Failure of Tactile Contact to Increase Request Compliance : The Case of Blood Donation Behavior

Although the positive effect of touching on request compliance has been widely reported in the social psychology literature, a new evaluation has been made. University students were solicited to give blood during a special one-day drive. Solicitations were made through face-to-face interactions. During the donation solicitation some study participants were lightly touched on the forearm and others not. No difference was found between the two experimental groups in the number of participants who agreed to give blood. Such results show that tactile contact is not an effective technique for increasing compliance with blood donation requests, and confirm previous studies which found that other compliance-growth techniques are not effective at increasing such compliance rates. It is concluded that although tactile contact may indeed influence compliance with requests for minimal forms of aid, it is unlikely to significantly affect people's willingness to comply with more substantial requests involving behaviors that are psychologically costly to perform, such as blood donation requests.