hunck
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2011
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Couldn't find an appropriate thread. Feel free to move if there is one.
There was an interesting tv prog the other night. Someone at a university in Israel had videoed participants in a lab without their knowledge, who were introduced at the start to someone running the research and the two would shake hands.
What they found was around 40% would find a way to surreptitiously put the shaken hand up to their nose afterwards, presumably for a sniff. The theory being that subtle signals are picked up from pheromones etc. and such things as fear, dominance threat, sexual compatibility, could possibly be detected. Animals sniff each other directly on meeting, this hand sniffing being the human version.
It was an unexpected discovery, and none of the participants were aware of doing it. It was a sort of unconscious act.
It then moved on to how which handshake you use is learnt & picked up from whatever social group you're part of or grow up with. There's now all sorts of different styles.
Following this it moved on to chimps [being closest human relatives] which have also picked up different hand clasping methods as greetings. Chimps in the same group used the same method, while other groups would use a different one as they learnt it and passed it on to others in the group.
So next time you shake hands with someone, keep an eye on whether you sniff your hand or whether the shakee does...
There was an interesting tv prog the other night. Someone at a university in Israel had videoed participants in a lab without their knowledge, who were introduced at the start to someone running the research and the two would shake hands.
What they found was around 40% would find a way to surreptitiously put the shaken hand up to their nose afterwards, presumably for a sniff. The theory being that subtle signals are picked up from pheromones etc. and such things as fear, dominance threat, sexual compatibility, could possibly be detected. Animals sniff each other directly on meeting, this hand sniffing being the human version.
It was an unexpected discovery, and none of the participants were aware of doing it. It was a sort of unconscious act.
It then moved on to how which handshake you use is learnt & picked up from whatever social group you're part of or grow up with. There's now all sorts of different styles.
Following this it moved on to chimps [being closest human relatives] which have also picked up different hand clasping methods as greetings. Chimps in the same group used the same method, while other groups would use a different one as they learnt it and passed it on to others in the group.
So next time you shake hands with someone, keep an eye on whether you sniff your hand or whether the shakee does...
