The Role of Haptics in Persuassion

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The Role of Haptics in Persuasion
Haptics is the use of touch. It can be expressed in many ways and variations. Haptics is a central part of nonverbal communication, which consists of body language. The effect of a touch can have either a negative or positive response. While some say touch is imperative to sustaining interpersonal relationships, others believe the use of touch is impartial. Subsequently, the art of persuasion attempts to alter people’s attitudes. As reported by the International Encyclopedia of Hospitality Management (2005), “Persuasion is the deliberate effort to change the attitudes of one or more people. Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects or ideas. Attitudes are important to hospitality marketers because marketers assume that consumer attitudes affect consumer behaviors’ (Persuasion, 2010). They conclude that the advertising marketers’ design aim to influence their consumers into buying their products and reaching higher sales (Persuasion, 2010). Thus, a vital component of persuasion, as we will see in the following, is the role of haptics.
According to authors Danielle J Dolin and Melanie Booth-Butterfield (1993)in their article, "Reach Out and Touch Someone: Analysis of Nonverbal Comforting", they report that in today’s society many people live in distress and look for the comfort and support of touch from their closest relationships. Their study extended research on comforting strategies with the use of haptics and showed a positive correlation between the two (Dolin & Booth-Butterfield, 1993). Using Ninety-three students as participants, nonverbal comforting responses to a hypothetical scenario were collected (1993).Serving as the dependant variable, the use of an appropriate scenario where comforting responses could be used, including haptics, was the study(1993). The data reported that a mean of 3.5 units, or comforting responses, were used by each person(1993). Two of Dolin's and Booth-Butterfield's(1993) hypothesis predicted correctly. The study (1993) depicted the following:
"individuals who scored high affective orientation employed more comforting behaviors than those who scored low on the measure. Three categories of comforting behavior were individually correlated with affective orientation. Attentiveness and hugs were both positively correlated with affective orientation, while emotional distancing was negatively correlated. Hypothesis 2 was also confirmed, with the females reporting higher affective orientation scores than males."

"The opportunity to touch products has been shown to have a persuasive influece on customer's attitudes and behavior", state Joann Peck ad Jennifer Wiggins in the Journal of Marketing(2006).
Meanwhile, authors Joan Peck and Jennifer Wiggins in their 2006 article titled, “It Just Feels Good: Customers’ Affective Response to Touch and Its Influence on Persuasion”, touch plays the role of an evaluator, determining whether products have successfully persuaded them into buying the product, by physically examining them.

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