Aim of the pretest:
Questions 8 and 9 were designed to record how often the respondents and their partners had touched each other in this way in the past week and whether this frequency corresponded to their wishes. Cognitive follow-up questions were used to examine how the respondents interpreted the picture, how they determined their answers to question 8, and whether the two questions were correctly related.
Findings:
Table 12 shows the frequency distributions of questions 8 and 9. There was no item nonresponse for either question, i.e., all 240 test respondents answered both questions. The test persons used the full range of scales for both questions. The frequency distributions of question 9 are significantly left-skewed, indicating that respondents tended to desire more frequent contact of this type. One third of respondents were asked open-ended follow-up questions about questions 8 and 9 (n = 80).
How do respondents interpret the picture?
The majority of respondents (n = 64) interpreted the image as a hug. Some of these respondents specified that it was an "intimate," "close," or "long" hug (n = 22). Six respondents suggested that the hug was for comfort. Four respondents interpreted the picture as one of the pictured persons hugging the other from behind and giving her a kiss on the cheek or neck. The respondents who understood the image in this way indicated a low frequency because it was a very specific type of touch. One respondent complained that the image remained unclear ("You could make this image a little more clearly. To me it looks like a kiss on the neck, which goes towards foreplay.", TP675). Three respondents described the image as "cuddling." The remaining respondents gave vague descriptions such as “comfort," "warmth," or "affection."
How do respondents determine their answer to Question 8?
Respondents used different strategies to assess how often they had hugged their partner in the past week. The hugging of the partner seemed to be strongly ritualized in the daily routine of the test persons, and so the most frequent answer strategy was to go through the daily routine (43.8%):
The remaining test persons mostly stated that they had roughly estimated the frequency (36.3%).
Do respondents meaningfully relate their answers to questions 8 and 9?
Of the 240 respondents, 61.1% (n = 149) chose the same answer category for both questions, 37.5% (n = 90) gave a higher value for question 9 than for question 8, i.e. that they would have preferred to hug their partner more often, and only one person gave a lower value for question 9, expressing that they would have preferred to touch their partner less often in this way.
Those who answered both questions in the same way all said that their relationship in this respect corresponded to their ideas and needs:
Similarly, all respondents who would have liked more hugs than took place provided an appropriate explanation for their choice of answers:
In summary, the majority of respondents understood the picture as a hug. Individual test persons thought that one person was hugging the other from behind. In addition, individual test persons interpreted the picture with an additional kiss on the cheek or neck, sometimes with an erotic component. The respondents who understood the image in this way usually indicated a low frequency, as it represents a very specific type of touch. Selecting answers did not cause any problems for the respondents, who were able to remember well when and how often they hugged their partner. In addition, the respondents' explanations for why they selected their particular combination of responses were consistent with their answers.
