Social touch occurs in the presence of others and conveys emotional value that is stimulated and regulated by social milieus (Lima, 2022). Interpersonal touch played an important role in receiving sensory experience, facilitating bonding, and buffering stress (Dagnino-Subiabre, 2022; Maier et al., 2020). Lack of social connect could greatly increase one’s vulnerability to stress, loneliness, anxiety and depression(Ujitoko, Yokosaka, Ban, & Ho, 2022). A better understanding of social touch held great promise for development early intervention techniques based on sensory characteristics, especially in adolescents (Cascio, Moore, & McGlone, 2019).
However, although social touch behaviors during childhood and adolescence are critical for a healthy psycho-social development, much less research had been conducted on adolescents(Cruciani et al., 2021). Models on developmental continuity suggested that continuity from early life to adolescence and adulthood was often indirect and gradually shaped outcome through changes in aspects of the social environment(Ulmer-Yaniv, Yirmiya, Peleg, Zagoory-Sharon, & Feldman, 2023). Repeated observations of the mother-child relationship over a period of 20 years revealed that the quality of maternal skin-to-skin contact continuously impacted maturation of human social abilities and socioemotional competencies(Ulmer Yaniv et al., 2021), which resembled the effects of alterations in maternal contact on the brains of other social animals(Liu et al., 2022). Corresponding changes in tactile social world continued to impact brain and behavior throughout the transition to adulthood(Cascio et al., 2019). A lack of social touch in adolescence was linked to violent behaviors later in adulthood, whereas providing physical contact for violent and conduct disorder adolescents reduced anxiety and negative emotions(Cruciani et al., 2021). Indeed, strong ties with parents or caregivers or siblings remained support during this period (Orben, Tomova, & Blakemore, 2020). Beyond family, adolescents tended to stay with fellows and cultivate complex peer relationships (Foulkes, Leung, Fuhrmann, Knoll, & Blakemore, 2018). In comparison to children or adults, adolescents had a greater sensitivity to peer acceptance, rejection and approval. Bullying and isolation can be associated with a higher risk of developing internalizing and behavioral symptoms in adolescence (Arseneault, 2018). Mental health burden in adulthood was often the continuation of adolescent-onset mental problems, highlighting the urgent need of comprehending why some adolescents were more prone to suffer from problems (Ferschmann, Bos, Herting, Mills, & Tamnes, 2022; Ormel et al., 2015).
Since external social factors affected the internal mental representations of one's own body, individual psycho-behavioral characteristics could be extracted by measuring attitudes toward social touch(Martinez, Giovanola, & Ionta, 2022). Some Self-report questionnaires were primarily focused on comfortable, positive social touch, with less attention paid to those unpleasant, negative touch events such as the Positive Touch Experience Attitude Questionnaire (TEAQ) and the Tactile Biography (TBIO) (Beltran, Dijkerman, & Keizer, 2020; Trotter, McGlone, Reniers, & Deakin, 2018). However, in real world, negative affective states can be expressed via touch and closely linked to depression and anxiety (Saarinen, Harjunen, Jasinskaja-Lahti, Jääskeläinen, & Ravaja, 2021; Zhu et al., 2022). The Social Touch Questionnaire (STQ) was administered as a general measure of attitude toward social touch, covering a wide-ranging issue concerning positive, neutral and negative social contact in a relatively well-integrated manner (Wilhelm, Kochar, Roth, & Gross, 2001). The scale was originally developed to assess differences in attitude toward touch across groups with different levels of social anxiety and administered to a sample of female undergraduates in America. The original English version was later translated into Portuguese and German. The Portuguese version of STQ contained three subscales, which were named ‘Dislike of physical touch’, ‘Liking of familiar physical touch’ and ‘Liking of public physical touch’ (Vieira et al., 2016). Similarly, the German version also obtained a three-factor model, including Dislike of social touch Liking of informal and general social touch (Lapp & Croy, 2021). The STQ had found application across diverse health contexts. One of them was the complex association between attitudes toward touch and negative experiences in general population: aversion toward social touch mediated the negative effect of childhood maltreatment on subjective stress(Maier et al., 2020), whereas positive outlook on social touch instead led to more mental health sufferings such as distress and anxiety when experiencing loneliness (Schneider et al., 2023). In clinical studies, social touch preferences of individuals with autism spectrum disorder were associated with symptom severity as well as overall affective representations and vicarious emotional sensitivity (Lee Masson et al., 2019; Lee Masson, Van De Plas, Daniels, & Op de Beeck, 2018). Additionally, interpersonal problems in depressed patients could be partly explained by their negative attitude toward social touch, especially aversion to physical contact with unfamiliar people(Triscoli, Croy, & Sailer, 2019). However, a major unresolved question was whether the psychometric properties exhibited by the STQ could be generalized to adolescents who are still in a period of rapid social development.
Variations in the frequency and manner of social contact arisen largely from cultured rules about how to use touch in social interactions (Cascio et al., 2019; Suvilehto et al., 2019). Although the STQ has been validated in Western countries, the cross-cultural differences in the social contexts in which the Chinese adolescents develop might differentially affect some of their responses (Cascio et al., 2019). Chinese interpersonal activities is influenced mainly by Confucianism which emphases on the hierarchical nature of society and relationships, and considered principles for social interactions, resulting in less body touch(Hodges & Oei, 2007). In a cross-cultural study encompassing 45 countries, China was identified as one of the countries with least affective touch prevalence with its more conservative societal values (Sorokowska et al., 2021). Culture also shaped sensitivity to different touch areas. Compared to Germans, Chinese reported more comfort with more public touch on the hands, and less comfort with more intimate touch on the torso and upper back. (Schirmer, Cham, Zhao, & Croy, 2022). Nevertheless, whether in Western or Eastern cultures, the strength of the emotional bond was linearly associated with permissible touch area, which implied that assessment tools developed based on other cultures could also be used to measure acceptance and avoidance toward touch behaviors in Chinese populations(Suvilehto et al., 2019), which remains to be verified.
The aim of the current study was to examine psychometric properties of the STQ among Chinese general adolescents. In the present study, we tested the following hypotheses: 1) The STQ would have acceptable internal consistency and test-retest reliability in adolescents; 2) There would be three factors underlying the Chinese translation of the STQ, although minor difference in composition of items may exist due to cultural differences; 3) Association would be found between disliking social touch and anxiety.