Christian Jarrett considers a new study suggesting that human touch, and possibly stuffed animals, can reduce existential angst for people with low self-esteem:
For an initial study, a female experimenter passed a pair of questionnaires measuring death angst and self-esteem to each of 61 participants (35 men) who took part. If she
touched a participant gently on the back for one second as she passed them the papers, then afterwards they tended to report having less fear of death, as compared with if no physical contact was made. But crucially, this was only the case for participants with low self-esteem. …
Next, 50 participants were asked to estimate the value of a metre-high teddy bear enclosed in a box and viewed through a plexiglass panel. Those who’d first been reminded of death and who had low self-esteem put a price on the bear of €23. In contrast, participants with high self-esteem who were reminded of death, and all participants not reminded of death, valued the teddy at just €13. This shows that thoughts of death “increased the desire for touch among individuals with low self-esteem,” the researchers said.
Unfortunately we can’t be confident this is true. Because there were no control conditions in which participants rated the value of other objects, we can’t know if low self-esteem individuals reminded of death wouldn’t have placed a higher value on any product.
(Photo by Flickr user christopher frier brown)
The Dish 