We use the mystery of handholding as a lens into all of these questions, and it works very well, because the function of handholding – the root reason that we do it at all – underlies all of these phenomena.Ī. In the middle of all this, we discover that the processes and needs leading to handholding can teach us about the evolution and neuroscience of everything from love, to parenting, to music, to ritual and religion, and even to how we face fear, suffering and death. In my “Why We Hold Hands” class, I try to help my students discover how a simple behavior like handholding – something most of us take for granted – holds clues to everything from how humans evolved to how our brains have been shaped by natural selection to function. Why is it important for students to study the phenomena of holding hands? What can they gain from it?Ī. “Holding hands with a trusted relational partner, like a friend, a romantic partner, a parent, a sibling, a child, is literally good for your health.” One way to think about it is that handholding frees up neural “bandwidth,” allowing the brain to focus on things other than potential dangers. This has many consequences for how the brain solves other kinds of problems. Probably many things, but that common denominator – that felt sense of security – is detectable at the level of brain activity, where we see neural circuits associated with vigilance for potential threats become a lot less active. What is going on in the brain when people hold hands?Ī. I think a better explanation is simply that humans must know that they are safely embedded in a network of supportive social relationships if they are to survive and thrive, and handholding is such a strong way to signal this that we all – most of us – just naturally do it.

Among these are that handholding is somehow encoded in our genome. For instance, in some cultures, handholding among men is taboo, while in others it’s expected and seen as entirely natural.īut handholding is so pervasive that some other possibilities must be considered. It’s highly likely that handholding behavior, human universal or not, is powerfully shaped by culture.

(Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)Ī. UVA psychology professor James Coan leads a lab that explores how social relationships protect us against stress and keep us healthy. This is significant for a lot of reasons, among them the fact that true human universals aren’t easy to identify. As far as anyone can tell, handholding is a human universal. There is reason to believe we started using handholding a very long time ago, indeed.Ī. He thinks chimps use something he calls “hand clasping” as part of a reconciliation ritual after conflict. There is some evidence that other species do something like what we call handholding.Īccording to the primatologist Frans de Waal, chimpanzees do it, although much less frequently and under more specific circumstances. Do you know when this activity first began?Ī. And when we find another hand there, we know for certain that we aren’t alone.

Our hands are our body’s way of exploring and manipulating the world – we reach out in the dark. Our hands are suffused with dense sensory capabilities that afford detailed and unambiguous information about the things they touch, including each other. It isn’t just the fact that we are touching, either. When we detect those signals, our brains and bodies can relax and move on to other concerns.Īnd our hands offer excellent, unambiguous signals of physical presence. When we lack those signals, our bodies go into a state of alarm that triggers a stress response. We seek signals from each other that we are together. Because of this, unwanted isolation is dangerous. We now know that humans are adapted to each other not unlike the way that salamanders are adapted to cool, dark damp environments.

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