How can different cultures interpret touch?

Answer 1

"The Touch Research Institute was set up by the University of Miami's School of Medicine in 1992. Through worldwide research, it established that there are two types of cultures - "high touch", such as France, Italy and Greece, and "low touch", such as New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States. Some of the research involved observing couples in cafes for 30 minutes and recording their touching. "In Paris, the "touch rate" was 110 times over half an hour. In Miami, couples made physical contact just twice in the same time. Researchers also compared physical contact in preschool playgrounds. In Paris, children touched one another affectionately 23 per cent of the time; in Miami, they did so only 3 per cent of the time. Aggressive touching occurred 37 per cent of the time in the Miami playground, but only 1 per cent in the Paris preschool." http://www.cyc-net.org/today2002/today020619.html