Grooming

Querido Blogue:
Social Grooming - In social animals and humans social grooming is a major social activity, and a means by which animals who live in proximity can bond and reinforce social structures, family links, and build relationships. Social grooming is also used as a form of reconciliation and a means of conflict resolution in some species. It is a reuse of ordinary grooming behavior, a means of achieving hygiene and good health, in that an animal that helps another animal to clean itself, is also helping to form a social bond and trust between them.
Human Mutual Grooming
A few empirical studies of human social grooming exist (Nelson, 2006; Nelson, 2007). They rely on self-report survey and experimental methodology of adults living primarily in the U.S. and other Western cultures. People report grooming romantic partners more than grooming people they have other types of relationships with like family members, friends, and strangers. Grooming is associated with increased relationship satisfaction, trust, and experience of family affection while growing up. People who groom, as opposed to touch each other without grooming, are perceived to be better potential parents, more in love with the person they have groomed and more caring and committed to them. Women, but not men, tend to think people who have groomed one another are romantically involved. People also think that if people who have groomed one other are romantically involved, they are in a long-term relationship rather than one that has just begun. Human mutual grooming plays a role in pairbonding.