Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching

Abstract

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.

Tactile perception of pleasantness in relation to perceived softness

“…Thus, it is possible that the softness of our bodies is associated with pleasantness to promote interpersonal communication. As in social grooming among monkeys, tactile pleasantness might contribute to maintaining and promoting social structures in humans 9 .…”

“…These two aspects of touch can contribute to a good quality of life and a general sense of well-being [1][2][3][4] . For example, interpersonal touch is associated with cognitive and emotional development in humans and animals 5,6 , while also alleviating unpleasantness associated with physical and social pain 7,8 and maintaining and promoting social structures 9 . The findings of these studies raise the possibility that our tactile preferences are adapted to the characteristics of the skin in order to satisfy the urgent need for social bonds.…”

“…It has been proposed that affective touch is related to how physical contact with an object can potentially influence the physiological condition of the self body 27,39 and social bonding 9,40 . More specifically, the emotions evoked by contact with an object depend on whether that contact could be either hazardous or beneficial.…”

Pain, Touch, and Decision Making : Behavioral and Brain Responses to Affective Somatosensory Stimulation

“…Imagine receiving a soft caress from a romantic partner, and then imagine the same type of touch from a stranger-you probably think the former is pleasant and the latter is unpleasant. In line with this, research has shown that the perception of touch is associated with the strength of the emotional bond between the toucher and the receiver: the closer the bond, the greater the acceptability of touch (i.e., the more body areas can be touched) and the more pleasant the touch is perceived (Suvilehto et al, 2015(Suvilehto et al, , 2019. The identity of the toucher also modulates brain responses to touch, particularly in SI and insula (Gazzola et al, 2012;Suvilehto et al, 2020).…”

Imaging real-time tactile interaction with two-person dual-coil fMRI

“…The setup thereby allows seamless interaction between the members of the dyad, while providing whole-brain coverage. We used social touching as the model task, as touching is an intimate way of conveying affect and trust in social relationships (Nummenmaa et al, 2016;Suvilehto et al, 2015;Suvilehto et al, 2019). Because relationship-social touching cannot be adequately simulated by experimental tools or apparatuses, its investigation would benefit from the real-time dyadic imaging.…”