Effect of an Interviewer's Tactile Contact on Willingness to Disclose Voting Choice

The positive effect of tactile contact on compliance has been widely reported in the literature. However, the effect of touch on willingness to disclose confidential information has never been studied. Two days after European Parliamentary elections, people who were walking by in the street were asked by an interviewer who was unknown to them, to reveal for which candidate they had voted. According to a random distribution, some of the people who were questioned were slightly touched on the forearm by the interviewer during the formulation of the request but the rest of the participants were not touched. Results showed that, compared with the participants who were not touched, those who were touched were more likely to be willing to disclose their voting preference (88.6% of the touched group vs. 63.3% of the no-touch group), suggesting that touch is a facilitator of self-revelation.