Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching
Many species use touching for reinforcing social structures, and particularly, non-human primates use social grooming for managing their social networks. However, it is still unclear how social touch contributes to the maintenance and reinforcement of human social networks. Human studies in Western...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83249 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49749 |
| _version_ | 1811677516875694080 |
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| author | Suvilehto, Juulia T. Nummenmaa, Lauri Harada, Tokiko Dunbar, Robin I. M. Hari, Riitta Turner, Robert Sadato, Norihiro Kitada, Ryo |
| author2 | School of Social Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Social Sciences Suvilehto, Juulia T. Nummenmaa, Lauri Harada, Tokiko Dunbar, Robin I. M. Hari, Riitta Turner, Robert Sadato, Norihiro Kitada, Ryo |
| author_sort | Suvilehto, Juulia T. |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Many species use touching for reinforcing social structures, and particularly, non-human primates use social grooming for managing their social networks. However, it is still unclear how social touch contributes to the maintenance and reinforcement of human social networks. Human studies in Western cultures suggest that the body locations where touch is allowed are associated with the strength of the emotional bond between the person touched and the toucher. However, it is unknown to what extent this relationship is culturally universal and generalizes to non-Western cultures. Here, we compared relationship-specific, bodily touch allowance maps across one Western (N = 386, UK) and one East Asian (N = 255, Japan) country. In both cultures, the strength of the emotional bond was linearly associated with permissible touch area. However, Western participants experienced social touching as more pleasurable than Asian participants. These results indicate a similarity of emotional bonding via social touch between East Asian and Western cultures. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:38:37Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/83249 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:38:37Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/832492020-03-07T13:00:26Z Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching Suvilehto, Juulia T. Nummenmaa, Lauri Harada, Tokiko Dunbar, Robin I. M. Hari, Riitta Turner, Robert Sadato, Norihiro Kitada, Ryo School of Social Sciences Cultural Difference Social Touch Social sciences::Communication Many species use touching for reinforcing social structures, and particularly, non-human primates use social grooming for managing their social networks. However, it is still unclear how social touch contributes to the maintenance and reinforcement of human social networks. Human studies in Western cultures suggest that the body locations where touch is allowed are associated with the strength of the emotional bond between the person touched and the toucher. However, it is unknown to what extent this relationship is culturally universal and generalizes to non-Western cultures. Here, we compared relationship-specific, bodily touch allowance maps across one Western (N = 386, UK) and one East Asian (N = 255, Japan) country. In both cultures, the strength of the emotional bond was linearly associated with permissible touch area. However, Western participants experienced social touching as more pleasurable than Asian participants. These results indicate a similarity of emotional bonding via social touch between East Asian and Western cultures. Published version 2019-08-22T05:52:15Z 2019-12-06T15:18:21Z 2019-08-22T05:52:15Z 2019-12-06T15:18:21Z 2019 Journal Article Suvilehto, J. T., Nummenmaa, L., Harada, T., Dunbar, R. I. M., Hari, R., Turner, R., . . . Kitada, R. (2019). Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching. Proceedings of the Royal Society B : Biological Sciences, 286(1901), 20190467-. doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.0467 0962-8452 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83249 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49749 10.1098/rspb.2019.0467 en Proceedings of the Royal Society B : Biological Sciences © 2019 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. 10 p. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Cultural Difference Social Touch Social sciences::Communication Suvilehto, Juulia T. Nummenmaa, Lauri Harada, Tokiko Dunbar, Robin I. M. Hari, Riitta Turner, Robert Sadato, Norihiro Kitada, Ryo Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title | Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title_full | Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title_fullStr | Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title_short | Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching |
| title_sort | cross cultural similarity in relationship specific social touching |
| topic | Cultural Difference Social Touch Social sciences::Communication |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/83249 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/49749 |
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