ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Cross-cultural similarity in relationship-specific social touching.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Touch, communication and affect: a systematic review on the use of touch in healthcare professions.Systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Human ticklishness is a widespread, culturally shared and bodily organized sensory experience.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Surrogate bias: Behavioral and physiological effects of seeing ingroup and outgroup virtual agents touching one's embodied avatar.Computers in human behavior reports · 2026Article
- Affective touch and face recognition: effects on memory and metacognitive performance.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Autistic adults prefer social touch less but engage just as much: The impact of social context, relationship type, sensory responsivity, and psychological factors.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- First-person visual perspective enhances audiovisual synchrony effects in autonomous sensory meridian response.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Centrality of Touch Avoidance in Social Touch Experiences in Autism.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Atypical tactile preferences in autism spectrum disorder: Reduced pleasantness responses to soft objects resembling human body parts.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2025Article
- Reduced relationship-specific social touching and atypical association with emotional bonding in autistic adults.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Article
- Why friendship and loneliness affect our health.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Is cultural context the crucial touch? Neurophysiological and self-reported responses to affective touch in women in South Africa and the United Kingdom.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Social touch deprivation during the COVID-19 pandemic and reduced well-being.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- The meaning of touch: Relational and individual variables shape emotions and intentions associated with imagined social touch.European journal of social psychology · 2024Article
- The experience of a tele-operated avatar being touched increases operator's sense of discomfort.PeerJ. Computer science · 2024Article
- Higher oxytocin concentrations occur in subjects who build affiliative relationships with companion robots.iScience · 2023Article
- The social roots of self development: from a bodily to an intellectual interpersonal dialogue.Psychological research · 2023Review
- Topography and relationship-specific social touching in individuals displaying body image disturbances.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Touching a Mechanical Body: The Role of Anthropomorphic Framing in Physiological Arousal When Touching a Robot.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.