar stores becomes easier, it is not likely for us to go completely back to our old habits–online purchases are here to stay.

What both trends imply is that we will touch less and less people and products in the future, as both we and those around us will be mindful of touching others, and as we buy more online, we will have fewer opportunities to touch products. Touching is vital for our development as humans and our functioning in the world, so lack of tactile contact can’t be pleasant news. At the same time, there are a number of judgement biases caused by or induced by touch, which we might be better off not experiencing. What do we stand to gain and lose in a touchless world? Read on.

Fist bumps and high fives: how interpersonal touch promotes trust, cooperation and prosocial behavior

Scholars often refer to the sense of touch as the most personal sense, and with a good reason as unlike vision and audition, it cannot operate at a distance. We tend to touch more things that are close to us and we trust–our children, our partners, our parents, close friends. Interestingly, this also works in the other direction: interpersonal touch is vital for promoting cooperation and prosocial behavior.

In a fascinating real-life study, Michael Kraus and his collaborators at the University of California, Berkeley investigated how the frequency of touch between NBA players affects their performance in the field [1]. Might be difficult to believe, but early season touch between same-team players actually predicts individual and team performance later in the seasons, even when controlling for players’ salaries, as higher-paid people tend to touch others more. This effect emerges because interpersonal touch enhances team cohesion and promotes cooperation between the players. This is certainly one aspect we will lose, at least for the foreseeable future–besides looking quite odd, Erling Haaland’s one-man goal celebration in the Bundesliga in Borussia Dortmund’s game against Schalke, is also likely to be hampering teams’ cohesion.

We also know that being touched by others makes us more likely to help them. Psychologists have showed it in a variety of contexts like returning a dime to a stranger[2], helping a stranger by looking after their dog for a couple of minutes[3] or picking up dropped items[4]. In all these studies a quick touch by the arm was enough to increase the share of people who help others substantially.

By the same token, studies show that interpersonal touch increases compliance with requests. A brief touch by a research confederate increased the likelihood of people to take part in activities as varied as signing a petition[5], participating in a survey[6], sampling a product in a supermarket (where it also increased the sales of this product without actually changing its rating) [7], and accepting an employee’s recommendation for a meal[8].

Similarly, a brief incidental touch by others also changes our perceptions of them. In a seminal study in the mid-70s, Fischer and his colleagues showed that when a librarian touched the hand of a visitor, the latter evaluated the librarian significantly more favorably than if no touch occurred [9]. In a similar fashion, when briefly and unobtrusively touched by a car sellers (potential) customer evaluate them higher. [10] Perhaps it is this same mechanism that makes us tip more in bars and restaurants when a waiter or a waitress touches our arm [11].

Much of this will not be possible in a world in which people are constantly on the lookout for interpersonal touch. This is not inherently bad though, for even though we consider helping others good by most measures of goodness, compliance with requests can be a double-edged sword, especially if it can be induced by a simple touch as opposed to, say, arguments.

Less security but also less risky behavior

Related to the feelings of trust and cooperation, interpersonal touch also makes us feel more secure and safe. Psychologists have shown that touch is instrumental reducing pain and quicker recovery of hospitalized patients and is instrumental for child development. For example, “… preterm infants had lower stress (cortisol) levels after being held by their mothers. During the holding period, the cortisol levels of the mothers also decreased.” [12].

Feelings of security can also backfire though. Jonathan Levav and Jennifer J. Argo exposed participants in one of their experiments to a series of sure payoffs and risky gambles. While being instructed by a female research confederate verbally, some participants were also touched lightly on the back of their shoulder for 1 second. Levav and Argo then had a look at how likely participants were to select the risky gamble. As it turns out, the light touch increased people’s propensity to risk it significantly. Interestingly enough, a touch by a male confederate didn’t do the trick. In a subsequent task the researchers investigated how much would people invest in risky equity–a male touch didn’t have any impact; a female touch on the shoulder though led to a three-fold increase compared to a female handshake or simply a verbal instruction by a female. What drives these results? You guessed it; people reported a higher level of security when touched on the shoulder by a female assistant. So, while we yearn for security in our daily lives, and interpersonal touch is perfectly capable of delivering it, we will do well to remember that with security also comes higher risk-taking intention. Perhaps worryingly, our sense of security need not come from something related to it–as this study shows, even an unobtrusive, mild touch can activate this feeling and impact our investment decisions. In a touchless world there will be fewer opportunities to gain security when someone touches us, but so will be our propensity to take gambles.

To hold milder opinions, stop touching yourself

One has simply got to admire the intricacies of the human psyche. When I started working on this piece, I already knew that touching (vs non-touching) can have a substantial impact on our behavior, but I thought this would happen only in interpersonal touch or in consumption contexts (discussed below). What I definitely did not expect is to learn the findings from Ann Kronrod and Joshua Ackerman’s study on how strong of an impact self-touch (in the most platonic sense) can have on our opinions.

Self-touch is a widely spread ordinary action that “… occurs more often when experiencing mental conflict, such as confusion, tension, discomfort and anxiety, when lying, and when under working memory load presumably as a means toward relieving or regulating these states.” [13] (As a side note, by that account the advice not to touch oneself to prevent COVID-19 contamination would be one of the most difficult advices to follow, for when if not now we are confused, experience tension, discomfort and anxiety.)

More to the point, what Kronrod and Ackerman intuited is that self-touch actually promotes self-focus, which then leads to more extreme opinions. In one of their experiments they had participants watch two promotional videos for a college in two different conditions – one of their hands was on the computer mouse and the other was either on a small pillow, or over the other hand’s wrist. To make sure that they measure the effect correctly they randomize both the conditions and the video. It turned out that indeed, the videos were rated more positively when participants were touching their hand, and that was due to their higher self-focus. And while in this experiment the positive evaluations were higher, self-focus also works in the other direction – in another of their studies the authors showed that negative evaluations also got stronger during the self-touch condition.

At the end of the day, limiting the amount of self-touch to protect from COVID-19 might have the interesting side effect of making us less extreme in our thoughts, and perhaps less self-absorbed. Which wouldn’t be that bad now, would it?

If you touch it, you own it

Most of the effects discussed so far appeared in everyday social interactions. There is a lot more to this though, for in consumption contexts touching has a profound impact on how and what we buy as well. We already mentioned one effect–we are more likely to tip when touched by a bar or restaurant’s employee. Many other consequences of touch in consumption contexts exist: people are likely to spend more time and money (in a bookstore) when touched by an employee for example[14]; people (at least the ones among us with a higher need for touch) evaluate products whose touch characteristics are important higher when they can touch them[15]; we consider potato chips in harder to open packages to taste better [16]; and “for people who are motivated to touch because it is fun or interesting, a communication that incorporates touch leads to increased affective response and increased persuasion”[17]

Now, we know well that giving a consumer the chance to test the product (a demo) works in the seller’s favor, as it gives people a vivid image of what it’s like to own the object. Interestingly, and with significant implications for our purchase behavior, this effect can be achieved by doing much less. In fact, in a seminal study Joann Peck and Suzanne Shu showed that merely touching an object makes us think we own the object, and owning something triggers the so called ‘endowment effect’, i.e. a bias that “influences people to pay more to keep goods they own, and influences people to not exchange something they own for an object of the same value” [18] Peck and Shu asked participants to evaluate a Slinky or a mug; half of them were told they can touch the object, the other half were asked not to do so. And indeed, participants who could hold the object reported higher feelings of ownership towards it and they valued it much higher–without touching the object in question is valued at 2.75 USD; with touch this increases to 3.73 USD, or more than a third more.

This is probably an effect most consumers wouldn’t miss too much when they switch from brick and mortar stores to buying online, where by definition the ‘ownership’ effect can’t take place. Yes, switching to online will make it more difficult for some of us [19]; at the same time, we will not experience biases that might otherwise affect our buying behavior. Not that buying online doesn’t introduce other biases though–read on.

A different kind of touch – touchscreen biases

To continue the ownership topic, one wouldn’t expect that consumers will experience the ownership effect in an online environment. Why would they if they cannot touch the product? The thing is that, as Marshall McLuhan succinctly put it, “The medium is the message”–shopping on a touchscreen, as opposed to using a mouse, actually produces a number of the same effects as shopping offline, and more

In one of the first papers on this topic, S. Adam Brasel and James Gips investigated how touch-based interfaces can induce ownership. They ran a very simple experiment and asked people to examine a range of products (in a sweatshirt product range or a city tour one) and choose one; participants could use a touchscreen device, a laptop’s touchpad, or a mouse to do the task. The results: people felt a higher level of ownership when using a touchscreen, were willing to pay more to acquire the product, and were looking to get a higher offer to sell it. One could think this effect occurs because people are more used to using their own laptop or tablet. Not the case–in another study Brasel and Gips asked people to bring their own device in the lab and the results remain unchanged; no matter if a participant owns a laptop or a tablet, they are more likely to experience ownership on the touch-based device. Other studies on our purchase behavior show that our engagement is higher when using a touchscreen device, which also leads to a higher willingness to purchase.[20]

In addition, using a touchscreen impacts on how we process information, nudging us towards more detail-oriented processing focused on attributes, especially tangible ones, over nontangible attributes. For example, in a study related to online search for a hotel booking “... a direct-touch interface (vs. a more traditional mouse interface) increases the number of alternatives searched, and biases evaluations toward tangible attributes such as decor and furniture over intangible attributes such as WiFi and employee demeanor.” [21] Similarly, Keith Coulter shows that “...when hands are proximal to that information [advertisement or on a product website]..., there is more detail-oriented processing that results in greater attribute recall and a greater amount of attribute-related thoughts. When hands are distal to that information..., there is more holistic, conceptually oriented processing that results in greater thematic recall and more thoughts about the theme.” [22]

Finally, studies show that touchscreens “evoke an experiential thinking style” [23] and lead to higher choice of hedonic products over utilitarian ones [24], [25]. For example, when given an iPad and a choice between a cheesecake and a fruit salad, 95% of the participants in a survey went for the cheesecake; on a laptop it was still the more preferred item, but by significantly fewer people—73%. Interestingly enough, this effect disappears if the choice/selection button is far from the product image; it is also non-present if one uses a stylus. Thus, the authors propose that touchscreens “facilitate consumers’ mental simulation of interacting with the objects, increase action affordance (reaching out and grabbing the object), and shift choice toward an affect-laden product (e.g., a chocolate cake) versus a cognitively superior one (e.g., a fruit salad)” [26]  In addition, Zhu and Meyer show that when given the choice to buy a 50USD restaurant certificate for 30USD or 50USD grocery certificate for 30USD, participants are more willing to buy the grocery certificate on a desktop, but the restaurant one on a touchscreen. The authors explain: “When using a touchscreen device to shop online, consumers cannot touch the product, yet touch remains an active part of their information search and facilitates purchase processes. In such a context, touching performed by fingers substitutes for traditional tools (e.g., mouse, keyboard).” [27]

Where does this leave us?

The sense of touch is vital for our well-being and has been shown to impact child development, cooperation, trust, and to provide a number of health benefits. In the post-COVID world we are likely to be even more cautious than before to touching other people, especially ones we are not close with. This will likely have negative effect on our well-being in its broadest sense. In addition, though, simply touching an object or a person, or being touched by one, also induces a number of biases we wouldn’t necessarily miss, in areas as wide as forming opinions of other people, risk-taking, and consumption, to name a few. Like most things in life, the sense of touch is multi-faceted and impacts our thoughts and actions in subtle ways, that are neither inherently positive or negative. Armed with this knowledge, we can now manage the situations we find ourselves in better and ultimately take better decisions.

My best wishes for a great day ahead!

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[1] Kraus, Michael & Huang, Cassey & Keltner, Dacher. (2010). Tactile Communication, Cooperation, and Performance: An Ethological Study of the NBA. Emotion (Washington, D.C.). 10. 745-9. 10.1037/a0019382.

[2] Kleinke, C. L. (1977). Compliance to requests made by gazing and touching experimenters in field settings. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13(3), 218–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(77)90044-0

[3] Guéguen, Nicolas & Fischer-Lokou, Jacques. (2002). An evaluation of touch on a large request: A field setting. Psychological reports. 90. 267-9. 10.2466/PR0.90.1.267-269.

[4] Guéguen, N., & Fischer-Lokou, J. (2003). Tactile Contact and Spontaneous Help: An Evaluation in a Natural Setting. The Journal of Social Psychology, 143(6), 785–787. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224540309600431

[5] Willis, F. N., & Hamm, H. K. (1980). The use of interpersonal touch in securing compliance. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 5(1), 49–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987054

[6] Hornik, Jacob & Ellis, Shmuel. (1989). Strategies to secure compliance for a mall intercept interview. Public Opinion Quarterly. 52. 539 551.

[7] Hornik, Jacob. (1992). Tactile Stimulation and Consumer Response. Journal of Consumer Research. 19. 449-58. 10.1086/209314.

[8] Guéguen, Nicolas & Jacob, Céline & Boulbry, Ga?lle. (2007). The effect of touch on compliance with a restaurant's employee suggestion. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 26. 1019-1023. 10.1016/j.ijhm.2006.12.004.

[9] Fisher, J., Rytting, M., & Heslin, R. (1976). Hands Touching Hands: Affective and Evaluative Effects of an Interpersonal Touch. Sociometry, 39(4), 416-421. doi:10.2307/3033506

[10] Erceau, Damien & Guéguen, Nicolas. (2007). Tactile Contact and Evaluation of the Toucher. The Journal of social psychology. 147. 441-4. 10.3200/SOCP.147.4.441-444.

[11] See for example Hornik, Jacob. (1992). Tactile Stimulation and Consumer Response. Journal of Consumer Research. 19. 449-58. 10.1086/209314.

[12] Field, Tiffany. Touch (A Bradford Book) (p. 71). The MIT Press. Kindle Edition

[13] Kronrod, A., & Ackerman, J. M. (2019). I'm so touched! Self-touch increases attitude extremity via self-focused attention. Acta Psychologica, 195, 12–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.02.005

[14] Hornik, Jacob. (1992). Tactile Stimulation and Consumer Response. Journal of Consumer Research. 19. 449-58. 10.1086/209314.

[15] Grohmann, Bianca & Spangenberg, Eric & Sprott, David. (2007). The Influence of tactile input on the evaluation of retail product offerings. Journal of Retailing - J RETAIL. 83. 237-245. 10.1016/j.jretai.2006.09.001.

[16] McDaniel, C., & Baker, R.C. (1977). Convenience Food Packaging and the Perception of Product Quality.

[17] Peck, Joann & Wiggins, Jennifer. (2006). It Just Feels Good: Consumers' Affective Response to Touch and Its Influence on Persuasion. Journal of Marketing. 70. 59-69.

[18] https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/endowment-effect/

[19] Studies show that people high in Need For Touch, i.e. relying more on tactile cues, prefer to buy in-store and are more confident in their judgements when they can touch the product

[20] Chung, Sorim & Kramer, Thomas & Wong, Elaine. (2018). Do touch interface users feel more engaged? The impact of input device type on online shoppers’ engagement, affect, and pu rchase decisions. Psychology & Marketing. 35. 10.1002/mar.21135.

[21] Brasel, S & Gips, James. (2015). Interface Psychology: Touchscreens Change Attribute Importance, Decision Criteria, and Behavior in Online Choice. Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking. 18. 534-538. 10.1089/cyber.2014.0546.

[22] Coulter, Keith. (2016). How Hand Proximity Impacts Consumer Responses to a Persuasive Communication. Psychology & Marketing. 33. 135-149. 10.1002/mar.20860.

[23] Zhu, Ying & Meyer, Jeffrey. (2017). Getting in touch with your thinking style: How touchscreens influence purchase. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 38. 51-58. 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.05.006.

[24] Chung, S, Kramer, T, Wong, EM. Do touch interface users feel more engaged? The impact of input device type on online shoppers’ engagement, affect, and purchase decisions. Psychol Mark. 2018; 35: 795– 806. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21135

[25] Shen, H & Zhang, Meng & Krishna, Aradhna. (2016). Computer Interfaces and the “Direct-Touch” Effect: Can iPads Increase the Choice of Hedonic Food?. Journal of Marketing Research. 53. 10.1509/jmr.14.0563.

[26] Shen, H & Zhang, Meng & Krishna, Aradhna. (2016). Computer Interfaces and the “Direct-Touch” Effect: Can iPads Increase the Choice of Hedonic Food?. Journal of Marketing Research. 53. 10.1509/jmr.14.0563.

[27] Zhu, Ying & Meyer, Jeffrey. (2017). Getting in touch with your thinking style: How touchscreens influence purchase. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 38. 51-58. 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.05.006.