A naturalistic study of the meanings of touch

Abstract

The present study employed an adapted version of the contextual analysis method developed by Scheflen and others to examine the meanings‐in‐context of touches reported by persons from their daily interactions. The results revealed 12 distinct and relatively unambiguous meanings: support, appreciation, inclusion, sexual interest or intent, affection, playful affection, playful aggression, compliance, attention‐getting, announcing a response, greetings, and departure. There were also several kinds of hybrid meanings, the main ones being greeting/affection and departure/affection, and four categories of potentially ambiguous touches: reference to appearance, instrumental ancillary, instrumental intrinsic, and accidental. Finally, the analysis revealed a number of types of “touch sequences,” patterns of behavior consisting of a series of related touches, which took two primary forms, repetitive sequences and strategic sequences. These results are discussed in terms of three emergent generalizations about the nature of tactile communication and compared with past theory and research. Directions for further research are proposed.

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