Jeroen Camps

A situational touch: How touch affects people's decision behavior

While the majority of previous findings have shown that interpersonal touch positively affects human interactions (e.g., cooperation), it is unclear whether touch truly is only positively rather than negatively received, and which situations might influence this differential effect. The present research argued and demonstrated that in a competitive situation touch negatively affects cooperative interactions between the persons involved. Specifically, we showed that in a competitive rather than a supportive environment interpersonal touch on the shoulder will reduce helping behavior towards the person invoking the touch. The first author is a doctoral fellow of the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT). This work was supported by STRT1/10/013TBA from the Research Fund of the KULeuven.

Music is What Feelings Sound Like: The Role of Tonal and Atonal Music in Unethical Behavior

Governments and societies often have condemned music as being “indecent” and encouraging people to act unethically. Despite these accusations, research did not previously address the link between music and unethical acts. Here we argue that music may signal what is appropriate or inappropriate, hence moral behavior. We focus on the distinction between tonal and atonal music to examine the relation of music with unethical behavior. Results from an experimental study showed that harmonic or tonal music encouraged unethical behavior in adolescents and this was mediated by negative affect. Our findings suggest that music plays an integral role in driving (im)moral behavior.