At a woman’s touch, financial empires are wagered

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In the art of the deal, a woman’s touch possesses special magic, some new research suggests.

For men and women alike who are engaged in financial gamesmanship, a woman’s gentle touch inspired reassurance, self-confidence and a heightened willingness to take risks, a series of experiments described in the journal Psychological Science found. A light, reassuring pat on the shoulder, when performed by a woman, was a more powerful prod to financial risk-taking than a woman’s handshake. And the female touch outperformed a man’s handshake, as well as his version of the reassuring pat on the shoulder, in inspiring financial risk-taking.

The study, by Jonathan Lavav of Columbia University Business School and Jennifer J. Argo of University of Alberta, was released Wednesday. Their experiments put just over 250 undergraduates -- men and women -- into a variety of investment schemes in which they were instructed by male and female study confederates who shook hands, performed the light-touch gesture and in some cases, had no physical contact with subjects.

‘We suggest that a simple pat on the back of the shoulder -- by a female -- in a way that connotes support may evoke feelings that are similar to the sense of security afforded by a mother’s comforting touch in infancy,’ wrote Lavav and Argo in the article. ‘Despite the subtlety of the manipulation: a momentary touch on the shoulder,’ the data gathered over three experiments ‘indicate that our participants perceived a real sense of security and that it led them to take greater financial risk than untouched participants did.’

This finding comes on the heels of research finding that women’s sense of touch -- in their fingertips -- is actually finer and more acute than that of men. And just last week, the Journal of Neuroscience published a study by University of California Irvine child neurologist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram finding that a mother’s touch triggers activity in a baby’s brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress.

The hand that rocks the cradle does rule the world. It can also, apparently, rock the market.

--Melissa Healy