Walking through a store, some shoppers can look at a product and quickly decide whether they want it. Others need to pick it up, squeeze it, turn it around or run their fingers across its surface before making a decision.
Someone buying a sweater may rub the fabric between their fingers. A furniture shopper may sit on a chair. Someone choosing a phone may hold it to assess its weight and feel.
At first, this may appear to be ordinary product evaluation. Consumer psychology suggests that touch can do more than provide information about texture, weight or quality. Physical contact may also influence how connected a person feels to an object.
Research into haptic perception, psychological ownership and the endowment effect suggests that touching a product can sometimes make it feel psychologically closer to being “mine,” even before an actual purchase takes place.
Haptic
Psychologists Joann Peck and Terry L. Childers have studied the role of haptic information, which refers to information obtained through touch.
Their research indicates that touch can be particularly useful when consumers are evaluating characteristics such as texture, hardness, temperature and weight.
This helps explain why someone may inspect a jacket online but still want to visit a store before buying it.
A photograph can show the color and shape of a sweater, but it cannot fully communicate whether the fabric feels soft, rough, heavy or lightweight. A chair may look comfortable in a photograph but feel different when someone actually sits on it.
Touch therefore becomes another source of information. For some shoppers, being able to physically test a product can increase confidence because they are not relying entirely on descriptions or appearances.
Ownership
A more interesting possibility comes from research by Peck and Suzanne B. Shu on the mere-touch effect. Their 2009 study found that simply touching an object could increase perceived ownership and that this feeling could influence how people valued the object.
The psychological process may sometimes resemble this:
I touched it, it feels familiar, it feels more connected to me, and it may seem more valuable.
Consider someone browsing headphones in an electronics store. They pick up one pair, adjust the ear cups and hold the device for several seconds. Before making a purchase, the product has already become part of a personal experience rather than remaining an object sitting on a shelf.
This does not mean touch guarantees a purchase. It suggests that physical interaction can influence the way a shopper relates to an item.
Possession
Psychological ownership refers to the subjective feeling that something is “mine,” even when formal ownership has not yet been established.
Researchers Jon L. Pierce, Tatiana Kostova and Kurt Dirks developed an influential framework for understanding psychological ownership. Their work describes how people can experience a sense of possession through psychological relationships with objects rather than through legal ownership alone.
They identified routes including control, intimate knowledge and investment as pathways through which psychological ownership can develop.
Touch can contribute to direct interaction with an object. Someone examining a leather bag, for example, may inspect the stitching, hold the handles and feel the material.
The shopper is no longer relying only on a product description. They are experiencing the object directly, which may make it feel more personally relevant.
Value
This idea also connects with the endowment effect, associated with behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler.
Their research demonstrated that perceived ownership can influence how people value objects.
Importantly, researchers distinguish between legally owning something and merely feeling a sense of ownership. Research on the mere-touch effect suggests that physical contact can increase perceived ownership even before an actual purchase.
Imagine someone trying on an expensive coat. Before entering the fitting room, they may consider the price too high. After putting it on, checking the fit and looking at themselves in the mirror, the decision may feel more difficult.
The price has not changed. The coat has not changed.
The shopper’s relationship with the product may have changed.
Products
Physical contact is not equally useful for every product.
Peck and Childers found that the importance of haptic information can vary according to the product, consumer and situation. Touching a blanket, sofa or pair of shoes may provide considerably more useful information than touching a packaged food item.
A shopper choosing bedsheets may care about softness. Someone buying luggage may want to test its weight and handle. A customer considering a wooden table may want to feel its surface and finish.
In these situations, touch is not simply an emotional response. It provides genuine sensory information that can help consumers evaluate a product.
Shopping
The role of touch may also help explain why online shopping can feel different from visiting a physical store.
Researchers Scott A. Brasel and James Gips studied touchscreen interfaces and found that touch-based interfaces could increase perceived psychological ownership and strengthen the endowment effect compared with less tactile forms of interaction.
A touchscreen obviously does not provide the same physical information as holding a product. However, it can create a more interactive experience than simply viewing a product through a conventional interface.
Swiping through photographs, zooming into details or manipulating an image can make the shopper more actively involved with the product.
The experience is different from physically holding merchandise, but interaction itself may contribute to psychological connection.
Personality
It would be misleading to interpret someone who touches products frequently as necessarily materialistic or impulsive.
Some people touch products because they want more sensory information before making a decision. Others may have a stronger need for touch, a consumer characteristic associated with a preference for obtaining information through tactile experiences.
For these shoppers, touch may simply be an efficient way to understand what they are considering.
There can also be a straightforward practical reason. A person may want to know whether a sweater feels comfortable, whether a chair provides enough support or whether a phone feels easy to hold.
Touch can therefore serve several purposes at once. It can provide information, increase familiarity, improve confidence and, in some situations, strengthen perceived ownership.
Interaction
The next time someone insists on feeling every sweater, testing every chair or holding every gadget before buying it, the behavior does not necessarily indicate indecision or materialism.
They may simply be using touch to gather information about something that cannot be fully understood through sight alone.
At the same time, research suggests that physical interaction can have a psychological effect beyond information gathering. By touching an object, a shopper may begin to experience it as more familiar and personally connected.
That makes the simple act of picking something up more significant than it first appears. A product can remain an item on a shelf, or a few moments of interaction can make it feel like something that already has a place in the shopper’s world.
FAQs
Why do shoppers touch products?
Touch provides information about texture, weight, comfort and quality.
Can touching create ownership feelings?
Yes. Research suggests touch can increase perceived ownership.
What is the mere-touch effect?
It describes how touching an object can increase perceived ownership.
Does touching mean someone is materialistic?
No. They may simply prefer tactile information before buying.
Can touch affect product value?
Yes. Perceived ownership can sometimes influence how people value items.
