Handshaking and Hand-Smelling: On the Potential Role of Handshake Greeting in Human Olfactory Communication

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F23%3A10474502" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/23:10474502 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35159-4_14" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35159-4_14</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35159-4_14" target="_blank" >10.1007/978-3-031-35159-4_14</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Handshaking and Hand-Smelling: On the Potential Role of Handshake Greeting in Human Olfactory Communication

Original language description

In many species, meetings between individuals are characterised by olfactory investigation. This enables individual discrimination and shapes subsequent social decisions. A recent study claimed that human handshake greetings have a similar role, suggesting that people often smell their hands after a handshake. Here we describe two studies that aimed to further test this idea. We observed differences in face-touching frequency following a handshake, apparently influenced by social context. In a public situation, during a graduation ceremony, rates of face-touching were low compared to a more private setting following a social interaction. In both contexts, however, face-touching was more frequent with the non-shaking (left) hand than the shaking (right) hand. In the private setting, nose touching was more common with the left hand. These results do not lend strong support to the idea that hand-smelling is a common form of olfactory assessment following a handshake greeting. In addition, perceptual tests suggest that individual discrimination of hand odour may be less effective than for axillary odour. However, we found that individual differences in hand odours do overlap with those in axillary odours, suggesting the potential for hand odour to contribute to individual assessment on those occasions when hands are smelled.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10602 - Biology (theoretical, mathematical, thermal, cryobiology, biological rhythm), Evolutionary biology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA21-29772S" target="_blank" >GA21-29772S: Visual and olfactory cues to intrasexual competition: psychological and physiological correlates</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 15

ISBN

978-3-031-35158-7

Number of pages of the result

13

Pages from-to

257-269

Number of pages of the book

516

Publisher name

Springer Nature

Place of publication

Cham

UT code for WoS chapter

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