Social touch is increasingly utilized in a variety of psychological interventions, ranging from
parent-child interventions to psychotherapeutic treatments. Less attention has been paid …

A growing body of evidence from the behavioural and neural sciences indicates that social
touch has a vital role in human development and psychological well-being. Despite some …

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 …

Across human societies, people form “thick” relationships characterized by strong
attachments, obligations, and mutual responsiveness. People in thick relationships share …

Receiving touch is of critical importance, as many studies have shown that touch promotes
mental and physical well-being. We conducted a pre-registered (PROSPERO …

Avatars and social robots offer new opportunities for communication and raise questions
about how trust is built and maintained in hybrid social interactions. We wonder what kind of …

This qualitative exploratory research paper presents a Manifesto for Digital Social Touch in
Crisis-a provocative call to action to designers, developers and researchers to rethink and …

Comforting touch involves contact distress-alleviating behaviors of an observer towards the
suffering of a target. A growing number of studies have investigated the effects of touch on …

Interpersonal touch and affective touch play a crucial role in social interactions and have a
positive influence on mental health. The social distancing regulations implemented during …

This study examined how touch role and culture shape affective touch experiences.
Germans (N= 130) and Chinese (N= 130) were surveyed once as toucher and once as …