We had various gender combinations in the study, and I feel obligated to disclose two gender differences we found: When a woman tried to communicate anger to a man, he got zero right-he had no idea what she was doing. Gratitude, anger, love, fear-they got those right more than 50 percent of the time as well. But remarkably, participants guessed compassion correctly nearly 60 percent of the time. Given the number of emotions being considered, the odds of guessing the right emotion by chance were about eight percent. The person whose arm was being touched had to guess the emotion.

The other person was given a list of emotions, and they had to try to convey each emotion through a one-second touch to the stranger’s forearm. One person stuck their arm through the barrier and waited. Here’s what we did: We built a barrier in our lab that separated two strangers from each other. In my own lab, in a study led by my former student Matt Hertenstein (now a professor at DePauw University), we asked whether humans can clearly communicate compassion through touch. This research is suggesting that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health. In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch.