A Comparison of Hugging Frequency and Its Association with Momentary Mood Before and During COVID-19 Using Ecological Momentary Assessment

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a drastic decrease in human social interactions including social touch. One of the most prevalent forms of touch is hugging. Hugging has been demonstrated to benefit both physical and mental well-being. In the present study, we used an ecological momentary assessment approach to assess the relationship between hugging and momentary mood in two independent cohorts sampled prior or during the pandemic. We found that the frequency of hugging was significantly reduced during the pandemic. Using multilevel modeling, we found a significant positive association between momentary mood and daily hugs. This effect was moderated by the cohort, as individuals during the pandemic showed a stronger positive association compared to the cohort sampled prior to the pandemic. While we have to stress that our results are correlational in nature, they potentially indicate that social touch is more beneficial in times of social distancing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

J.P. supervised the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. M.W., L.S., I.M.M., J.S.R., and L.K. collected data. M.L. conceived the study and consulted on data analysis. S.O. conceived and supervised the study and consulted on data analysis. All authors read and reviewed the manuscript.

Data availability statement

Ethical approval was not provided by the participants to make the data publicly available. The authors therefore are not allowed to upload the data to a public repository as they contain demographic data that allow for potential identification of the participants. For questions regarding the ethics approval, please contact the relevant ethics committee ([email protected]). To make the data accessible, we uploaded both data and code to a private repository in the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/puxsw/). Requests for the data can be made to one of the authors ([email protected]) or to the local ethics committee of the Psychology Department at Ruhr University Bochum ([email protected]).

Ethics statement

All procedures followed the Declaration of Helsinki and were approved by a local ethics committee of the faculty of psychology, the Ruhr University Bochum.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2198058.

Additional information

Funding

Julian Packheiser was supported by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina through grant LPDS 2021-05.