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Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch

Social touch has positive effects on social affiliation and stress alleviation. However, its ubiquitous presence in human life does not allow the study of social touch deprivation ‘in the wild’. Nevertheless, COVID-19-related restrictions such as social distancing allowed the systematic study of the...

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Autores principales: von Mohr, Mariana, Kirsch, Louise P., Fotopoulou, Aikaterini
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8424338/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34527270
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210287
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author von Mohr, Mariana
Kirsch, Louise P.
Fotopoulou, Aikaterini
author_facet von Mohr, Mariana
Kirsch, Louise P.
Fotopoulou, Aikaterini
author_sort von Mohr, Mariana
collection PubMed
description Social touch has positive effects on social affiliation and stress alleviation. However, its ubiquitous presence in human life does not allow the study of social touch deprivation ‘in the wild’. Nevertheless, COVID-19-related restrictions such as social distancing allowed the systematic study of the degree to which social distancing affects tactile experiences and mental health. In this study, 1746 participants completed an online survey to examine intimate, friendly and professional touch experiences during COVID-19-related restrictions, their impact on mental health and the extent to which touch deprivation results in craving touch. We found that intimate touch deprivation during COVID-19-related restrictions is associated with higher anxiety and greater loneliness even though this type of touch is still the most experienced during the pandemic. Moreover, intimate touch is reported as the type of touch most craved during this period, thus being more prominent as the days practising social distancing increase. However, our results also show that the degree to which individuals crave touch during this period depends on individual differences in attachment style: the more anxiously attached, the more touch is craved; with the reverse pattern for avoidantly attached. These findings point to the important role of interpersonal and particularly intimate touch in times of distress and uncertainty.
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spelling pubmed-84243382021-09-14 Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch von Mohr, Mariana Kirsch, Louise P. Fotopoulou, Aikaterini R Soc Open Sci Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Social touch has positive effects on social affiliation and stress alleviation. However, its ubiquitous presence in human life does not allow the study of social touch deprivation ‘in the wild’. Nevertheless, COVID-19-related restrictions such as social distancing allowed the systematic study of the degree to which social distancing affects tactile experiences and mental health. In this study, 1746 participants completed an online survey to examine intimate, friendly and professional touch experiences during COVID-19-related restrictions, their impact on mental health and the extent to which touch deprivation results in craving touch. We found that intimate touch deprivation during COVID-19-related restrictions is associated with higher anxiety and greater loneliness even though this type of touch is still the most experienced during the pandemic. Moreover, intimate touch is reported as the type of touch most craved during this period, thus being more prominent as the days practising social distancing increase. However, our results also show that the degree to which individuals crave touch during this period depends on individual differences in attachment style: the more anxiously attached, the more touch is craved; with the reverse pattern for avoidantly attached. These findings point to the important role of interpersonal and particularly intimate touch in times of distress and uncertainty. The Royal Society 2021-09-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8424338/ /pubmed/34527270 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210287 Text en © 2021 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
von Mohr, Mariana
Kirsch, Louise P.
Fotopoulou, Aikaterini
Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title_full Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title_fullStr Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title_full_unstemmed Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title_short Social touch deprivation during COVID-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
title_sort social touch deprivation during covid-19: effects on psychological wellbeing and craving interpersonal touch
topic Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8424338/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34527270
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.210287
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