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Marie Lanen
Head of parenting section (baby, pregnancy, family)
According to a study conducted by French researchers, the teddy bear would have an important comforting power on children, but also on adults.
A study published in the journal The Journal of Positive Psychology highlights the work of researchers from the University of Montpellier. They decided to conduct a study to unlock the secret of the comforting power of teddy bears. To do this, the French scientists recruited a thousand people aged 3 to 72 years. After sending photos of their teddy bear, the participants had to measure the physical characteristics (size of the bear, hair length, eye size…), olfactory and kinesthetic characteristics of their teddy.
Good in your body, good in your head!
A strong emotional bond with his teddy bear
During the 2019 Researchers’ Night, the study carried out in thirteen French cities made it possible to collect the photographs and characteristics of several hundred teddy bears brought by a thousand participants. They had to compare the comforting power of their bear with eight other teddy bears. This procedure was repeated, using another bear with whom the participants had no emotional connection. Results ? It’s scientific, the emotional bond that one shares with his teddy bear plays a greater role in comfort than any other characteristic. The researchers were also able to analyze that the softness, the fact that the teddy bear was pleasant to handle and to look at played a role in the perception of comfort. “These works open up promising avenues for studying the psychological functioning of individuals thanks to teddy bears, but above all they suggest a form of predictability of their comforting power which could make it possible to extend the list of uses, for example, at school. , in the hospital, at work, during negotiations, in a crisis situation”, notes Thierry Brassac, the author of the study and head of the scientific culture service at the University of Montpellier.