Touch, Trust, & Performance in a Group Activity
Michael J. Baker & Dr. Kristin Beals
California State University, Fullerton
INTRODUCTION
•Touch during group activities is a way to predicted group performance
(Kraus, Huang, & Keltner, 2010).
Hypotheses
Touch can communicate trust and it is essential to collaboration in group
tasks, therefore it is hypothesized:
I. That participants in the experimental group (who touch more) will have
greater trust for their peers than those in the control.
II. That participants in the touch group will perform better on the group
activity.
METHOD
Participants
• 38 upper division college students (50% male). Mean age = 22.71 (SD
= 4.7) and year in college 3.50 (SD = .507). 31.6% Hispanic/Latino,
28.9% White/non-Hispanic, 28.9% Asian/Pacific Islander, 10.5%
Multi-race/ethnicity, or Other.
Procedures
• Participants in the experimental group were encouraged to touch
throughout the activity, while those in the control were not.
• Each group transported a ball from one side of the room to the other.
Groups were given one less half-pipe than the number of people which
were held side by side so that the ball could roll across to the opposite
end of the 60’ room.
• Filming of the experiment was used confidentially to code touch.
• Groups took a trust survey immediately upon completion of the task.
Measurements
• Trust was measured with an adapted form of The General Trust Scale
(Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994) whereby participants were asked to
write to what degree they disagree or agree to a statement.
• Performance was measured by : time of the task, the number holds, and
the number of switching errors.
• Touch was following a procedure outlined in an established study
(Kraus, Huang, & Keltner, 2010).
•Touch in the control (M=.06, SD =.24). Touch in the Experiment (M
= 8, SD = 3.4) a significant difference (p< .001).
•Control trust M = 3.77, SD = .626 and experimental trust M = 4.20,
SD = .586.
•Independent samples t-test found that participants in the
experimental group did trust others in their group significantly more
than the control, t (36) = -2.146, p = .039.
•Control group time M ≈ 3minutes, 20 seconds, SD ≈ 55 seconds.
Experimental group time M ≈ 3minutes, 31 seconds, SD ≈ 47
seconds.
•No significant difference in time on the ball moving task was found ,
t (36) = -.683, p = .499.
M no SD no
M
SD
touch touch Touch Touch
t
df
pvalue
Trust
3.77
.63
4.2
.59
-2.15
36
.039
Time
3m,20s
55s
3m,31s
47
-.68
36
.499
Holds
2
3.24
.1
.31
2.62
36
.013
Switch
errors
1.44
1.62
.15
.37
3.49
36
.001
CONCLUSIONS
• The results of this study underscore the importance of trust in small
groups and the role touch plays in its development.
• Touch can be used to build trust in other groups including workplace
cohorts, education, and sports.
•Strengths include: a controlled study with a reliable measurement for
trust.
•Weaknesses include: small sample size of students, most of whom are
from the same class.
DESCRIPTIVES
5
Average Trust
•Shared Mental Models, or SMM (Gershgoren, et al. 2013) shows trust in
group activity is developed by verbal and nonverbal forms of
communication, but does not include touch.
TABLE OF INDEPENDENT SAMPLES t-TEST
•Reliability test on the trust scale showed a Cranach's α of .819.
•Possible to expand to include, age, gender, and ethnicity, as they are
believed to be contributing factors in how touch is perceived and
initiated (Smith, Willis, & Gier, 1980; Seger, Smith, Percy, & Conrey,
2014).
4
3
References
2
1
0
Control
Experimental
300
Time in Seconds
•People share touch in a variety of ways and use touch to build trust and
cooperation in relationships (Hertenstein, et al. 2006).
RESULTS
200
Gershgoren, L., Filho, E., Tenonbaum, G., & Schinke, R. J. (2013). Coaching shared mental
models in soccer: A longitudinal case study. Journal Of Clinical Sport Psychology, 7(4), 293312.
Hertenstein, M. J., Keltner, D., App, B., Bulleit, B. A., & Jaskolka, A. R. (2006). Touch
communicates distinct emotions. Emotion, 6(3), 528-533. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.528
Kraus, M. W., Huang, C., & Keltner, D. (2010). Tactile communication, cooperation, and
performance: An ethological study of the NBA. Emotion, 10(5), 745-749.
doi:10.1037/a0019382
Seger, C. R., Smith, E. R., Percy, E., & Conrey, F. R. (2014). Reach out and reduce prejudice: The
impact of interpersonal touch on intergroup liking. Basic And Applied Social Psychology,
36(1), 51-58. doi:10.1080/01973533.2013.856786
Smith, D. E., Willis, F. N., & Gier, J. A. (1980). Success and interpersonal touch in a competitive
setting. Journal Of Nonverbal Behavior, 5(1), 26-34. doi:10.1007/BF00987052
Yamagishi, T. , & Yamagishi, M. (1994). Trust and commitment in the United-States and Japan.
Motivation and Emotion, 18(2), 129-166.
100
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
0
Control
Experimental
I would like to thank Drs. Melinda Blackman and Kristin Beals for their valuable input and use of
their wonderful students as participants. I would also like to thank volunteer members of PDSA,
CSUF for being such great assistants