Humans are naturally curious. Whether it’s babies or adults, people are always asking questions, learning, and using their senses. The sense used the most is sight, but another way people learn is through touch (tactility), especially with babies. They learn what they like a don’t like, and people tend to like soft things the most.
So why do humans like soft things so much?
When someone touches things, it goes to the brain. And what the brain can do is process how it makes the person feel, what the object feels like, connect it to others things similar to it, and have memories relating to it as well. Babies are always surrounded by things that have a soft texture, so when people think of soft things, they could be connecting it with comfort and security, being reminded of a time when they were always comfortable and safe.
Adding onto tactility, Psychology Today explained why people could be attracted to fleecy, silky, or fuzzy textures. In Ingrid Fetall’s article, Sad Times Call For Soft Textures, she assessed that when people are unhappy, they’re more attracted.
A study just published in The Journal of Consumer Research suggests that people are more attentive to tactile stimuli when they’re in a negative frame of mind, making them more likely to crave soft or pleasant textures than to pay attention to visual stimuli, such as color and pattern.
This explained some things, but not everything. Do regular people only like soft things when they’re in a negative state of mind? There had to be more answers. This could also suggest that most people are visual learners so they could be mostly dependent on sight than other senses.
KSL.com offered some more answers. Their article. by Minky Couture, Research shows soft blankets make us feel better mentioned something important. It described the feelings we think with blankets only.
You don’t need Charlie Brown’s word that soft things like blankets provide comfort and security, because a real-life psychologist proved that point in the 1950s.
Things started to make more sense, now.
It was also said that when kids become attached to things like stuffed animals and blankets, they begin to believe that there’s a life force inside of that object.
