Construction and Validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ): A Self-report Measure to Determine Attitudes Toward and Experiences of Positive Touch

Abstract

Despite growing interest in the beneficial effects of positive touch experiences throughout our lives, and individual differences in how these experiences are perceived, there is not yet available a contemporary self-report measure of touch experiences and attitudes, for which the factor structure has been validated. This article describes four studies carried out during the construction and validation of the Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ). The original TEAQ, containing 117 items relating to positive touch experiences was systematically constructed. Principal component analysis reduced this measure to 57 items and identified six components relating to touch experiences during childhood and adult experiences relating to current intimate touch and touch with friends and family. Three attitudinal components were identified relating to attitude to intimate touch, touch with unfamiliar people, and self-care. The structure of this questionnaire was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis carried out on data obtained from a second sample. Good concurrent and predictive validity of the TEAQ compared to other physical touch measures currently available was identified. Known-group validity in terms of gender, marital status and age was determined, with expected group differences identified. This study demonstrates the TEAQ to have good face validity, internal consistency, construct validity in terms of discriminant validity, known-group validity and convergent validity, and criterion-related validity in terms of predictive validity and concurrent validity. We anticipate this questionnaire will be a valuable tool for the field of physical touch research.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10919-018-0281-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Childhood Adversity and Affective Touch Perception: A Comparison of United Kingdom Care Leavers and Non-care Leavers

“…predictive of scores on the CTQ (Trotter et al, 2018b). In line with previous reports, there were no differences in our participants' affective ratings of robotic vs. experimenter delivered touch (Triscoli et al, 2013).…”

“…Statements such as “I often have my skin stroked” are rated on a five-point Likert Scale (1 = “Disagree strongly” to 5 = “Agree strongly”) with high scores indicating more positive attitudes toward and experiences of touch. The TEAQ has high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.78–0.92; Trotter et al, 2018b ).…”

“…Care leavers frequently experience social-exclusion in adulthood (Stein, 2006;Atkinson and Hyde, 2019), thus it seems plausible that a lack of nurturing touch during early critical or sensitive periods has significant consequences for later life social functioning. Initial evidence for this is provided by the significant negative relationship between childhood adversity and later life touch attitudes and experiences reported by Trotter et al (2018b). However, this study is limited in that only 13% of participants reported high levels of childhood adversity, and the sole measure of tactile processing was self-report.…”

“…The Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ) is a 57-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure experiences and attitudes toward touch across the lifespan using six subscales: friends and family touch (FFT), current intimate touch (CIT), childhood touch, attitude to self-care (ASC), attitude to intimate touch (AIT), and attitude to unfamiliar touch (AUT; Trotter et al, 2018b). Statements such as "I often have my skin stroked" are rated on a five-point Likert Scale (1 = "Disagree strongly" to 5 = "Agree strongly") with high scores indicating more positive attitudes toward and experiences of touch.…”

Affective touch experiences across the lifespan: Development of the Tactile Biography questionnaire and the mediating role of attachment style

“…The Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire (TEAQ) consists of a validated 57-item self-report measure to determine attitudes toward and experiences of positive touch [ 56 ]. The TEAQ presents a six-component structure: a .…”