Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Sorokowska A 1 , Saluja S 2 , Sorokowski P 1 , Frąckowiak T 1 , Karwowski M 1 , Aavik T 3 Show all authors , Akello G 4 , Alm C 5 , Amjad N 6 , Anjum A 7 , Asao K 8 , Atama CS 9 , Atamtürk Duyar D 10 , Ayebare R 11 , Batres C 12 , Bendixen M 13 , Bensafia A 14 , Bizumic B 15 , Boussena M 14 , Buss DM 8 , Butovskaya M 16 , Can S 17 , Cantarero K 18 , Carrier A 19 , Cetinkaya H 20 , Chabin D 1 , Conroy-Beam D 21 , Contreras-Graduño J 22 , Varella MAC 23 , Cueto RM 24 , Czub M 1 , Dronova D 16 , Dural S 17 , Duyar I 10 , Ertugrul B 10 , Espinosa A 24 , Esteves CS 25 , Guemaz F 26 , Haľamová M 27 , Herak I 19 , Hromatko I 28 , Hui CM 29 , Jaafar JL 30 , Jiang F 31 , Kafetsios K 32 , Kavcic T 33 , Kennair LEO 13 , Kervyn NO 19 , Khilji IA 34 , Köbis NC 35 , Kostic A 36 , Láng A 37 , Lennard GR 15 , León E 24 , Lindholm T 5 , Lopez G 38 , Manesi Z 39 , Martinez R 40 , McKerchar SL 15 , Meskó N 37 , Misra G 41 , Monaghan C 15 , Mora EC 42 , Moya-Garofano A 40 , Musil B 43 , Natividade JC 44 , Nizharadze G 45 , Oberzaucher E 46 , Oleszkiewicz A 1 , Onyishi IE 9 , Özener B 10 , Pagani AF 38 , Pakalniskiene V 47 , Parise M 38 , Pazhoohi F 48 , Pejičić M 36 , Pisanski A 42 , Pisanski K 1 , Plohl N 43 , Popa C 49 , Prokop P 50 , Rizwan M 51 , Sainz M 52 , Salkičević S 28 , Sargautyte R 47 , Sarmany-Schuller I 53 , Schmehl S 46 , Shahid A 7 , Shaikh R 54 , Sharad S 41 , Siddiqui RS 55 , Simonetti F 56 , Tadinac M 28 , Ugalde González K 57 , Uhryn O 58 , Vauclair CM 25 , Vega Araya LD 57 , Widarini DA 59 , Yoo G 60 , Zadeh ZF 61 , Zaťková M 27 , Zupančič M 33 , Croy I 62

Affiliations 

  • 1 University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland
  • 2 Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 3 University of Tartu, Estonia
  • 4 Gulu University, Uganda
  • 5 Stockholm University, Sweden
  • 6 NUR International University, Pakistan
  • 7 University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
  • 8 The University of Texas at Austin, USA
  • 9 University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
  • 10 Istanbul University, Turkey
  • 11 THETA Uganda, Kampala, Uganda
  • 12 Franklin and Marshall College, USA
  • 13 Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  • 14 University of Algiers, Algeria
  • 15 The Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • 16 Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia
  • 17 Izmir University of Economics, Turkey
  • 18 SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw, Poland
  • 19 Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
  • 20 Department of Psychology, Ankara University, Turkey
  • 21 University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
  • 22 Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Morelia, Mexico
  • 23 University of São Paulo, Brazil
  • 24 Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
  • 25 Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal
  • 26 University Setif, Algeria
  • 27 Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia
  • 28 University of Zagreb, Croatia
  • 29 The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong
  • 30 University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 31 Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
  • 32 Faculty of Arts, Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic
  • 33 University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • 34 Islamabad Model College for Boys, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • 35 Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany
  • 36 University of Niš, Serbia
  • 37 University of Pécs, Hungary
  • 38 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy
  • 39 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 40 University of Granada, Spain
  • 41 University of Delhi, India
  • 42 University of Havana, Cuba
  • 43 University of Maribor, Slovenia
  • 44 Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  • 45 K. Bendukidze Free University, Tbilisi, GA, USA
  • 46 University of Vienna, Austria
  • 47 Vilnius University, Lithuania
  • 48 University of British Columbia, Canada
  • 49 UNATC-CINETIc Bucharest, Romania
  • 50 Comenius University, Slovakia
  • 51 University of Karachi, Pakistan
  • 52 University of Monterrey, San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico
  • 53 Center for Social and Psychological Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia
  • 54 Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 55 DHA Suffa University, Karachi, Pakistan
  • 56 Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • 57 Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica
  • 58 Lviv State University of Internal Affairs, Ukraine
  • 59 University of Prof Dr. Moestopo, Jakarta, Indonesia
  • 60 Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • 61 Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • 62 TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, 2021 12;47(12):1705-1721.
PMID: 33615910 DOI: 10.1177/0146167220988373

Abstract

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual-level factors (sex, age, parasitic history, conservatism, religiosity, and preferred interpersonal distance) and cultural-level factors (regional temperature, parasite stress, regional conservatism, collectivism, and religiosity) in predicting these affective-touching behaviors. Our results indicate that affective touch was most prevalent in relationships with partners and children, and its diversity was relatively higher in warmer, less conservative, and religious countries, and among younger, female, and liberal people. This research allows for a broad and integrated view of the bases of cross-cultural variability in affective touch.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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