One of the primary means of communicating with a baby is through touch. Nurturing physical touch promotes healthy physiological development in social mammals, including humans. Physiology influences wellbeing and psychosocial functioning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections among early life positive and negative touch and wellbeing and sociomoral development. In study 1, mothers of preschoolers (n = 156) reported their attitudes toward positive/negative touch and on their children’s wellbeing and sociomoral outcomes, illustrating moderate to strong positive correlations between positive touch attitudes and children’s sociomoral capacities and orientations and negative correlations with psychopathology. In study 2, we used an existing longitudinal dataset, with at-risk mothers (n = 682) and their children to test touch effects on moral capacities and social behaviors in early life. Results demonstrated moderate to strong relationships between positive/negative touch and concurrent child behavioral regulation and positive correlations between low corporal punishment and child sociomoral outcomes. In a third study with adults (n = 607), we found significant mediation processes connecting retrospective reports of childhood touch to adult moral orientation through attachment security, mental health, and moral capacities. In general across studies, more affectionate touch and less punishing touch were positively associated with wellbeing and development of moral capacities and engaged moral orientation.

中文翻译：

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早期生活接触对心理社会和道德发展的重要性


与婴儿交流的主要方式之一是通过触摸。培养身体接触可以促进包括人类在内的社会哺乳动物的健康生理发育。生理学影响健康和心理社会功能。本文的目的是探讨早期生活的积极和消极接触与幸福感和社会道德发展之间的联系。在研究 1 中，学龄前儿童的母亲 (n = 156) 报告了她们对积极/消极触摸以及孩子的福祉和社会道德结果的态度，表明积极触摸态度与儿童的社会道德能力和取向之间存在中度至强的正相关性，以及与精神病理学的负相关性。在研究 2 中，我们使用了现有的纵向数据集，其中包含高危母亲 (n = 682) 及其孩子，以测试触摸对早期生活中道德能力和社会行为的影响。结果表明，积极/消极触摸与同时发生的儿童行为调节之间存在中度至较强的关系，并且低体罚与儿童社会道德结果之间存在正相关。在第三项针对成年人的研究中（n = 607），我们发现通过依恋安全感、心理健康和道德能力将童年触摸的回顾性报告与成人道德取向联系起来的重要中介过程。总的来说，在所有研究中，更多的深情触摸和更少的惩罚性触摸与幸福感和道德能力的发展以及参与的道德取向呈正相关。