Individual Differences in Social Touch and Well-Being Among Adults in the United Kingdom

Social touch plays a pivotal role in communicating, helping us non-verbally express our emotions and intentions. Evidence supports it can also positively impact our physical, psychological, and social well-being, while its absence can have negative effects. However, we still do not fully understand how the benefits and drawbacks of social touch vary from person to person and in different contexts. Since people's preferences for social touch vary widely even within the same culture, the outcomes for well-being may also be quite diverse.

Therefore, this thesis explored personal characteristics associated with attitudes to-ward touch in everyday life and treatment settings. UK adults, including ‘typical’ individuals, visually impaired people, and osteopathy patients, were studied to examine how their demographics and psychological traits relate to social touch attitudes and experiences. These were then linked to well-being measures.

The findings revealed that variability in touch attitudes in treatment settings related to body image, personality, and attachment traits. In turn, more comfort and engagement with touch in treatment settings were linked to better mental well-being and lower loneliness in typical adults but not among visually impaired individuals. In osteopathy patients, greater comfort with therapeutic touch across more body areas was associated with higher extraversion. In daily life, the absence of social touch was linked to in-creased loneliness in both typical and visually impaired adults, supporting the concept of "touch-related loneliness." Finally, those with more positive attitudes toward day-to-day touch found videos depicting social-affective touch interactions more soothing, suggesting a strategy for enhancing their well-being.

These findings update theoretical models by highlighting the importance of individual characteristics in the relationship between social touch and well-being across con-texts. Beyond academia, they encourage discussions on the often-taboo topic of touch, advocating for personalised integration of touch in daily interactions and treatment settings.