Affective touch perception and longing for touch during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interpersonal touch and affective touch play a crucial role in social interactions and have a positive influence on mental health. The social distancing regulations implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced the ability to engage in interpersonal touch. This could cause longing for touch, and it might subsequently alter the way in which affective touch is perceived. To investigate this, we conducted an online survey and included 1982 participants, which contained questions regarding the COVID-19 regulations, longing for touch, and the perceived pleasantness of affective and non-affective touch. Results showed that participants reported feelings of longing for touch. This significantly increased with the duration and severity of the COVID-19 regulations. In addition, participants who experienced more longing for touch rated videos of affective and non-affective touch as more pleasant. Current results provide insight in the impact of sudden and prolonged COVID-19 regulations and show that increasing the duration and severity of these regulations is associated with a higher desire for touch, which is associated with increased perceived pleasantness of observing touch.

Educational responses to the challenges of the COVID-19 global pandemic: online provision and its consequences for the social resilience of minority communities

Social resilience can be defined as the individual's willingness to mobilise for the communal good, combined with the ability of societal institutions to both resist and adapt to changing conditions. Social resilience has become increasingly important as we respond to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic poses to education. As individuals, we are expected to act for the communal good by wearing masks, following social distancing and allowing contact tracing. At the institutional level, education providers have responded to the current situation to a great extent by rapidly moving education online. However, online education provision has connotations which threaten the quality of education provision for minorities (ethnic, religious, and others). This paper looks at potential scenarios of online education disadvantaging minorities and suggests principles which can guide socially resilient education transformation in response to crises like the global COVID-19 pandemic.