How do hugs affect a person's psychological well-being? Here's what we know, writes ocklenBLOG
On average, people in the study hugged others six times a day and hugged four other people a day.Single people appear to benefit more from hugs than those in relationships.and positively affect physical health in several ways, including lowering blood pressure. However, scientific studies on how it affects psychological well-being are rare.
My co-authors and I used a research method called “Ecological Momentary Assessment” on 94 adult volunteers. EMA means that volunteers were not invited to a lab and tested there, like in many traditional psychological studies. Instead, they received an online link to a short questionnaire about hugging, mood, and life satisfaction every day for a period of one week.
Interestingly, the day of the week had a statistically significant effect on how often people hugged. The most hugs happened on Saturday followed by Sunday . The fewest hugs happened on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays , while Thursdays and Fridays were in between .The research team also investigated how many people each person hugged per day. A high number of hugs could be achieved by hugging one person very often, or by hugging many people a few times.
On average, people hugged about four other persons per day. Again, the differences between people were tremendous. Some people did not hug anyone during the seven-day period of the study while one participant hugged as many as 110 people. Again, there was an effect of the day of the week. People hugged about six people on Saturdays and five on Sundays, but as few as two people on some weekdays. This probably reflects the fact that we have more times to meet friends and family on the weekends than during the week.The research group also investigated the association between hugging, mood,