As with anything, timing is everything.
Psychologists at the Goldsmiths, University of London, have revealed key aspects of the ideal hug, including the optimal time length and style of a squeeze.
They found that a longer hug — between five and 10 seconds — delivered a more positive impact compared to shorter ones. They also learned that arm positioning — whether crisscrossed, around the waist or over the shoulder — did not matter.
And while research suggested that “extremely brief hugs” should be avoided, it remains unclear just how long is too long.
Researchers say their study is perhaps the first to examine “the factors that influence hugging evaluation and behavior … and whether they can affect mood,” they wrote in their new report, published in the journal Acta Psychologica.
They enlisted 48 participants — all women, “due to resource constraints” — to pair up and hug one another at intervals of one, five or 10 seconds, and in two different hugging patterns, either “criss-cross” or “neck-waist.” The former has each hugger entwine the other in a diagonal pattern, with one arm of the shoulder and the other around the side; the latter sees the huggers with their arms around each other’s necks, or just under their shoulders.
Volunteers were also blindfolded “to avoid visual feedback influencing touch perception.” Following their sessions, participants would then report on how those hugs left them feeling immediately after the hug, then again after three minutes post-hug, and once more at six minutes. They used words such as “pleasant,” “arousing” or “under control” (as opposed to awkward) to describe their mood in the aftermath of embrace.
They found that one-second hugs were regarded as less pleasant and under-control than five- or 10-second ones — both of which saw similar positive outcomes. Researchers wondered if, beyond 10 seconds, huggers might reach “a plateau in pleasantness.” But those good feelings waned as time went on, with most arousal felt immediately after the hug.
On the other hand, arm position seemed to have had little to no effect on participants — surprising experts who posited that criss-cross hugs were more comfortable than neck-waist styles.
In another experiment, researchers asked to observe hugs between 206 men and women on the Goldsmiths campus and prompted them to rate their experience on a scale of zero to 100.
Despite gender and height differences, the criss-cross style was the most common approach between men and women.
“This is surprising in that a criss-cross hug between two people with height differences is rather cumbersome,” the authors wrote.
However, same-gender hugs saw a different approach, in which the criss-cross style was most prevalent among two hugging men, while two women or mixed-gender hugs saw more variation.
The study adds to data about the differences between men and women and how they approach contact with others. Last year, a study found that women are more driven by heredity to crave skin-on-skin — called “skin hunger”— whereas men are more influenced by their environment, meaning their personal or cultural experience.
Researchers said they hope to see further study on when hugs might become uncomfortably long — and possibly apply results to research involving hugging robots that may be used to boost humans’ moods in the future.
“Our findings on hug pleasure align with research indicating that robots are evaluated less positively after a ‘too short’ [of a] hug, indicating that very short hugs are less pleasant than longer hugs,” the Goldsmiths team said.