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Self-touching as an indicator of underlying affect and language processes.
Social Science & Medicine (1982)
|January 1, 1985
Summary
Self-touching behaviors during medical interviews may indicate negative emotions or cognitive processing. This study examined self-touching in physicians and patients, linking it to information processing and affect.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Nonverbal Communication
- Medical Sociology
Background:
- Self-touching has been traditionally linked to negative affect.
- Recent theories propose self-touching is associated with cognitive processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between self-touching and cognitive processing versus negative affect.
- To analyze differences in self-touching between physicians and patients.
- To examine the semantic content and temporal placement of self-touching within speech.
Main Methods:
- Observational study of 28 physicians and their patients during medical interviews.
- Analysis of nonverbal behavior (self-touching).
- Correlation of self-touching with semantic content of utterances and speech stream timing.
Main Results:
- Differences in self-touching types were observed between patients and physicians.
- Self-touching was associated with the semantic content of speech.
- The temporal location of self-touching within the speech stream was analyzed.
- Findings support self-touching's role in both information processing and negative affect.
Conclusions:
- Self-touching in medical interviews serves functions beyond expressing negative affect, including cognitive processing.
- Physician and patient self-touching behaviors may differ and relate to communication dynamics.
- Further research into nonverbal cues in clinical settings is warranted.