Haptic communication

The sense of touch allows one to experience different sensations such as pleasure, pain, heat, or cold.

Touch can be categorized in many terms such as positive, playful, control, ritualistic, task-related or unintentional.

Striking, pushing, pulling, pinching, kicking, strangling and hand-to-hand fighting are forms of touch in the context of physical abuse.

Human babies have been observed to have enormous difficulty surviving if they do not possess a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing.

Harry Harlow conducted a controversial study involving rhesus monkeys and observed that monkeys reared with a "terry cloth mother", a wire feeding apparatus wrapped in softer terry cloth which provided a level of tactile stimulation and comfort, were considerably more emotionally stable as adults than those with a mere "wire mother".

It turns out that the rhesus monkeys spent most of their time with the terry cloth mother, over the wire surrogate with a bottle of food, which indicates that they preferred touch, warmth, and comfort over sustenance.

[9] Walton[10] stated in his book that touching is the ultimate expression of closeness or confidence between two people, but not seen often in business or formal relationships.

"If a word of praise is accompanied by a touch on the shoulder, that's the gold star on the ribbon," wrote Walton.

Hamilton wrote that the handshake represents the end-of-game as an embodied ritual, form of intimate touch, and legal gesture.

There is also the traditional dap up in certain social settings, a different type of handshake that can also serve as a greeting, departure, or overall a symbol of friendship.

The word dap serves as an acronym for dignity and pride and signifies that the two people shake hands are equals in regards to one another.

[13] Jones explained communication with touch as the most intimate and involving form which helps people to keep good relationships with others.

They must be read by using the total context of what was said, the nature of the relationship and what kind of social setting was involved when the person was touched.

[16] Whitcher and Fisher conducted a study to see whether friendly touch in a healthcare setting reduced anxiety equally or differently between men and women.

Tie signs are used more often by couples in the dating and courtship stages than between their married counterparts according to Burgoon, Buller, and Woodall.

In a study by University of Virginia psychologist Jim Coan, women under stress showed signs of immediate relief by merely holding their husband's hand.

McEwan and Johnson categorize violent touch in relationships into two categories: intimate terrorism and common couple violence.

[22] Intimate terrorism is characterized by an escalating need to control or dominate a relationship with high frequency and severity.

Common couple violence, on the other hand, is often a result of minor conflict, is less frequent and severe, and does not escalate over time.

[23] According to Givens, the process of nonverbal communication or negotiation is to send and receive messages in an attempt to gain someone's approval or love.

Courtship, which may lead to love, is defined as a nonverbal message designed to attract sexual partners.

The final phase, love-making, which includes tactile stimulation during foreplay known as the light or protopathic touch.

Any feelings of fear or apprehension may be calmed through other touching like kissing, nuzzling, and a gentle massage.

These touches communicate a double message since they always involve a play signal, either verbal or nonverbal, which indicates the behavior is not to be taken seriously.

Cultural display rules also affect the degree to which individuals share their personal space, gaze and physical contact during interactions.

[30] Low contact cultures such as: The United States, Canada, Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia prefer infrequent touching, larger physical distance, indirect body orientations (during interaction) along with little share gazes.

Remland and Jones studied groups of people communicating and found that in England (8%), France (5%) and the Netherlands (4%), touching was rare compared to the Italian (14%) and Greek (12.5%) samples.

During a one-hour sitting 180 touchings were observed for Puerto Ricans, 110 for French, none for English and 2 for Americans.

Jandt relates that two men holding hands will in some countries be a sign of friendly affection, whereas in the United States the same tactile code would probably be interpreted as a symbol of homosexual love.

Recently, researchers have shown that touch communicates distinct emotions such as anger, fear, happiness, sympathy, love, and gratitude.