ABSTRACT

The Tactility Scale ranges from ‘non-tactile’ at one end to ‘fully tactile’ at the other. It describes the different extents to which individuals engage in physical contact with others.

The degree and quality of an individual’s tactility may alter over the course of the lifespan. This was the case in the large majority of interviewees who had been non- or less tactile at the beginning of adulthood, had since increased in tactility, and now inhabited the more tactile categories on the scale. The changes in their tactile behaviour had been set in train by various environmental change-agents, such as travel — the influence of individuals from more tactile cultures whom participants had befriended either in Britain or while travelling abroad; a relationship with a partner or spouse; a relationship with their own child or children; arts trainings (e.g., drama/dance) and the tactile communities they create; and therapy that incorporates touch/bodywork. For these participants, greater tactility had brought closer interpersonal connections and increased life satisfaction.

Non-tactility, on the other hand, tended to be associated with less functional psychological states — with low self-esteem, interpersonal difficulties, and more frequent experience of unwanted feelings such as discomfort, unhappiness and fear.