“We wanted to know if a hug-related behaviour is affected by the emotional context of the give situation,” explains lead author Julian Packheiser of Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum, Germany.
Furthermore, the researchers also “wanted to find out if motor characteristics such as handedness determine the lateralisation of the embrace.”
As you are very much aware, people hug for a variety of reasons, for instance out of anxiety, expression of love and affection, happiness or maybe to comfort one another.
The research studied people exchanging hugs in different scenarios such as at the arrival and departures of airports, street and shop mannequins.
Findings
An analysis of the observations, which is published in Psychological Research seems to suggest that emotions are processed in the right hemisphere of the brain, meaning that most people prefer to give right-sided hugs in these instances. Both negative and positive influences are affected in most cases because “the influence of the right hemisphere, which controls the left side of the body and processes both positive and negative emotions,” Packheiser explains.
Furthermore, which hand will go on top during an embrace could be predicted based on a person’s handedness and footedness.
The researchers subsequently asked 120 test participants to hug a mannequin after listening to various positive, negative and neutral short stories via headphones.
Right-handed people tend to hug the other person from the right side, much more often than left-handed people.
To find out more about this research, visit the Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum website.
