If you want to give the perfect hug, embrace your partner for somewhere between five and 10 seconds and don’t worry about arm position, a new study suggests.
London-based psychologists studied the enjoyment that volunteers received from hugging people of various lengths and orientations.
Longer hugs, between five and 10 seconds, were more pleasant than very short hugs (one second), the experts found, but arm position doesn’t really seem to matter.
The results suggest that’special attention should be taken in avoiding extremely short hugs.’ However, the researchers aren’t sure when a hug gets too awkward or long.
According to the researchers, this study may help designers create more friendly robots. They have received less positive feedback after giving too short hugs.
Longer hugs, between five and 10 seconds, were more pleasant than very short hugs (one second), academics at Goldsmiths, University of London found
Researchers at University of London’s Department of Psychology Goldsmiths conducted the study.
Their new paper states that hugging “is one of most common forms of affective touch encountered every day,”
However, very little information is available about factors that affect hugging behaviour and evaluation.
“Here, you can see how different hugs affect mood.
In the first experiment, 48 participants, all female, hugged an experimenter for either one, five or 10 seconds in two different hugging styles – both ‘criss-cross’ and ‘neck-waist’.
Criss-cross is where one person holds one arm in front of the other, and neck-waist has the huggers holding their arms out to their partners, often parallel to their floor.
Criss-cross is arguably a closer, more intimate embrace that could precede a kiss, while neck-waist is a bit more formal.
To avoid touch perception being affected by visual feedback, participants were blindfolded.
Participants then shared their feelings about the hug.
The neck-waist hug and Crisscross hug are shown (left). Crisscross involves hugging one another with one arm crossed over the other’s shoulder in a diagonal direction, while neck-waist has huggers with one arm under or over their hug partners, and the arms are usually parallel to each other.
Participants were asked how they felt immediately following each hug. Then, three to six minutes later, the participants were again asked what their feelings were.
Results indicated that hug duration can influence hug experience – one-second hugs were rated as less pleasant and less under control than five-second and 10-second hugs.
Also, the researchers found that pleasantness scores did not differ between 10-second hugs or five-second ones. This suggests that there may be a plateau in pleasantness.
Participants indicated higher arousal immediately post hug, compared with three minutes and six minutes post-hug.
However, arm crossing had no or only a small effect on attractiveness and arousal – suggesting where we put our arms really doesn’t matter.
The researchers had hoped that neck-waist hugging would be more enjoyable than crisscrossing hugs. This proved to be false.
The second experiment involved researchers approaching 206 students at Goldsmiths to hug the people they were socialising.
Researchers asked people to rate their emotional closeness with the other person after the hug. Researchers also took note of the arm-crossing style and genders for each participant.
Interestingly, criss-cross hugs were the most common type of arm crossing style, and height difference did not significantly influence hugging style.
The experts state in their paper that this is surprising because a hug that crosses between people of different heights is quite cumbersome.
A new study may help to design friendly robots. The current research was done after robots were given too few hugs.
Height difference and emotional closeness weren’t significantly linked to arm crossing style, but gender was.
Criss-cross hugs were more common between men than between women or mixed pairs – possibility as a sign of respect between two males, as criss-cross hugs have previously been described as more egalitarian.
According to the researchers, further research will be needed in order to identify when hugging becomes ‘too lengthy’. A 2019 study with robots however suggested that too much hugging might make a lasting impression.
Based at Penn State University, the authors found that robots are more socially caring and happy when they receive hugs that last too long than hugs that go too quickly.
The Goldsmiths team says that their findings regarding hug pleasure are in line with previous research that indicated robots respond less favorably to a “too brief” hug. This suggests that shorter hugs can be less enjoyable than more prolonged ones.
Their study has been published in the journal Acta Psychologica.