30-year-old Asian-born Chon hesitates as he greets a family friend 60-years old European-born Magaret having met her socially five times before.

A smiling bow, a handshake, or a kiss on the cheek?

As an Asian, Chon feels that a bow is most fulfilled as a respect for an elder while being formally good taste and proper.

And yet, he is tempted for a handshake as a typical formal cosmopolitan western greeting as wearing a suit and tie. Sufficiently neutral but with a touch.

But Chon ended up with a kiss on Magaret’s cheek, not quite yet an authentic display of affection but rather to follow a European etiquette. Chon blushes slightly as he withdraws from the European lady.

While vision and body language, often associated with Asian greetings, are well recognized and well researched scientifically as interpersonal communication – a touch is not so clear cut.

Likewise, a "hug" – a greeting form rigorously promoted by the late Leo Buscaglia, author and professor at University of Southern California. He pursued how touches can convey emotions, create bonds, and even improve physical and mental health.

Further study into interpersonal communication through touches is back in vogue. Psychologists at Harvard, MIT and Yale are today working on a research suggesting that physical touch — the first of our senses to develop — may continue to operate throughout life like a scaffold upon which people build their social judgments and decisions.

"Touch remains perhaps the most underappreciated sense in behavioral research," said co-author Christopher C. Nocera, a graduate student in Harvard’s Department of Psychology.

"Our work suggests that greetings involving touch, such as handshakes and cheek kisses, may in fact have critical influences on our social interactions, in an unconscious fashion."

It is the interpersonal communication which the researchers are pinning down. This would have practical implications among others on business interactions such as negotiations and applying for jobs.

Stay in touch for the results of this landmark research undertaking and think what your form of greeting might mean!