Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations

Summary

To date research has focused on cognitive strategies people adopt to cope with uncertainty. This research examines instead an experiential way of dealing with uncertainty and introduces a set of experimental methods showing how the experience of haptic softness can serve as a tool to deal with uncertainty.

Abstract

Human beings are constantly surrounded by uncertainty and change. The question arises how people cope with such uncertainty. To date, most research has focused on the cognitive strategies people adopt to deal with uncertainty. However, especially when uncertainty is due to unpredictable societal events (e.g., economical crises, political revolutions, terrorism threats) of which one is unable to judge the impact on one’s future live, cognitive strategies (like seeking additional information) is likely to fail to combat uncertainty. Instead, the current paper discusses a method demonstrating that people might deal with uncertainty experientially through soft haptic sensations. More specifically, because touching something soft creates a feeling of comfort and security, people prefer objects with softer as compared to harder properties when feeling uncertain. Seeking for softness is a highly efficient and effective tool to deal with uncertainty as our hands are available at all times. This protocol describes a set of methods demonstrating 1) how environmental (un)certainty can be situationally activated with an experiential priming procedure, 2) that the quality of the softness experience (what type of softness and how it is experienced) matters and 3) how uncertainty can be reduced using different methods.

Introduction

Uncertainty, its antecedents and consequences, is a highly investigated topic in economics, psychology, and marketing. Understandably so, as in modern society people are constantly confronted with uncertainty: In their daily shopping decisions, their careers, and their family dynamics. Learning to negotiate and cope with uncertainty has thus become a requirement of modern life.

Uncertainty is generally defined as a lack of knowledge. To date, most research in marketing and decision-making has focused on uncertainty due to choice alternatives. Because of incomplete information, people feel uncertain about the alternatives available and the u....

Protocol

The following methods were all tested in the laboratory of the University of Cologne, in which humans (students) voluntarily participate. In line with the ethical guidelines published by the American Psychological Association and the general rules of institutional review boards for ethical issues, all participants were informed in advance about the nature of the study (i.e., informed consent). This informed consent explained the nature of the research project and all potential risks and benefits to the participating persons. Also, it was clearly communicated that the data obtained from the study is anonymous and confidential and that participation is voluntar....

Results

These studies were used to investigate 1) whether people prefer objects with soft properties when facing uncertainty and 2) whether searching for softness when facing uncertainty is functional, i.e., whether it reduces uncertainty. A priming procedure (described above) was used to experimentally manipulate environmental (un)certainty. The manipulation checks across the three studies confirmed the effectiveness of the newly developed experiential priming of (un)certainty (p = .06; p = .04; p.......

Discussion

This article describes a set of measures on how people can cope with and can reduce uncertainty via an experiential instead of a cognitive route. Furthermore, it demonstrates a method to experimentally activate environmental uncertainty enabling researchers to examine how this type of uncertainty, besides choice uncertainty, affects decision-making and choice. Third, it discusses three different methods (both direct and indirect) measuring whether softness seeking can reduce uncertainty.

The p.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Medialab	Empirisoft		Program to create and run experiments
Qualtrics	Qualtrics.com		Online survey program
SPSS Version 21	IBM		Statistical program