AI analysis links hug duration and tightness to relationship type and personality traits

A study published in the Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour found that romantic partners hug for substantially longer than platonic friends, while the tightness of a hug is more closely tied to individual personality traits than to relationship type.

Researchers at the Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, used advanced video-analysis algorithms to examine repeated embraces between pairs of participants who were asked to walk toward one another and hug. Participants also completed personality questionnaires that measured traits such as neuroticism and conscientiousness.

The analysis showed that couples hugged considerably longer on average than friends: romantic partners stayed in embraces about 7.02 seconds, while friends hugged for about 2.88 seconds. By contrast, hug tightness—measured by the distance between the bodies during the embrace—varied with personality measures rather than with whether partners were romantic or platonic.

Lead commenters on the findings noted specific trait associations. Higher scores for neuroticism, a trait linked to difficulty regulating negative emotions, were associated with larger interpersonal distance during hugs and thus less tight embraces. Higher conscientiousness scores, a trait associated with responsibility and carefulness, were linked to shorter distances and tighter hugs, the authors reported.

The researchers said they found no significant differences in the distances between specific body parts (for example, knees or feet) when comparing couples and friends. "While one could think that couples hug closer than friends, there were some couples with rather large distances between them," a co-author wrote in a commentary accompanying the work. "The study also included some friends who hugged quite tightly. Thus, hugging tightness did not differ between friends and couples—a surprising insight."

The team used automated video methods to quantify hug characteristics and correlated those measurements with standard personality inventories. The study also catalogued common embrace types and found that criss-cross hugs were the most frequently observed style, while differences in participants' heights did not have a measurable effect on hugging style.

The authors and additional experts placed the findings in the context of earlier research on affectionate touch. Prior studies indicate that longer embraces—typically five to ten seconds—are perceived as more pleasant than very brief hugs of about one second, and that affectionate touch such as hugging and handholding can have a calming effect after interpersonal conflict. A 2018 study at Carnegie Mellon University of roughly 400 people found that those who hugged after an argument were less likely to retain negative feelings in the hours and days that followed.

The Goldsmiths team cautioned that the data do not establish universal thresholds for what constitutes an appropriate hug length, and that situational and cultural factors likely influence comfort with different types of touch. They also said that while duration may be a useful cue to differentiate a close friendship from a romantic relationship in some contexts, individual variation in personality can complicate simple interpretations.

The study adds to a growing body of work that uses automated behavioral analysis to quantify everyday social interactions. By combining video-derived motion metrics with self-reported personality measures, the researchers said they aimed to move beyond anecdotal judgments about nonverbal behavior to produce reproducible, testable findings about how people express and interpret affective touch.

Further research will be needed to assess cross-cultural differences, the role of context (such as greetings versus farewells), and how factors such as age, gender, and relationship duration interact with both hug duration and tightness. For now, the authors suggested that pay attention to the length of an embrace: in their sample, less than three seconds was a common duration for friends, while seven seconds or more occurred more often among romantic partners.