Romantic Touch Attitudes Assessment

Isabell Dabbert, Leah Peterson, Ben Weinbeck, and Chris Wright

University of St. Thomas Faculty Advisor: Dr. Angela Kurth

Introduction
Physical touch can be a crucial component in a romantic relationship. Chapman (2010), highlights physical touch as "holding hands, giving a massage, and sexual intercourse are all ways of communicating emotional love"
as part of his five Love Languages. Additional assessments empirically examine how a person's comfortability levels can vary regarding physical interactions in all types of relationships (Anderson & Leibowitz, 1989 &
Fromme et al., 1989).  To address the lack of empirical assessments that focus on physical touch in romantic relationships, we created a new assessment, The Romantic Touch Attitudes Assessment (RTAA). RTAA was
developed to assess the attitude a person has towards physical touch between themselves and their partner. We defined physical touch by a range of interactions, such as holding hands and having sex, and examined the
environment (public/private) of the couple and who is initiating the interaction in order to get a full picture of the attitude of the test-taker.
Our specific hypotheses were :
H1 : RTAA will have adequate internal consistency.                                                                                       H2 : RTAA will produce a normal distribution.
H3 : RTAA will be positively correlated with Chapman's Love language of physical touch.                  H4 : RTAA will not have a correlation with Chapman's Love Language of words of affirmation.

Methods Results
Participants
   Our sample consisted of 56 individuals with an average age of 21.8 years
(SD = 3.81). Regarding sex, our sample was 86.4% female. Regarding race
our sample was 84.75% white, 3.39% East Asian, 3.39% South Asian, 3.39%
multi-racial, 3.39% other, and 1.69% black/African American. Regarding
ethnicity our sample was 85.96% not Hispanic or Latino, 7.02% Hispanic or
Latino, and 7.02% reported unknown ethnicity.
Internal reliability of .937, Significant Convergent
Reliablity Spearman Correlation Coefficient of
Materials
   Romantic Touch Attitude Assessment. Our new assessment measures
(r=.148, p< .001), Insignificant Discriminant Validity
attitudes towards physical touch in romantic relationships using Likert scales Spearman Correlation Coefficient of (r= .152, p= .
assessing comfortability ranging from 1 (very uncomfortable) to 4 (very
comfortable). This assessment includes 60 items addressing both initiating 260), Mean comfort level 198.857, StD= 18.177
and receiving various forms of physical touch both in public and in private
settings. To calculate scores, we used a total sum. Each subsection had a
range of scores from 15 to 60 and overall scores ranged from 60 to 240.
Higher scores indicate a higher degree of comfortability of physical touch in
romantic relationships. Our assessment was constructed using items from
existing measures published by Fromme et al. (1989) and Chapman (1992)
Figure 1. Overall results of Romantic Touch
and by drawing upon each of our experiences in romantic relationships. Attitudes Assessment, negatively skewed
  The Five Love Languages: Physical Touch Subsection. This measure
developed by Chapman (1992) measures the desirability of physical touch in
romantic relationships. Chapman defines the physical touch love language as
preferring physical expressions of love over all other expressions, including
words of affirmation. The physical expressions of love recognized by Discussion
Chapman can be intimate or non-intimate. This measure uses a Likert scale Our results showed that in general, people were more comfortable in private than in public with physical touch.  Our results were
assessing the degree to which one agrees with the statement ranging from 1 also significantly correlated with the scale that we used for convergent validity, showing that our sample indeed measured what it
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This assessment contained 4 items.
Scores were calculated using a total sum and could range from 4 to 28. was trying to measure.  Our results were insignificantly correlated with the scale used for discriminant validity. Overall comfort
Higher scores indicate that the participant agrees more strongly with the level was not affected by gender, although we had few male participants. The questions that we ended with all had a near .937
statements regarding physical touch and thus have a higher desirability for Cronbach’s alpha, so there was no need to remove any questions.  We may want to look at formatting in the future in order to
physical expressions of love in a romantic relationship. 
The Five Love Languages: Words of Affirmation Subsection. This
make the test easier to take for participants. One limitation of our study is that there are few (7) male or (1) transgender
measure also developed by Chapman (1992) measures the desirability of participants, and that a majority of the participants participating in the study are (51) female. This assessment can help people
receiving words of affirmation in a romantic relationship over each of the learn what their own proclivity for physical touch is whether they have been, are currently in, or hope to be in a relationship. By
other expressions of love including physical touch. This scale uses the same knowing one’s own comfort levels for physical touch, one can then actively work to minimize the instances of uncomfortable
7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
This assessment also contained 4 items. Scores were calculated using a total situations for oneself. One can inform one’s significant other or possibly avoid situations or individuals who may have a very
sum with a range of scores from 4 to 28. Higher scores indicate a higher different preference for physical touch then their own.  
desirability for words of affirmation in a romantic relationship.