Matthew J. Hertenstein

Travel broadens the mind.

The onset of locomotion heralds one of the major life transitions in early development and involves a pervasive set of changes in perception, spatial cognition, and social and emotional development. Through a synthesis of published and hitherto unpublished findings, gathered from a number of converging research designs and methods, this article provides a comprehensive review and reanalysis of the consequences of self-produced locomotor experience. Specifically, we focus on the role of locomotor experience in changes in social and emotional development, referential gestural communication, wariness of heights, the perception of self-motion, distance perception, spatial search, and spatial coding strategies. Our analysis reveals new insights into the specific processes by which locomotor experience brings about psychological changes. We elaborate these processes and provide new predictions about previously unsuspected links between locomotor experience and psychological function. The research we describe is relevant to our broad understanding of the developmental process, particularly as it pertains to developmental transitions. Although acknowledging the role of genetically mediated developmental changes, our viewpoint is a transactional one in which a single acquisition, in this case the onset of locomotion, sets in motion a family of experiences and processes that in turn mobilize both broad-based and context-specific psychological reorganizations. We conclude that, in infancy, the onset of locomotor experience brings about widespread consequences, and after infancy, can be responsible for an enduring role in development by maintaining and updating existing skills.

Touch communicates distinct emotions.

The study of emotional signaling has focused almost exclusively on the face and voice. In 2 studies, the authors investigated whether people can identify emotions from the experience of being touched by a stranger on the arm (without seeing the touch). In the 3rd study, they investigated whether observers can identify emotions from watching someone being touched on the arm. Two kinds of evidence suggest that humans can communicate numerous emotions with touch. First, participants in the United States (Study 1) and Spain (Study 2) could decode anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, and sympathy via touch at much-better-than-chance levels. Second, fine-grained coding documented specific touch behaviors associated with different emotions. In Study 3, the authors provide evidence that participants can accurately decode distinct emotions by merely watching others communicate via touch. The findings are discussed in terms of their contributions to affective science and the evolution of altruism and cooperation.

The Communication of Emotion via Touch

The study of emotional communication has focused predominantly on the facial and vocal channels but has ignored the tactile channel. Participants in the current study were allowed to touch an unacquainted partner on the whole body to communicate distinct emotions. Of interest was how accurately the person being touched decoded the intended emotions without seeing the tactile stimulation. The data indicated that anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, and sympathy were decoded at greater than chance levels, as well as happiness and sadness, 2 emotions that have not been shown to be communicated by touch to date. Moreover, fine-grained coding documented specific touch behaviors associated with different emotions. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to the study of emotion-related communication.

The Communicative Functions of Touch in Humans, Nonhuman Primates, and Rats: A Review and Synthesis of the Empirical Research

Although touch is one of the most neglected modalities of communication, several lines of research bear on the important communicative functions served by the modality. The authors highlighted the importance of touch by reviewing and synthesizing the literatures pertaining to the communicative functions served by touch among humans, nonhuman primates, and rats. In humans, the authors focused on the role that touch plays in emotional communication, attachment, bonding, compliance, power, intimacy, hedonics, and liking. In nonhuman primates, the authors examined the relations among touch and status, stress, reconciliation, sexual relations, and attachment. In rats, the authors focused on the role that touch plays in emotion, learning and memory, novelty seeking, stress, and attachment. The authors also highlighted the potential phylogenetic and ontogenetic continuities and discussed suggestions for future research.

Touch: Its Communicative Functions in Infancy

The communicative functions that the tactile modality serves in infancy have been severely neglected by researchers. The present article highlights the importance of touch by addressing two questions. First, what is communicated to infants by touch from their caregivers? In addition to the common notion that touch regulates arousal levels, it is argued that touch is capable of communicating valenced and discrete emotions as well as specific information. Second, how does meaning come about from the touch that adults administer to infants? This question is addressed by discussing specific qualities and parameters of touch and three mechanisms by which infants gain meaning from touch. Empirical evidence is provided and hypotheses are made regarding each of these questions. Furthermore, a preliminary model of tactile communication is presented based upon the literature on touch, as well as the conceptual framework outlined in the article.

Positive emotion and the regulation of interpersonal relationships

Contents: P. Philippot, R.S. Feldman, Preface. Part I:Basic Physiological and Cognitive Processes in the Regulation of Emotion. A. Bechara, A Neural View of the Regulation of Complex Cognitive Functions by Emotion. G. Stemmler, Physiological Processes During Emotion. P. Philippot, C. Baeyens, C. Douilliez, B. Francart, Cognitive Regulation of Emotion: Application to Clinical Disorders. Part II:Social and Motivational Aspects of Emotional Regulation. E.A. Butler, J.J. Gross, Hiding Feelings in Social Contexts: Out of Sight Is Not Out of Mind. M.N. Shiota, B. Campos, D. Keltner, M.J. Hertenstein, Positive Emotion and the Regulation of Interpersonal Relationships. E. Zech, B. Rime, F. Nils, Social Sharing of Emotion, Emotional Recovery, and Interpersonal Aspects. A. Fisher, A.S.R. Manstead, C. Evers, M. Timmers, G. Valk, Motives and Norms Underlying Emotion Regulation. Part III:Self-Presentation and Emotion Regulation. D.M. Tice, R.F. Baumeister, L. Zhang, The Role of Emotion in Self-Regulation: Differing Role of Positive and Negative Emotions. D. Hrubes, R.S. Feldman, J. Tyler, Emotion-Focused Deception: The Role of Deception in the Regulation of Emotion. S. Kitayama, M. Karasawa, B. Mesquita, Collective and Personal Processes in Regulating Emotions: Emotion and Self in Japan and the United States. Part IV:Individual Differences and the Development of Emotion Regulation. N. Eisenberg, T.L. Spinrad, C.L. Smith, Emotion-Related Regulation: Its Conceptualization, Relations to Social Functioning, and Socialization. S.D. Calkins, R.B. Howse, Individual Differences in Self-Regulation: Implications for Childhood Adjustment. C.A. Pauls, Physiological Consequences of Emotion Regulation: Taking Into Account the Effects of Strategies, Personality, and Situation. A.M. Kring, K.H. Werner, Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology.

Nonverbal Channel Use in Communication of Emotion: How May Depend on Why

This study investigated the hypothesis that different emotions are most effectively conveyed through specific, nonverbal channels of communication: body, face, and touch. Experiment 1 assessed the production of emotion displays. Participants generated nonverbal displays of 11 emotions, with and without channel restrictions. For both actual production and stated preferences, participants favored the body for embarrassment, guilt, pride, and shame; the face for anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness; and touch for love and sympathy. When restricted to a single channel, participants were most confident about their communication when production was limited to the emotions preferred channel. Experiment 2 examined the reception or identification of emotion displays. Participants viewed videos of emotions communicated in unrestricted and restricted conditions and identified the communicated emotions. Emotion identification in restricted conditions was most accurate when participants viewed emotions displayed via the emotions preferred channel. This study provides converging evidence that some emotions are communicated predominantly through different nonverbal channels. Further analysis of these channel-emotion correspondences suggests that the social function of an emotion predicts its primary channel: The body channel promotes social-status emotions, the face channel supports survival emotions, and touch supports intimate emotions.

The tactile context of a mother’s caregiving: implications for attachment of low birth weight infants☆

Abstract This study examined the degree to which specific properties of maternal touch may be associated with a low birth weight infant’s security of attachment at one year of age, considering the potential modifying effects of maternal sensitivity and history of touch as well as infant gender and biological vulnerability. One hundred and thirty one socioculturally diverse infants and their mothers were evaluated for medical complications during the neonatal period. Videotapes were made of the infant-mother dyads during an infant feeding at three months of age. Each videotape was analyzed for a mother’s properties of touch and her sensitivity as well as for infant responsiveness. When the infant was six months old, each mother completed a questionnaire to determine felt security regarding her own history of touch as a child. Researchers completed the Attachment Q-Set for each infant at one year of age. Analysis of covariance indicated that sheer frequency of touch had no relationship to infant attachment but use of nurturing touch by mothers was associated with security of attachment. However, the degree of infant vulnerability (i.e., perinatal complications, birthweight, and responsiveness) moderated the effects of nurturing touch. Nurturing touch was associated with more secure attachment for robust infants but with less secure attachment for highly vulnerable babies. Neither maternal sensitivity nor gender appeared to moderate the relationship of touch to attachment or to have any direct relationship to attachment outcomes. Infant vulnerability decreased the likelihood of a secure attachment while a mother’s felt security regarding her own tactile experience as a child increased her infant’s chances of having a secure attachment.

Maladaptive correlates of the failure to forgive self and others : Further evidence for a two-component model of forgiveness

In a sample composed of 162 young adults, we examined the generalizability of an orthogonal, 2-component model of forgiveness previously reported by Ross, Kendall, Matters, Rye, and Wrobel (2004). Furthermore, we examined the relationship of these two components with maladaptive personality characteristics as measured by the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP; Clark, 1993), with an emphasis on Five-factor model markers of personality. Using multiple measures of forgiveness, principal components analysis supported a 2-component model representing self-forgiveness and other forgiveness. Despite the independence of self-forgiveness and other forgiveness, zero order correlations with SNAP scales supported convergent more than discriminant validity. In contrast, hierarchical multiple regression analyses emphasized the discriminant validity of self-forgiveness and other forgiveness. Among indices of Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Agreeableness, Negative Temperament (+) was the sole predictor of self-forgiveness. In contrast, Positive Temperament (+), Aggression (−), and Histrionic PD (−) were most associated with other forgiveness. Overall, these findings support the validity of these factors and highlight the importance of self-forgiveness in clinical assessment.

Gender and the Communication of Emotion Via Touch

We reanalyzed a data set consisting of a U.S. undergraduate sample (N = 212) from a previous study (Hertenstein et al. 2006a) that showed that touch communicates distinct emotions between humans. In the current reanalysis, we found that anger was communicated at greater-than-chance levels only when a male comprised at least one member of a communicating dyad. Sympathy was communicated at greater-than-chance levels only when a female comprised at least one member of the dyad. Finally, happiness was communicated only if females comprised the entire dyad. The current analysis demonstrates gender asymmetries in the accuracy of communicating distinct emotions via touch between humans.