Ickis
TMF Regular
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2003
- Messages
- 156
- Points
- 18
There was a research conducted by me in Moscow, Russia, May 2007, in the form of a survey of 168 respondents, all of them of female gender, average age 19 years old, to find out correlations between ticklishness, attitude to being tickled and some of physiological and personal features.
A significant correlation was found between higher ticklishness and such characteristics as high sensitivity to pain, inclination to start easily at an unexpected noise and pronounced jealousy (p<0,01), as well as losing control of one’s emotions, some catalepsy phenomena and among younger children in comparison with the elder ones (p<0,05).
Also attitude towards being tickled was analyzed. Negative attitude was found significantly much more often among those who walked alone (not in a group with friends), didn’t like others trying food or drink from their cup or plate (p<0,01), who is more ticklish and of older age (p<0,05), as well as almost significant correlation with dark color of hair (p=0,056).
For a long time I tried to find out answers for the questions I had peculiar interest in about tickling. Unfortunately there were only few mentions of it in the scientific literature. I also developed some hypotheses of my own which I’d like to test. Few years ago it occurred to me that I could conduct my own small private research (but not of less scientific value). At first the idea seemed quite weird to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it looked feasible and the more I became obsessed with the idea. I decided to conduct a poll as a simplest and the most realizable form.
First, I collected all the scientific information about tickling I could find in the internet. I selected all the features connected to ticklishness, as well as my hypothesis estimates, and wrote down all the question I’d like to include in my questionnaire. Since patience and time of respondents were not unlimited, I left only 25 questions.
Among them were Charles Darwin’s suggestions that people who are highly ticklish are also more often cry, laugh, blush and have a goose-pimples. I also heard that ticklish people stutter more often – with no confirmation of it in the literature or from other sources (and by the end it wasn’t proved to be truth by my results).
I included question about jealousy because it is a common belief in Russia that ticklish ones are jealous, it is so well known that it is not unusual to hear “Don’t touch me like that, I’m jealous” instead of “I’m ticklish”. This question was raised few times at our Russian tickle-phile forum, but we couldn’t come to the conclusion, since there was plenty examples of any variants.
I also decided to try some of my suggestions, including correlation between ticklishness and color dreams, talking while sleeping, creativity, losing control over one’s emotions (like a fit of anger), which could correspond to certain balance of inhibition and activation systems of the brain.
I included questions about some catalepsy phenomena as well. It was my own hypothesis with no mentioning it in the literature. I noticed that quite often tickling makes victims to lose their muscular tonus and they immediately become surprisingly weak. It resembles catalepsy, something like loosing strength and muscular tonus because of an intense emotion like anger, fear or a burst of laughter, which can even make people to seat.
Surmising features that could come along with positive or negative attitude to being tickled, I assumed such signs as tendency to spend more time with friends rather to be alone, attitude to being touched during casual conversations, walking barefoot home or outdoors, and reaction towards their friends trying food or drink from their cup or plate, which reveals individual limits of personal space.
Since results of similar researches reveal that respondents of male gender tend to answer such question in not the honest way, I decided to ask only female respondents.
When my questionnaire was ready, I tested it on 30 students of the college I worked at, and significantly improved structure of multiple choice questions.
Next I bought some presents for my future respondents (sets of color pens), and went to a park with a lot of walking people. I handed out 170 questionnaires, which were filled in by respondents without my assistance, and received 168 correctly filled questionnaires. I also privately noted respondents’ eyes and hair color.
The attitude towards my questionnaire was surprisingly amiable. Most of respondents said it was interesting and fun, only few were a bit astonished, and none of them was upset in any way. Also were was nothing illegal or unlawful, since I didn’t lie them that I conducted a research, and why couldn’t we ask an adult stranger in a public place for some help? At least, poll was anonymous and there was no personal or private information except the respondent’s age.
My research results are at the beginning of the post. Surely, you can’t extend these figures to all the people of this age and gender, because the cohort was absolutely a unrepresentative sample, but at least you can apply these figures to the girls who like to walk in a park and are so kind and sociable to participate in a poll.
I also was surprised buy the correlation between ticklishness and attitude towards being tickled. Even among the most ticklish respondents only a half of them had a negative attitude towards being tickled, while another quite enjoyed being tickled. The percent of tickle-enjoying respondents only increased by decreasing of their ticklishness.
I was highly delighted that some of my hypotheses were proved to be right (while some others were not). I can not explain some results, for instance, why young children appeared to be more ticklish than elder ones, though in their childhood they might became victims of tickle fights with their elder brothers and sisters much more often.
In the conclusion I’d like to thank all the anonymous respondents who were so kind to devote their attention and time to my research, as well as everyone who helped me in any way to fulfill my dream.
If you have some ideas to share or discuss or have questions on my survey, don’t hesitate to ask me.
A significant correlation was found between higher ticklishness and such characteristics as high sensitivity to pain, inclination to start easily at an unexpected noise and pronounced jealousy (p<0,01), as well as losing control of one’s emotions, some catalepsy phenomena and among younger children in comparison with the elder ones (p<0,05).
Also attitude towards being tickled was analyzed. Negative attitude was found significantly much more often among those who walked alone (not in a group with friends), didn’t like others trying food or drink from their cup or plate (p<0,01), who is more ticklish and of older age (p<0,05), as well as almost significant correlation with dark color of hair (p=0,056).
For a long time I tried to find out answers for the questions I had peculiar interest in about tickling. Unfortunately there were only few mentions of it in the scientific literature. I also developed some hypotheses of my own which I’d like to test. Few years ago it occurred to me that I could conduct my own small private research (but not of less scientific value). At first the idea seemed quite weird to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it looked feasible and the more I became obsessed with the idea. I decided to conduct a poll as a simplest and the most realizable form.
First, I collected all the scientific information about tickling I could find in the internet. I selected all the features connected to ticklishness, as well as my hypothesis estimates, and wrote down all the question I’d like to include in my questionnaire. Since patience and time of respondents were not unlimited, I left only 25 questions.
Among them were Charles Darwin’s suggestions that people who are highly ticklish are also more often cry, laugh, blush and have a goose-pimples. I also heard that ticklish people stutter more often – with no confirmation of it in the literature or from other sources (and by the end it wasn’t proved to be truth by my results).
I included question about jealousy because it is a common belief in Russia that ticklish ones are jealous, it is so well known that it is not unusual to hear “Don’t touch me like that, I’m jealous” instead of “I’m ticklish”. This question was raised few times at our Russian tickle-phile forum, but we couldn’t come to the conclusion, since there was plenty examples of any variants.
I also decided to try some of my suggestions, including correlation between ticklishness and color dreams, talking while sleeping, creativity, losing control over one’s emotions (like a fit of anger), which could correspond to certain balance of inhibition and activation systems of the brain.
I included questions about some catalepsy phenomena as well. It was my own hypothesis with no mentioning it in the literature. I noticed that quite often tickling makes victims to lose their muscular tonus and they immediately become surprisingly weak. It resembles catalepsy, something like loosing strength and muscular tonus because of an intense emotion like anger, fear or a burst of laughter, which can even make people to seat.
Surmising features that could come along with positive or negative attitude to being tickled, I assumed such signs as tendency to spend more time with friends rather to be alone, attitude to being touched during casual conversations, walking barefoot home or outdoors, and reaction towards their friends trying food or drink from their cup or plate, which reveals individual limits of personal space.
Since results of similar researches reveal that respondents of male gender tend to answer such question in not the honest way, I decided to ask only female respondents.
When my questionnaire was ready, I tested it on 30 students of the college I worked at, and significantly improved structure of multiple choice questions.
Next I bought some presents for my future respondents (sets of color pens), and went to a park with a lot of walking people. I handed out 170 questionnaires, which were filled in by respondents without my assistance, and received 168 correctly filled questionnaires. I also privately noted respondents’ eyes and hair color.
The attitude towards my questionnaire was surprisingly amiable. Most of respondents said it was interesting and fun, only few were a bit astonished, and none of them was upset in any way. Also were was nothing illegal or unlawful, since I didn’t lie them that I conducted a research, and why couldn’t we ask an adult stranger in a public place for some help? At least, poll was anonymous and there was no personal or private information except the respondent’s age.
My research results are at the beginning of the post. Surely, you can’t extend these figures to all the people of this age and gender, because the cohort was absolutely a unrepresentative sample, but at least you can apply these figures to the girls who like to walk in a park and are so kind and sociable to participate in a poll.
I also was surprised buy the correlation between ticklishness and attitude towards being tickled. Even among the most ticklish respondents only a half of them had a negative attitude towards being tickled, while another quite enjoyed being tickled. The percent of tickle-enjoying respondents only increased by decreasing of their ticklishness.
I was highly delighted that some of my hypotheses were proved to be right (while some others were not). I can not explain some results, for instance, why young children appeared to be more ticklish than elder ones, though in their childhood they might became victims of tickle fights with their elder brothers and sisters much more often.
In the conclusion I’d like to thank all the anonymous respondents who were so kind to devote their attention and time to my research, as well as everyone who helped me in any way to fulfill my dream.
If you have some ideas to share or discuss or have questions on my survey, don’t hesitate to ask me.
