Data from: The nature and distribution of affiliative behaviour during exposure to mild threat

Individual reactions to danger in humans are often characterized as
antisocial and self-preservative. Yet, more than fifty years of research
have showed that humans often seek social partners and behave pro-socially
when confronted by danger.Yet, more than fifty years of research have
showed that humans seek social partners and behave pro-socially when
confronted by danger. This research has relied on post-hoc verbal reports,
which fall short of capturing the more spontaneous reactions to danger and
determine their social nature. Real-world responses to danger are
difficult to observe, due to their evanescent nature. Here, we took
advantage of a series of photographs freely accessible online and provided
by a haunted house attraction, which enabled us to examine the more
immediate reactions to mild threat. Regarding the nature and structure of
affiliative behaviour and their motivational correlates, we were able to
analyse the distribution of gripping, a behaviour that could either be
linked to self- or other-oriented protection. We found that gripping, an
affiliative behaviour, was common, suggestive of the social nature of
human immediate reactions to danger. We also found that, while gripping
behaviour is quite stable across group sizes, mutual gripping dropped
dramatically as group size increases. The fact that mutual gripping
disappears when the number of available partners increases suggests that
gripping behaviour most probably reflects a self-preservative motivation.
We also found age class differences, with younger individuals showing more
gripping but receiving little reciprocation. Also, the most exposed
individuals received little mutual gripping. Altogether, these results
suggest that primary reactions to threat in humans are driven by
affiliative tendencies serving self-preservative motives.