No hugging please, we Brits still prefer a handshake

TRADITIONAL British reserve is alive and well in today’s touchy-feely society, a survey has found.

Most of us are still only comfortable with a formal handshake when meeting someone for the first time, a study suggests.

Researchers asked volunteers to use a computer to mark the parts of their body that others in their lives were allowed to touch. Married Britons and couples are happy for their partners to touch any part of their body, and most of the 386 people questioned were relaxed about friends and close relatives touching their torsos and faces.

But most people indicated that strangers were banned from touching their body, even ruling out a pat on the arm.

The study, led by Aalto University in Finland, says: ‘Touching by strangers was primarily limited to the hands.’

Researchers found people enjoyed being touched by someone they shared a bond with, but people of both sexes were less comfortable when touched by men.

The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

In separate research, it has emerged many people want an end to physical contact in offices, with a third having suffered an ‘awkward’ encounter with a colleague.

A quarter of 2,000 adults surveyed by website Totaljobs said they avoided others because of their behaviour. Three-quarters supported a ban on physical contact.