Touch, compliance, and awareness of tactile contact.
Many experimental studies have shown that touch increases compliance with a request; however, the difference between the effect of touch on compliance between participants who notice and those who do not notice such contact remains in question. An experiment was conducted in which a female confederate asked 368 female smokers to give her a cigarette. In the Touch condition, when making her request, the confederate slightly touched the participant on her forearm. Analysis showed the touch was associated with significantly higher compliance to the request, and a difference was evident in the Touch condition between subjects who had noticed the tactile contact and those who had not.
Joule
Robert-Vincent
RV
Université de Provence.
Guéguen
Nicolas
N
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001364:Awareness; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D012919:Social Behavior; D014110:Touch