Some science regarding kino. tl;dr: A woman is more likely to acquiesce to your request and is more likely to see you as dominant if you touch her forearm while chatting.

2012-05-10T07:24:18+00:00

For anybody at university- you might be able to access the full article via your library website. For those that can't, here are some quotes from the conclusion that I found interesting:

"It seems that a young woman has more probability of starting a courtship relation when the male request is accompanied by a tactile contact. Perhaps this effect of touch could be explained by the fact that tactile contact led to an increase in the perception of dominance and sexual attractiveness of the male making the request."

"The effect of touch on compliance to a request has been found in many studies (Brockner et al., 1982; Goldman & Fordyce, 1983; Goldman et al., 1985; Hornik, 1987; Hornik & Ellis, 1988; Kleinke, 1977; Smith et al., 1982; Willis & Hamm, 1980). Several researchers have explained this positive effect on compliance by arguing that touch facilitates a positive evaluation of the toucher."

They also posit that the effect may be in part because physical touch is associated with sexual activities. References also to studies which have shown that male dominance was associated with higher desirability (Sadalla et al., 1987; Shackelford et al., 2005).

The researchers also mentioned that more research would need to be done that takes into account physical attractiveness, as well as that the results they achieved would likely be different in other countries/cultures where touch may be a common occurrence or even a negative. So obviously, calibrate to the culture!

TL;DR - Stuff we already all knew, backed up scientifically.

Box-Monkey · 2012-05-09T18:49:14+00:00

This would be better if we could have access to the full article without subscribing. The abstract is decent enough, I suppose.

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