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Observers at an airport coded the nonverbal behavior of 103 pairs composed of a traveler and someone who was greeting or saying goodbye to him or her. It was found: (1) The intimacy of the relationship between two people relates positively to both the likelihood they will be at the airport together (Rho = .74) and the non-verbal intimacy of their encounter (Rho = .54); (2) men tended to initiate touch with women more than vice versa; and (3) the general trend was for more intimate touching to be less frequent (Rho = -.42).
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Heslin et al. (1980) studied this question.
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