External motivators of self-touching behavior.
Previous research has shown that nonverbal self-touching behaviors can be induced by external motivators such as videos and literary passages about insects. This study investigated whether the number of self-touching behaviors differed between presentation of what was assumed to be an anxiety-inducing stimulus (listening to the reading of a passage about leeches and answering questions) or a nonanxiety-inducing stimulus (a passage about canaries). It also investigated whether there was a difference in frequency of self-touching when subjects were passively listening to passages or actively answering questions. The difference in frequency of self-touching between men and women was also observed. Over-all, subjects did not perform significantly more self-touching gestures during the anxiety-inducing stimulus than during the nonanxiety-inducing, as previous research had indicated. Subjects did touch themselves significantly more, however, while answering questions than while listening to the passage. Over-all, men performed significantly more self-touching behaviors than women. And, women touched themselves significantly more during the active anxiety-inducing cell than in any other condition.
Heaven
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Charter School of Education and Human Sciences, Berry College, Mount Berry, GA 30149-5019, USA.
McBrayer
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007697:Kinesics; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D014110:Touch