Titel
Love and affectionate touch toward romantic partners all over the world
Autor*in
Agnieszka Sorokowska
Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw
Marta Kowal
IDN Being Human Lab, University of Wrocław
Supreet Saluja
Macquarie University, Sydney
... show all
Abstract
Touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors such as stroking, hugging and kissing are universally observed in partnerships all over the world. Here, we explored the association of love and affectionate touch behaviors in romantic partnerships in two studies comprising 7880 participants. In the first study, we used a cross-cultural survey conducted in 37 countries to test whether love was universally associated with affectionate touch behaviors. In the second study, using a more fine-tuned touch behavior scale, we tested whether the frequency of affectionate touch behaviors was related to love in romantic partnerships. As hypothesized, love was significantly and positively associated with affectionate touch behaviors in both studies and this result was replicated regardless of the inclusion of potentially relevant factors as controls. Altogether, our data strongly suggest that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.
Stichwort
NeurosciencePhysiologyPsychology
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
Scientific Reports
Band
13
Ausgabe
1
ISSN
2045-2322
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Publication
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Erscheinungsdatum
2023
Zugänglichkeit
Rechte
Rechteangabe
© The Author(s) 2023
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