by Thalma Lobel
Our senses provide important information, vital to our survival, but we need to be conscious of the mixed messages they can convey and evaluate them with discernment.
Stories as well as metaphors alert us to the traps our senses can lay for us. Jacob was able to use embodied cognition to his advantage; Isaac surrendered his reason to his senses for a brief but crucial moment and changed the course of biblical history. Discerning the truth of a situation and of another person’s motives (whether that person is aware of them or not) can be a challenge. The “truth” is what we think we perceive through our senses and run through our minds, both consciously and unconsciously. Our verbal expressions represent our thoughts. Rough day, softhearted, smooth sailing, a hard time, a soft landing, a hard bargainer, rough manners—all these metaphors involve tactile sensations and perceptions. But are these just random flourishes in our language, or does their existence connect to something deep in our nature?
The answer, it turns out, is skin-deep—and deeper. The human body’s largest, most sensitive organ is the skin. It covers us entirely, from the delicate fingertips of a jazz pianist to the hardened soles of a fire walker. We want to “stay in touch” with our loved ones, which usually means to stay in communication rather than in literal physical touch. The Gospel of Mark says that for Jesus to touch a person spiritually, that person must be willing to reach out and touch Jesus. Why is it not enough simply to see and hear Jesus to be affected by him? Of course generations who have come after Jesus lived have been touched through his words, but to the first followers the embodiment of his spirit in his person and the ability to touch and be touched by the spirit made flesh were compelling. To this day, we use touch-related words so often in language because touch is the most intimate way to experience and connect with the world.
Scientists have theorized that we used nonverbal communication, including touch, long before we used language. We begin progressing from nonverbal to verbal communication as soon as we are born. Through the touch of their parents and caregivers—hugs and kisses, nursing and holding—infants learn about the world around them. Psychologists have demonstrated the importance of touch in child development. Touch enhances feelings of security in children and improves their social skills. In famous, tragic cases of children who grew up in orphanages in Romania with hardly any human contact, the lack of touch stunted their emotional, social, and cognitive development.1
Touch also influences adults’ behavior, such as compliance, altruism, and risk taking. In one study salespeople in a supermarket approached shoppers and asked them to taste a new snack. While making the request they touched some of the shoppers lightly on the upper arm. That touch increased shoppers’ willingness to try a sample and even to buy the snack.2 A recent study found that a light tap on the shoulder increased financial risk taking in people, probably due to a resulting sense of enhanced security.3 Another study found that waitresses who touched customers on the hand or on the shoulder for about a second received greater tips.4 Yet the same brief touch did not influence customers’ ratings of the waitresses or their ratings of the atmosphere of the restaurant; this suggests that the customers were not aware of the effect of the touch on their behavior.
Touching another human being increases trust and cooperation. It reduces our perception of threat, increases our sense of security, and relaxes us. Anxious people benefit from touching someone or holding hands. When people go to the doctor to have a potentially painful procedure, a light touch on the head or shoulders by a health-care provider can reduce their anxiety. A massage after a hard day at work helps me relax, even if my muscles are not particularly tense and I am not especially anxious.
The need to be touched has led scientists to try to design and create products that mimic the feeling of human touch. The “hug shirt,” for instance, communicates the sensation of touch for people who are physically separated: it is made of soft, pleasant-feeling materials and has sophisticated pressure sensors that are activated by various technologies such as mobile phone applications.5 It even stimulates the emotional reactions that follow a hug, such as a decreased heart rate. Another invention uses a doll that transmits a hugging sensation to a child wearing a special “cyberpajama.”6 People are willing to spend time and money to “stay in touch” with technological innovations as well as with the old-fashioned long embrace after being apart.
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Our tactile sensations are not limited to human touch. We experience tactile sensations all the time, often without even noticing them. We sense softness, hardness, roughness, and smoothness from wearing clothes and holding books, bags, computers, smartphones, and iPads. We sense that cushions, pillows, and chairs are hard or soft at home, in the office, and in restaurants. We lie down at the end of the day on a bed whose softness or hardness we’ve chosen. We dry ourselves with our fluffy or rough towels, and at Pilates and yoga classes we exercise on thin or cushiony mats.
We also use tactile descriptions metaphorically. For example, rough describes a difficult, unpleasant situation or stretch of time, as the corresponding physical touch of a rough object can be uneven or harsh. We use the word soft when we describe someone who is easy to get along with or who can be easily molded, like a soft, yielding substance. In contrast, hard is used to describe a rigid, difficult person who, like an unyielding material, cannot readily be changed.
Metaphors represent a deeper connection between our physical sensations and our behaviors and judgments. Several researchers examined whether metaphors such as hard and soft negotiations are not just a matter of speech and whether the texture of the objects we might touch influences our behavior. Can a hard or soft chair influence how rigidly or flexibly we behave? Should we be careful where we sit when we have a difficult negotiation? We’ll explore these questions throughout this chapter.
Hard People with Soft Spots
On every vacation, I go to San Diego to visit my daughter and granddaughters. I love spending time with them, listening to their stories, and telling them my own. During the day, when the children are at school, I love to be outside in the fresh air, and I make a habit of walking along the beach. San Diego’s weather is beautiful, and you can walk for many miles on those gorgeous beaches. Usually, I walk with a good friend for about an hour and a half and then sit in one of the cafés along the beach.
There are two ways to walk along the beach: on the sand or on the boardwalk. The two routes are next to each other, but only the boardwalk is hard: it is made of wooden boards. My friend and I have no real preference, so sometimes we walk on the sand and sometimes we walk on the boardwalk.
I have noticed for quite some time that my friend can be very rigid on certain days, whereas on other days she can be much more flexible. Sometimes she does not mind what café we sit in, whereas at other times she insists that we stick to our original plan exactly. I always thought this was because she is moody, and I believed that she had bad days and good days. Recently, however, I noticed that she is more rigid on the days when we walk on the boardwalk than on those when we walk on the sand. Is it possible that the soft or hard tactile sensation on our feet softens or hardens my friend’s behavior?
A group of researchers from Harvard, Yale, and MIT investigated this very question by conducting several experiments.7 In the first experiment they devised a creative way to make their participants touch a soft or a hard object. They asked passersby to watch and participate in a magic show. You probably remember that before a magician performs certain tricks, such as turning a handkerchief into doves or making money come out of a box, he often asks a member of the audience to touch the object to ascertain that there is nothing funny going on. So the researchers asked the passersby to examine the object the magician was going to use. Half of the participants were asked to examine a hard block of wood and the other half a soft blanket. Then researchers told the participants that the magic show had been postponed and gave them another ostensibly unrelated task.
They were asked to read a
passage describing an ambiguous interaction between an employee and a boss. The participants were asked to rate several traits of the employee, some of which were related to rigidity and strictness. Those who had touched the soft blanket judged the employee to be less rigid and less strict (in other words, softer) than those who had touched the hard block. Yet all participants had been given the same scene to read. Participants from both groups rated all the other traits, such as outgoingness and seriousness, the same; they differed only on the traits related to strictness and rigidity.
The researchers wanted to find out whether the tactile sensation of hardness or softness would influence not only perception and judgment but also real behavior—the kind exhibited during a negotiation or bargaining session. A soft bargainer sees the other negotiators as friends and seeks agreement even if it’s necessary to compromise. That person will more easily modify his or her initial position in order to reach an agreement. In contrast, a hard bargainer sees the other negotiators as opponents. He or she usually does not trust them and does not want to change his or her initial position by making compromises.
The researchers examined how tactile sensations related to softness and hardness can influence how soft or hard we are in our bargaining. In this study the researchers did not ask the participants to hold a soft or a hard object but asked them to sit on either a wooden chair or a soft chair and to imagine they were at a car dealership, wanting to buy a certain car. Participants were asked to make two offers, assuming that the first offer was not accepted. Those who sat on a soft chair changed their initial offer more than did those who had sat on a hard chair. The soft seats made softer negotiators.
Softness and hardness are attributed not only to people and behaviors but also to some categories—gender identity, for example. Though gender roles have changed considerably, certain traits are still stereotypically attributed to men and women. One of these is softness. Much as we may dislike this prejudice, the fact is that women are perceived as being softer than men, and men as tougher than women.
A group of researchers conducted two studies to investigate whether our minds correlate a soft or hard physical sensation with female or male characteristics.8 In the first study, participants were presented with eight sexually ambiguous faces on a computer screen and asked to indicate whether they were male or female. They were also asked to squeeze a ball during the task, because the experiment was supposedly examining the influence of performing a task on face perception. Participants were divided into two groups, one of which was given a soft ball and the other a harder ball. Those who squeezed the hard ball were more likely to categorize the ambiguous faces as male. In other words, the tactile sensation of softness or hardness influenced whether the participants perceived a person as male or female.
In the second study, participants were asked again to categorize faces as male or female. This time the faces were presented not on the computer screen but on paper, on which the participants were to write their answers with a pen. Participants in one group were told to press the pen hard since there was carbon paper underneath and the researchers needed two copies. Those in the other group were asked to press gently and not damage the carbon paper underneath. Researchers found again that those who pressed the pen hard categorized faces as males more often than did those who pressed the pen gently.
So soft-hard tactile sensation influences categorization of male and female identity. Might we find similar results regarding other categories that are stereotypically associated with soft and hard? Several researchers examined this question with two social categories: academic disciplines and political affiliation.
Academic disciplines are categorized as hard and soft. The natural and physical sciences are colloquially called “hard sciences,” whereas the social sciences are “soft sciences.” I don’t like this dichotomy, especially since psychology is often considered a social or soft science even though we psychologists run controlled experiments and measure quantitatively just as life or physical scientists do.
In the political arena, in the United States, Republicans generally have more hard-line views on the economy and foreign relations as well as on social issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage and are regarded as harder than Democrats, who are perceived by most Americans as softer and more compassionate and empathetic.9
In one study researchers examined whether tactile sensations of softness or hardness would influence participants’ identification of people as Democrats or Republicans or as physicists (hard science) or historians (soft science).10 In one experiment, they showed participants photos of four male and four female faces and asked them to guess each one’s political affiliation while squeezing either a soft ball or a hard ball. The results were similar to the findings regarding the perceived gender of faces: those who squeezed a soft ball identified more faces as Democrats.
In the next experiment, participants were presented with photos of professors and asked to identify them as physicists or historians. Compared with those who squeezed a soft ball, participants who squeezed a hard ball classified more faces as those of physicists.
These findings suggest that soft or hard sensations do influence our categorization process. The tactile sensations of softness and hardness activate the psychological concepts of soft and hard. These physical sensations influenced how people perceived an interaction as soft or hard, and how they categorized individuals. The sensations affected people’s actual behavior.
Take the Rough with the Smooth
One day my three-year-old granddaughter, Natalie, noticed that her father was in a bad mood. Now, moods are very complicated things (if they can even be called “things”). There are researchers who spend their entire careers studying moods, but as a “child psychologist,” Natalie had an instant explanation for her daddy’s doldrums—he was angry since he had hair on his face. She was referring to his stubble from not shaving, but I thought this was so adorable, in the way that children’s ideas often are. Of course he would be upset, with his face feeling rough, Natalie thought.
In many languages, we associate roughness with difficulty, frustration, and pain, and this association could indicate a deeper, embodied connection of sensation to word.
When I was a young soldier in the air force, my unit worked in shifts. The night shift was from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. the next day, when we returned home and had a free day and night; then we went back to the barracks the next morning. The night shifts were convenient for me and my class schedule at the university, but even so, I hated them. At night, we were divided into two groups, and each group was given four hours of sleep in a small room. I distinctly remember the blankets and sheets on the beds as very rough. At a certain point we realized that we could bring our own towels, pillowcases, and sheets, which made our sleep more comfortable and pleasant. I started thinking that the shifts were not so bad and enjoyed the time I spent on them with my friends much more. The atmosphere became smoother; we worked in harmony with far fewer arguments and conflicts. We all had realized that it was more pleasant to sleep on smooth rather than rough sheets and blankets, but we hadn’t thought the change would improve our waking lives as well. Now, many years later, I believe that the tactile sensations of roughness and smoothness influenced our behavior and interactions. We had slept not on the wrong side of the bed but on the wrong sheets on the bed.
A group of researchers investigated whether touching a smooth or rough object would influence participants’ perceptions of a personal interaction as rough or smooth.11 To prime the sensation of rough or smooth, the experimenters gave participants jigsaw puzzles to complete, telling them this was a cognitive test. Half of the participants received puzzles with glossy, smooth pieces, while the other half received pieces that were covered in coarse-grained sandpaper. After working with the puzzles, they were asked to participate in another study, which was ostensibly different from the “cognitive” test. Participants read a transcript of an interaction between two people that was deliberatel
y ambiguous, somewhere between a friendly conversation and an argument. They then had to indicate whether the interaction was friendly or unfriendly, competitive or cooperative, a discussion or an argument.
The students who had handled the sandpaper puzzles judged the interaction to be more competitive, unfriendly, and argumentative compared with the smooth-puzzlers, who found the interaction friendlier and noncompetitive. Although all participants read the same transcript, merely touching a rough or a smooth object influenced their perceptions of the interaction as smooth or rough. There was no difference between the two groups in their evaluations of how familiar the people they’d read about were with one another. Only aspects relating to rough or smooth were skewed after the participants had been primed by the jigsaw puzzles.
Why Texture Matters: The Scaffolding of Experience
Without our awareness, the textures of the various objects we constantly touch influence our judgments, perceptions, and behavior. Touching rough, smooth, hard, or soft objects influences how rough or smooth, hard or soft we perceive a situation to be and how hard or soft our behavior is. As incredible as these results sound, they are logical from the point of view of embodied cognition. They suggest that metaphors and abstract conceptualizations are related and grounded in our bodily experiences. That is, the physical sensations of texture are the building blocks of the abstract concepts with the same names. The concept of a rough relationship, for instance, is built on the experience of rough texture, which is learned very early in life.
A building, even the tallest one, starts with a foundation, and is built, layer by layer, floor upon floor upon floor, upon this foundation. Similarly, through the process of scaffolding, children develop meaning for these concepts in direct relation to their physical underpinnings. Children learn concepts through physical sensations. They learn that some tactile sensations are soft, like their mothers’ touch and their teddy bears’ fur. They learn that a doctor’s examining table is hard and the experience there, perhaps receiving a shot, is rough. These sensations become the scaffold upon which the abstract concepts are built. It is almost as if they create a mental file under the same name—“smoothness”—in which every emotional experience is included with its corresponding physical experience. When we become adults, tactile sensations all evoke emotions that are related to these early sensory experiences, and thus influence our behavior, emotions, and judgments. Our minds read the old file, and we act accordingly.
