Incidental Haptic Stimulation in the Context of Flirt Behavior

The present study focuses on a previously neglected aspect influencing the decision making process during the first few seconds of (nonverbal) impression formation: incidental haptic stimulation by an external object. Participants observed portrait photos of potential male or female flirt partners depicting either a happy or a sad facial expression. In this context, the participants received haptic stimulation (by manipulating the weight of a clipboard) while they first evaluated the difficulty to flirt with the target persons and subsequently reported the general importance of others’ physical appearance. The results showed that incidental haptic stimulation substantially affected social judgments and interacted with the emotional context as well as with gender effects. We discuss the present data in the light of the concept of embodied cognition.