44 | New Scientist | 14 November 2020
nasal airflow. This doubled when the
participant’s shaken hand was near their face.
This supports the idea that formalised
greetings offer a covert means of checking
someone’s scent. “We’re not very different
from rats, in that sense,” says Frumin. If he is
right, the idea can also explain why we find it
so hard to stop touching our faces – another
no-no in today’s pandemic.
Like the baboon and capuchin rituals,
our tactile greetings also allow us to assess
someone’s character and to establish our
trust in them. One study found that the
strength and duration of a handshake offers
a fairly accurate prediction of personality
traits including extraversion, neuroticism
and open-mindedness. Francesca Gino at
Harvard University, meanwhile, has found
that students engaged in a simulated real-
estate negotiation were more honest about
the quality of the property if they had been
encouraged to shake hands before the task.Signals of trust
Although these studies looked solely at the
handshake, many other physical gestures
could serve a similar purpose. An analysis
of players in the US National Basketball
Association, for example, found that teams
that regularly engaged in fist bumps, high
fives, hugs and huddles at the start of the
2008–2009 season tended to perform better
in the following months. Such open body
language renders us physically vulnerable,
signalling our willingness to work with the
other party in good faith.
Unfortunately, as we are now discovering,
there is a downside to tactile contact.
No matter how much we trust someone,
a close-up interaction runs the risk of
transferring pathogens. In fact, the threat
of disease appears to have influenced the
greetings adopted by many cultures long
before covid-19 came along.
Damian Murray at Tulane University
in New Orleans and his colleagues combed
an ethnographic database for records of
greeting etiquette in 186 cultures, which
they then rated for physical contact, fromA very brief history
of greetings
Physical greetings may be
part of human nature, but
they also vary hugely from
culture to culture. The origins
of some are a little murky.
The oldest evidence of the
handshake, for example, can
be seen in an Assyrian relief
from the 9th century BC, which
shows King Shalmaneser III
sealing an alliance with a clasp
of the hand. Handshaking
can also be found in ancient
Greek literature as a sign
of hospitality.
Evidence of kissing is even
older. References to romantic
kisses can be found in some of
the world’s earliest texts,
including the Vedic scriptures
and ancient Sumerian poetry,
as early as 3500 years ago.
The social kiss dates to at least
the Roman Empire, where
it was seen as a greeting
between equals. The emperor
Tiberius, who reigned from
AD 14 to 37, banned the
practice at court receptions,
since it was believed to spread
a dangerous facial infection.
The ban didn’t last for long;
cheek-kissing has remained
particularly popular across
southern Europe.
Some cultures touch noses
as a greeting. This is known
as the hongi to New Zealand’s
Maori population, to whom
the “sharing of breath” is
considered to symbolisethe unity between two people.
It can also be found in some
Inuit cultures, though it isn’t as
prevalent as the cliché of the
“Eskimo kiss” would suggest.
Many cultures prefer
socially distanced greetings,
such as bowing, to symbolise
trust and cooperation – and
these, too, are ancient. The
Indus Valley Scriptures
depicted the namaste bow
more than 4000 years ago,
and bow greetings are still
common in countries such
as India, Japan and Thailand.
In Tibet, people will stick their
tongues out of their mouth to
show their friendly intentions.
These distanced greetings
remain the safest option for
anyone who wants to convey
good wishes without getting
too close and personal.
However, some more recently
invented greetings might
serve as alternatives. There is
evidence that the fist bump,
which emerged in the 1960s,
lowers the risk of transmitting
a disease compared with
a more formal handshake.
Along with the elbow bump,
which seems to have
originated in the 1980s, it may
become much more common
now that the covid-19
pandemic has increased our
awareness of the disease-
transmitting potential of
more intimate greetings.