The power of human touch: Physical contact improves performance in basketball free throws

How pervasive is the power of human touch? Physical touch by other humans shows social support and alleviates stress - stress that may otherwise interfere with performance in athletic tasks. We argue that physical touch improves performance in highly stressful situations: free throws in basketball. In two studies (N_total = 60 NCAAW games, k_total = 835 free throw tandems), we assessed how often teammates touched the shooting player (e.g., a tap on the shoulder) in between shooting two free throws. We find that the extent of touch (i.e., being touched by 0, 1, 2, 3, or all 4 teammates) after the first free throw predicted success with the second free throw, but only when players missed the first free throw (integrated data analysis: main effect hand taps: b = 0.47, p = .021; main effect first free throw: b = 1.36, p = .019; interaction effect: b = -0.55, p = .024). We argue that this means that teammates' support expressed in physical touch helps particularly when stress levels are already high. Results are robust when controlling for players' skill level, home versus away games, point difference, and remaining playing time. More frequent touch was also tendentially associated with teams' season success (ACC-teams only, main effect of hand taps: b = -0.42, p = .062). Physical touch thus indeed boosts performance under stress, superseding a range of other factors, likely also in other team sports and interpersonal relationships.