Be careful with that selling #touch - Topography of social touching

TV cameras caught UK Prime Minister David Cameron employing a most personal touch, in of all environments, a state banquet held in honour of China’s President Xi last week. 

The Prime Minister was filmed giving Hugo Swire MP a playful pat on the bottom at the lavish Buckingham Palace occasion.

Mr Cameron walked up behind Foreign Office minister, Hugo Swire, a fellow Old Etonian, and reached out to touch his backside to grab his attention. Mr Swire then turned round to embrace Mr Cameron, and the pair walked off in conversation together.

 A tweet of the incident by Chris Ship went 'viral'. 

However I would imagine that the Prime behaviour Minister's  would not have surprised those researchers of  ' the topography of social touching' . Oxford University teamed up with Finland’s Aalto University to ask more than 1368 men and women from five countries - the UK, Finland, Denmark, Russia and Italy - to colour areas on diagrams of the human body  to depict where they would allow particular people to touch, ranging from their partner to a stranger.

The Touch Map Research as covered
 by the Daily Mail Newspaper 

The Research leader said ‘It is the relationship rather than familiarity that matters. A friend we haven’t seen for some time will still be able to touch areas where an acquaintance we see every day would not.”  ( ergo Mr Cameron and Mr Swire see above)

Professor Robin Dunbar, who led the study, said while a kiss on first meeting was now considered socially acceptable, people will often adopt an "arm hold" simultaneously to make the whole ordeal less awkward.

The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, also shows a distinct difference between men and women and where a person finds a particular place on their body "acceptable" or "inappropriate" to be touched.

Women are generally more comfortable being touched than men, but find it inappropriate to be touched intimately by anyone other than their partner or mother.

Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans

Surprisingly perhaps, the study found that women are more happy to be touched, and by a wider range of people, than men.
 Russians are more comfortable with being touched than Italians (although no one was quite as happy to be touched as the Finns !).

The researchers said: "These body regions formed relationship-specific maps in which the total area was directly related to the strength of the emotional bond between the participant and the touching person.

Cultural influences were minor.

 We suggest that these relation-specific bodily patterns of social touch constitute an important mechanism supporting the maintenance of human social bonds "

The researchers concluded the bodily area others are allowed to touch  represent the strength of the relationship-specific emotional bond.

"We propose that the spatial patterns of human social touch reflect an important mechanism supporting the maintenance of social bonds."

‘It is the relationship rather than familiarity that matters. A friend we haven’t seen for some time will still be able to touch areas where an acquaintance we see every day would not.     

 ‘Touch is universal. While culture does modulate how we experience it, generally we all respond to touching in the same ways.'

 "Even in an era of mobile communications and social media, touch is still important for establishing and maintaining the bonds between people.!"

Aalto University researcher Julia Suvilehto suggested the results of the study (the largest of its kind ever attempted) showed touch was “an important means of maintaining social relationships.

“The greater the pleasure caused by touching a specific area of the body, the more selectively we allow others to touch it.”

It's even gone  feely-touchy on  BBC Radio 4's
 Today Programme !

The famously bald Revd. Dr. Giles Fraser was in the Radio 4 Today studio ready to broadcast his “Thought for the day “ contribution this morning.

Another guest of the programme present in the studio, was the Conservative MP David Davis. Mr. Davis was  there to comment on the House of Lords who the previous night had voted to delay tax credit cuts and to compensate those affected in full.

 David Davis and Giles Fraser clearly know each other.

As the news item on the 'Touch Map Research' story was being read out, Mr Davis apparently patted the iconic pate of the parish priest (of St Mary's, Newington, near the Elephant and Castle, London). There was much giggling in the studio amongst the guests and Today team..

Later Giles Fraser tweeted  jokingly 

“That's the first time I have ever been felt up by a Tory MP live on the Today programme. @DavidDavisMP @BBCr4today”

Related Links

Body language in the Business Context

Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans