The differences in gender and initiating intentional physical contact during communication were investigated. Fifty college-age dyads who engaged in conversation were observed between 30 and 60 seconds to see which gender instigated physical contact with a person of the same or opposite gender. It was hypothesized that females would initiate touch more often with males than any of the other 4 gender situations. Results showed that males initiated physical contact with males more often than either gender on both opposing ends (34%), typically when greeting one another. Despite the significance of all gathered data, these findings are contradictory with prior research done on same-sex and opposite-sex contact (Crawford 1994).
             Gender Differences in Intentional Physical
             Many times, physical contact is initiated by one person when communicating with another. Often times, we do not pay attention to who initiates this contact or even realize it is happening. Touch is very important to communication in our society, revealing the strength of a relationship by frequent contact or the weaknesses of a relationship by lack thereof. Touch can relay to the public the closeness of two individuals. Prior studies observing correlations between gender and physical contact all show that females are more comfortable and more likely to initiate contact with another person, contradictory to our significant findings. These studies include helpful research can be found by the following: C.B. Crawford, Frank N. Willis and Vicki A. Rawdon, Colby M. Pearce and Graham Martin and Kingsley Wood, and Martin S. Remland and Tricia S. Jones and Heidi Brinkman. The purpose of this experiment was to investigate findings on which gender initiates physical contact and whether it occurred more frequently in a cross-gender or same-gender situation. Before research for this particular observation was conducted, it was hypothesized that females would initiate con...