The team looked at recordings of tennis, table tennis, badminton and boxing
involving men and women from 44 countries.
They focused on what happened in the aftermath of these events in terms of
physical contacts, such as handshakes and embraces, between opponents.
In society generally, data indicates that physical contact between women
is equal to or more frequent than it is among males.
But across the four sports observed, men spent significantly more time touching
than females, in what the authors term "post-conflict affiliation".