Touch is one of the most important ways people communicate nonverbally. If you know someone who’s a “touchy-feely person,” you’ve probably had the experience of pulling away once in a while when you feel your personal space has been invaded. However, there are many times when a touch is comforting, especially if you’re going through a difficult life situation.
The Nature of Touch Aversion
For some individuals, even an occasional expression of sympathy and support through physical contact can be intolerable. According to a new study by Binghamton University’s Emily Ives and colleagues (2025), “touch is not necessarily experienced positively or used in good faith by some individuals.” Touch aversion is the condition in which people experience touch negatively. But the non “good faith” version of touch, or touch coercion, occurs when people use touch to hurt, manipulate, or control another person, potentially their own romantic partner.
Both forms of this deviation from the ordinary ways that touch is used to express positive emotions can relate, the Binghamton U. authors believe, to attachment style and personality. People with an avoidant attachment style would most likely fall into the “touch averse” category. Those who engage in coercive touch, though, would theoretically be high in attachment anxiety, expressing that anxiety in attempts to manipulate through physical contact.
Further playing a role in touch coercion are dark triad traits—the potentially harmful combination of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Obviously, not everyone with an insecure attachment style is going to use physical coercion with their romantic partners (or anyone, for that matter). Being high on both insecure attachment and dark triad traits could mean that one keeps physical distance from others, but might also use coercion as a means of domination.
Testing the Predictors of Aversion and Coercion
Using a sample of 512 undergraduates, the research team administered brief questionnaires assessing attachment style, dark triad traits (the “dirty dozen” scale), and touch aversion/coercion. The “avoid” scale of attachment style included items such as “I find it difficult to depend on others,” and the “anxiety” scale included “I often worry that my partner doesn’t love me.”
To assess touch sensitivity, the researchers drew from a prior measure known as the “Seven Touch Scales” (STS), which included nine touch aversion items (e.g., “I often have to remind my partner to stop touching me”) and six items tapping coercive touch (e.g., “I often touch my partner to assert my feelings of control”). You can get a sense from just these two items how the use of touch in relationships can vary.
As Ives et al. predicted, individuals scoring high on avoidant attachment style were more touch averse, reflecting “a generalized discomfort with intimate touch.” Women with insecure attachment styles and dark triad traits used avoidance of intimate touch in order to manipulate their partners. For men, anxious attachment was linked to coercive touch regardless of personality traits, “in the service of reassurance or protection seeking.” This is the kind of man who would become physically coercive in situations such as responding to feelings of jealousy.
The bottom line in these findings is that people high in dark triad traits will try to manipulate their partners either to gain control over them (coercive touch) or to regulate how much closeness they will allow their partners (aversive touch). Attachment style plays a role in the process, so it may not be dark triad traits operating alone, but only when combined with insecure attachment style.
What Do the Findings Mean for You?
It’s important to keep in mind that these were undergraduates and so much of their future lives as romantic partners is left to unfold, potentially changing as they gain more experience in relationships. Perhaps the anxiously attached will become more secure and the avoidant more comfortable with closeness. However, this process might evolve differently over time depending on whether they have that “antagonistic core,” as the authors describe it, of dark triad qualities.
Dark Triad Essential Reads
Either way, you can consider yourself somewhat forewarned by these findings as you contemplate getting involved with someone new or try to navigate your existing relationship with someone who uses touch in a manipulative way. To return to the idea of the touchy-feely people among those in your circle, the Ives et al. findings also provide some helpful navigational tools. It’s helpful simply knowing that people vary on this touch sensitivity dimension.
Maybe you never thought about the fact that some people recoil from your touch for no other reason than that they don’t like it. Maybe you never realized until reading about this study that touch sensitivity is a thing. Someone who reacts against your touch may either genuinely hate being touched, or may be titrating the extent to which they allow you to express warm feelings. Their reaction has nothing to do with how they feel about your touch.
It’s also good to know where you stand on this dimension. Gaining insight into your level of comfort with this sensory channel can help you be a better communicator with the people in your life. Rather than coming across as stiff and unfeeling when someone reaches out to hug you, you can respond in a more thoughtful way by expressing your preferences.
To sum up, people with dark triad traits will try to manipulate in all kinds of ways that you may never have realized. By knowing how touch factors into the equation, you can keep that manipulation from getting in the way of your fulfillment.
