Touch has a memory.
—JOHN KEATS
THE POWER OF TOUCH
As we rely so much on our eyes and ears, the sense of touch is often overlooked. It starts when a newborn baby is held for the first time, and the desire to be touched lasts throughout the person’s life. The benefits of touch are incredible. Tiffany Field, Director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine, has conducted a great deal of research on premature babies. In one experiment, a group of babies received fifteen-minute sessions of touch therapy every day for five to ten days. These babies gained 21 to 48 percent more weight than the premature babies who had received normal care and attention.1
A caring touch can instantly raise someone’s spirits. Even an unintentional touch from a stranger can help people feel more positive. A touch can show support, express gratitude, convey sympathy, give encouragement, and add warmth to our personal communications. Because touching is so important to our wellbeing, I recommend therapeutic massages to people who do not receive regular touches from friends and family.
Haptics is the word used to describe any form of nonverbal communication that uses touch. Common examples are kissing, hugging, shaking hands, and touching someone on the shoulder.
An interesting experiment conducted in 2006 at DePauw University in Indiana demonstrated that people were able to identify a variety of emotions from a single touch by a stranger. The participants tried to convey twelve different emotions to volunteers who were not able to see them, or even see the touch being made on their forearms. Despite this, the results of this test varied from 48 percent to 83 percent, which is virtually the same as when the touching is done with both people able to see each other.2
It probably wasn’t necessary to do the research, but it has been demonstrated that men respond more favorably to women who have lightly touched them on the arm.3
A gentle touch on the arm encouraged strangers to help someone pick up dropped belongings. In one experiment, people who were touched helped 90 percent of the time, while people who were not touched helped 63 percent of the time.4
Ongoing research by Professor Michael Lynn at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration shows that lightly touching a customer on the shoulder or palm of the hand can increase the size of a tip dramatically. Customers who weren’t touched left tips averaging 12 percent. Customers who were touched once on the shoulder left an average tip of 14 percent, and people who were touched twice on the hand left an average tip of 17 percent.5
The “prisoner’s dilemma” is a game that gives players the opportunity to be either cooperative or selfish. Dr. Robert Kurzban, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted an interesting experiment that demonstrates the power of touch. Participants who were gently touched on the back as they started the game were much more likely to cooperate with the other participants than those who were not touched.
Because the power of touch has such a positive effect, it is an excellent and easy way to create rapport. A touch that lasts a mere fraction of a second can make the receiver of it feel happier, and he or she will also consider the person who gave the touch to be likable, caring, and kind.
In business situations, people usually touch someone to emphasize important aspects of what they’re saying. This subliminally also adds credibility, as liars tend to avoid touching the people they’re talking to. In the business world, the boss is usually the person who touches the subordinate. In today’s corporate environment this needs to be done carefully to avoid misinterpretation, but a light touch on the shoulder or upper arm is usually accepted for what it is, especially if the boss is also saying, “Well done!”
The amount of touching varies from country to country around the world. Sidney Jourard (1926–1974), a Canadian psychologist, conducted a well-documented study in the 1960s on friends enjoying a conversation is cafes in different countries. Each conversation was observed for one hour. In the United Kingdom, the two friends did not touch each other at all. In the United States, the friends touched each other twice. In France, the touching was 110 times, and in Puerto Rico it increased to 180 times in an hour.6
There are some people whom you are not supposed to touch. You can, for instance, touch the Pope’s hand, but cannot touch him anywhere else. In the United Kingdom, people feel strongly that the Queen should never be touched. Even when you’re waiting in line to meet her, she has to offer her hand first for a handshake. This explains the protesting headlines in the British press when a Canadian provincial transport minister guided the Queen through a crowd by gently touching her elbow. In 1992, when Paul Keating, the then–prime minister of Australia, put his arm around the Queen, the Evening Standard ran a full-page article suggesting that all Australian expatriates be deported back to Australia.7 In 2012, the Queen put her arm around Michelle Obama’s waist in a friendly gesture, and Michelle responded by putting her arm around the Queen.8 However, in this instance it was the Queen who made the first touch.
It’s not only the Queen and the Pope who should not be touched. School teachers are taught not to casually touch their students. A friend of mine changed careers after he put his arm around a small girl to comfort her when he found her crying in the playground at his school. He was shocked that his instinctive desire to comfort and help was misconstrued, and gave up teaching as a result. Office workers are also taught to be careful about touching their fellow workers. Consequently, despite the value and importance of touch, it needs to be done appropriately and at the right time.
It’s now time to make all of this information practical in the real world. As most people spend at least forty hours a week at work, we’ll start, in the next chapter, by looking at how we can use our knowledge of body language in the workplace.