The Best Way to Hug Someone, According to Science | Hacker News Reader

The Best Way to Hug Someone, According to Science

theswaddle.com

151 pointsrustoo106 comments

Slightly off-topic: I’m a professional dancer, we specifically train hugging.

For contemporary dance, because it’s an important skill for a lot of partnering moves, like jumps involving two persons (an example of partnering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1BbxTWsoO4&t=13s). One important detail I found interesting is that for contemporary dancers, it’s not only about the arms, but how to use the whole body for the hug. Many people in everyday life unconsciously lean forward while hugging to keep some distance between their hips. Close hips feel much to intimate in Western culture for most people. We trained to not do that. Instead we trained to stand with slightly offset feet, so we could stand very close to each other and stay upright and to hug with the whole body. This is both aesthetically and especially biomechanically advantageous for dance.

Similarly in couple dances like Tango the quality of the hug is very important. I remember many female Tango friends would praise an experienced dancer for his abrazo before anything else.

Your response is the most important reason for why I love HN, so many interesting "slight" off-topics.

Thank you.

So my slight off-topic to your slight off-topic: I want to learn dance myself but after using "barefoot" shoes for last few years when I see dance (men) shoes they scream to me moving in them will be painful, because of narrow toe box. There are no dance shoes with wide toe box, like anywhere.

So I ordered custom made and should get them next week. It was actually hard to convince shoe maker to create one. I checked them in the middle if fitting is OK, and even that they are not as wide as I would like they are still way better than any ready to buy set.

Hmm, at least when I was swing dancing .... most dancers just had shoes they like resoled. I never did it myself, as I had found some that worked, and I wasn't doing it often enough to wear them out.

Another option is to convert your regular shoes to dance shoes with a suede sticker [0] and scissors.

[0] https://www.soles2dance.com

Where did you order your custom shoes from?

He is in Poland (from my city Lodz): http://www.lewandowskiszewc.pl/ I know that he is making shoes for people from other countries.

He is artistic shoemaker and you can see some more of his creations on fb: https://www.facebook.com/szewstwoartystyczne/

He, unfortunately, like to have narrow toe box... That's why I was pushing him hard to make one with wider toe box and even left one of my Joe nimble pair as a example.

The variety of HN readers never ceases to amaze me.

I'm a record producer and co-owner of a general contracting company and I don't work in tech. The things that drew me to HN over ten years ago was 1) The breadth of intellectually stimulating essays and articles 2) The quality of discussion around said articles and 3) The quality of moderation and the culture that upholds it.

For the intellectually curious I don't know many other places in which to have these discussion online. Everything else seems to be corrupted in one way or another (trashy/unfocused content, poor/zero moderation, community not large or diverse enough).

If y'all know of another place that satisfies my three criteria above please let me know.

I instinctively lean forward because unless the other party has a large chest and is also 6'3" tall, we aren't likely to align properly standing straight.

I know this might be off-topic, but are you familiar with ballroom dance? If so, how does one learn to touch in a way that's not to stilted but doesn't, for lack of better phrasing, "overreach" into intimate territory?

Not the author of the comment, but I dance socially and from what I've seen and experienced it varies wildly depending on the dancers, style of dance, context etc etc.

Eg Sensual Bachata and Urban Kiz are embracing in a intimate way that can be difficult to get used to, but while it may look very overreaching to most people, overwhelmingly, it's really not sexual at all. (unless the dancers want it to be, which does happen but isn't really the norm or point of the dance)

It is part of the process of learning the dance form itself. Even in something like sensual bachata, you learn which parts of the body are "safe" and which are not. For example, upper back okay lower back not.

In Kizomba, the partners are pretty much always in a pretty close embrace. Kizomba is impossible to lead without a contact at lower ribcage/upper belly with the partner. In any other setting, this would be a pretty intimate position, but in Kizomba it is not. Learning to be comfortable with it is part of learning Kizomba.

In my swing club in grad school we once had a Balboa lesson. The instructor used me to demonstrate, and the way she taught it, the dancers basically mash their hips together and bounce rapidly -- like 3 times a second. It felt designed by rabbits. I was embarrassed but everyone seemed to think we looked cool.

That doesn't sound quite like the Balboa I was taught, where the contact is at the top of the chest (and along the arms and hands of course) and the partners are slightly offset to the side to avoid shin kicking and toe trampling. As you say, the footwork is very rapid and the hold is close - perfect for fast tunes and crowded dancefloors - but no hip mashing that I recall.

We were slightly offset, yes; her foot fell between mine, and vice versa.

Agreed, I had learned it as basically a continuous hug, still really close chest to chest and not something that everyone was comfortable with.

Was the instructor a working professional or another undergraduate or graduate student?

How comfortable were you in general when it came to Swing?

>How comfortable were you in general when it came to Swing?

Somewhat unrelated experience, but Kizomba also involves a close embrace with a contact at chest/belly and it feels somewhat uncomfortable/risque at first. But as you learn the dance, you have to really concentrate on maintaining the frame so as to be able to lead and follow correctly, and the whole thing feels in fact quite meditative and not sexual at all.

I think she was an undergraduate.

If you mean skill, I was one of the better dance students, okay at everything and excellent at a few things. If you mean emotionally, I enjoyed it a lot, even when I felt clueless.

I've only done International Standard, Smooth, Rhythm, and Latin dances and their American variations, but I don't recall doing Bachata and I've only learned about Kizomba as a result of this thread. With that said, I know of the obvious cases of where and how not to touch. It's other elements like hand pressure, control, silent looks, etc. the confluence of which constitute a "carnal communication" that I never fully comprehended when I still did ballroom dancing. If you have any information on what I'm trying to describe, I would be appreciative.

From my experience its something you just very quickly get used to.

Many ballroom dance moves are very difficult to perform correctly with any distance between the bodies (a quick Vienna Waltz really relies on a shared center of gravity).

The thing to note with most proper ballroom posture is that the dancers are usually looking in opposite directions which I think reduces the intimacy aspect significantly.

Funny you mention the Viennese Waltz as that was my favorite one mainly for the gliding spins. However, I never really got used to arm placement even after a couple of years. I never got to the point where I was able to develop an internal metric for what's insufficient or excessive touch outside of the most obvious or awkwardly extreme cases.

While Bachata is the probably the most visually intimate, I'd consider the Vienesse Waltz to be most intimate in a mechanistic sense; A dominant partner has near full control over the momentum and displacement of his subordinate at all times. As a result, the onus of success lies with the dominant partner with failure resulting in many moments of backseat leading.

Facing anti-parallel makes in someways it more difficult to dance as it creates a blind spot in the line of dance. This contributes to the stress of maintaining appropriate body distance between partners and couples, while also maintaining directionality, in addition to keeping the appropriate amount of pressure on a partner's upper back without betraying a weak control over ones placing. All of these elements must be simultaneously managed without a thought or a moment of hesitation and, should things go awry, must be swiftly corrected in little more than few seconds.

Ballroom dancers are connected, most of the time, (right)hip-to-(right)hip, not groin-to-groin; that offsets quite a bit of the awkwardness. On top of that, the shoulders must be apart (both dancers should lean away from each other), which further reduces the intimacy of a casual dance.

In my experience (casual dancer only), it's mostly in the tango where there's potential for overreach, because doing it properly means moving the hips closer to the ground by bending the knees, which increases the potential for upper-leg to groin contact -- that's pretty much where the tango originates from. But it's perfectly possible to dance a respectable tango with less bended knee, if things get awkward with your partner.

> abrazo

I've always found the use of loan-words with mundane meanings amusing and baffling. 'Abrazo' translates directly to 'hug', just like 'langsam' in music translates directly to 'slow(ly)'.

Wait, English speaker use the German term 'langsam' for musical tempo?

I'm Swiss and instead of using this native term, we were trained in music scool to use the Italian term 'largo' or 'lento' for slow tempi.

Parent is referring to tango, which originated in a spaniel-speaking area. "Abrazo" has meaning within the dialect, and that can be lost in translation.

What is the meaning in the dialect?

What brings you to HN? Are you interested in software as a hobby it from a previous career?

Yes, I have a master’s in computer science and was a PhD student in machine learning, before I decided to fully go for dance.

Interesting. In Tango Argentino, you explicitly lean slightly forward, because your upper body needs to move independently from hips & legs.

Reminds me of the ass-out hug remark in Seinfeld.

btw I couldn't remember that in Seinfeld so I googled it and found this rant from "wedding crashers" https://youtu.be/9Tn0fr7EMow

This is in the first episode of Seinfeld season 1

I've been to over 100 cuddle parties. One thing that wasn't mentioned in these studies is the context for these hugs matter a lot. Most people avoid cuddle parties because they wouldn't want to cuddle a stranger and their ideas of what the "party" looks like is usually really wrong.

The cuddle parties I have been to were organized in such a way to allow people to refuse more easily any request that comes their way.

This optimization allows for only truly desired touch to occur. People are asked to channel any sexual desire into affection and in a setting where everyone agrees on this hugs take a whole different form than what I've seen in these studies.

If the release of oxytocin is an indication of how effective and healthy touch is I can assure you that lots of people leave a cuddle party feeling like they're on MDMA without having ingested any drugs.

The title here states what people prefer but after you've experience hugs like I have the over/under, criss cross is the least of your worries... what about a hug where you are cheek against cheek? What about a hug where you synchronize your breath with the other other individual and both stomachs touch throughout? These are the hugs that I have found most effective in terms of positive feelings and they are possible and desired in a non-sexual setting that optimizes for consent.

thanks for mentioning this, I've never heard of such a thing

I'm both terrfied and eager at the thought of going to one

interesting idea in this day and age - espically with covid

I accidently touched a finger of bar worker at a pub (in the UK) whilst paying and I instantly got massive shivers all over

and also last week my male colleague from India (living in the UK) linked my arm - I do know this happens a lot in Denmark, it did feel very strange walking around the pubs at night linked arms with another male - not unpleasent though

> I accidently touched a finger of bar worker at a pub (in the UK) whilst paying and I instantly got massive shivers all over

Sheesh. Sorry to hear this. AIDS all over again.

"That's not how it works!"

The concept of a cuddle party is new to me. I’d love to hear more. Specifically, why do people imagine them incorrectly?

I probably wouldn't boast about the number of cuddle parties one had attended.

Dumb to write this article and not include graphics that demonstrate the hug types.

The published paper that the article talks about is open access and actually has photos

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182...

The two hug styles are about the way the arms are crossed

One thing I've always found interesting is the small awkward moment that happens whenever an American and a Mexican meet after some time and proceed to "hug": The American will most likely go for the "shoulder bump greeting" [1] while most Mexicans would go for the standard "criss cross" hug [2]. The result is a couple of seconds of awkward close "dancing".

[1] https://shabait.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/sept-21-artic...

[2] https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/16/14/50559763-0-image-...

One of the linked articles has a good visual reference: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-hug-according-sc...

I also would love a "tl;dr" paragraph, an abstract would help would be readers to device if it's worth reading the whole thing

The article says

>However, if two people were of nearly the same height, the “neck-waist approach” was found to be slightly more common than when their heights differed drastically.

and it links to a different article[1] that says

>they guess that neck-waist might be more common when heights differ more drastically.

One article says neck-waist is most common when heights are the same, the other says neck-waist is most common when heights are different. So the articles contradict each other.

Intuitively I would think neck-waist would be most common when heights are different because the tall person would hug around the neck and the short person would hug around the waist.

[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/how-hug-according-sc...

Adding to the confusion here, from the original paper:

> Height difference did not influence hugging style significantly in study 2. This is surprising in that a criss-cross hug between two people with height differences is rather cumbersome. However, only six dyads had a height difference larger than 20 cm in the current study sample. Thus, the study might not have had sufficient variability to detect the effect of height on hugging style.

I'm taller than most and yeah, neck-waist is more common for me. For the right relationships I make an effort to get the waist side. But that has a closeness to it that means I can't use it for everyone

Best hug for me is no hug, thanks.

I would bet 95% of the human beings never hugs except between lovers or parents and their kids. I would bet hug is very much a North American thing. I'm French and hate hugs (we kiss on the cheeks, which feels less intrusive to me, but is crasy intrusive in most non-Latin countries).

I live in China and, in normal settings, people here won't hug, won't kiss and won't even shake hands (Unrelated to any ongoing pandemic.) I think it is the same in Japan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc. Hugs between stars at international movie festivals do not reflect real people's life.

>I would bet 95% of the human beings never hugs except between lovers or parents and their kids.

And you'd be wrong. Hugging might not be big in your parts, but is a part of many cultures all around the world. Hardly a 5% rarity.

>Hugs between stars at international movie festivals do not reflect real people's life.

Nor do norms in a few countries.

I've travelled extensively, and I not sure where you got the idea that hugs are something only/mainly happening "between stars at international movie festivals".

From what I see "In traditional Chinese culture, hugging is not acceptable, particularly between people of the opposite sex. As Yang Chunmei, a professor at Qufu Normal University, has written, "public displays of affection are a source of embarrassment." Even among spouses, hugging, kissing, or holding hands in public is odd.".

But that's not universal. And even in China it apparently changes, if we're to believe this article:

https://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/more-hugs-pl...

I've lived all over the place, and spent my childhood in SE Asia. While aspects of the respective cultures are more reserved about PDAs than the US, hugs were commonplace between friends and family of all ages, not just kids or spouses, pretty much everywhere. Some people don't like it, and that's fine and should be respected. But as far as I experienced, both personally and by observation, the majority do.

This goes beyond human culture. Virtually all primates hug. Humans are primates. Heck, I think most mammals are into cuddling.

Maybe I was wrong but what I understand by "hug" is the fact to hold someone chest to chest, arms on the back of each other. I do not mean kids being held in the arms of their parents or lovers loving each other, or people holding hands or anything else. Then I maintain that this activity is reserved to very rare occasions, usually reserved to extreme emotion peaks, for instance at a burial of a close friend's relative, or when the national sports team win the gold.

To me, when meeting a friend or colleague at the first of the day, each culture has its own "hello sign" system, for French people it can be the kiss on the cheek or hand shaking (with many variants), for Chinese people it is a look in the eyes and "hi" with the hand or "吃了没?", for many other people (Germans?) it is purely hand shaking, and as far as I can guess the "hello = hug" is common in the USA.

I still do not think this "hello = hug" is universal or even the behavior of above 10% of the humans. I think most americans might believe it is nearly universal and always acceptable because nobody dares refusing the hug when they do it. It is actually very hard to stop a coming hug without becoming the very bad cold blooded person that has no feeling at all for others (personal experience here).

Your experience and perspective on life is not universal and I wouldn't be so quick to generalize. I've had the luck of travelling a fair bit in my life and I would say hugging is common in many cultures, family ties or not. For context I'm not from North America.

Yep - every culture (and even family) is different. Heck, I have a close Hong Konger friend who is one of the most physically affectionate people I’ve ever met

While it goes without saying that wishes not to be hugged should be respected, and cultural norms differ, and the Western way of doing things is not the "correct" way that should be forced unto others

in the case of hugging

I can't help but think that the absence of hugging (romantic or casual friendly etc) and handshaking (formal or casual high fives etc) really is sad and really DOES rob people in China, Korea, Japan etc of one of life's simple pleasures and high points of the day

I too like you am a European who spent many years in East Asia (Japan, but I have many Korean and Chinese friends and have visited those countries too) and while I definitely had some uncomfortable hugs and handshakes, overwhelmingly, a good hug or handshake would produce big grins, squeals of joy, instant warmth and connection etc etc, irrespective of gender, age, whether between friends or complete strangers - despite language and cultural barriers.

Without exaggerating, sometimes it's almost as if you're allowing someone to experience something they've been denied their whole life and people just gobble it up and look like they've had an epiphany or something.

In case it seems like I'm just making this up in my own mind, I don't think so, because many, many people have told me that the rigid norms banning most types of affection from public life, and even in the home, is one of their pet peeves about their own culture and society.

Maybe there is some selection bias in that foreigners tend to be surrounded by people who are OK with or interested in or prefer the foreign way of doing things, but I don't think so either, I lived in an area with very few if any foreigners and have many friends who don't speak English and don't have much if any interest in going abroad etc, and they would still say the same thing.

I'm acutely aware of how cringe the above might sound but rest assured it's not because I think I'm some hot or cool guy or whatever. Just a human being who likes hugs and handshakes. Each to their own and YMMV!

Hugging complete strangers.... that is strange really. Why would you do that.

At least you should hang out a day or two...

It's definitely cultural, I'm in the UK and I hug my friends when I'm saying hello or goodbye, but kissing on the cheek feels like something that old women do

The UK "hug" is this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxwHL0ObnaE

and this is it in operation in a social setting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGCK_9AJNL8

I'm also from the UK, and I do enjoy a hug, but some of my friends really don't like them. If I'm hugging a woman, and they lean their cheek into me, then I will give them a kiss on it. However, it can have some very awkward and funny moments.

This and alcohol is how I ended up married and with kids. YMMV.

In Serbia, man hug other man friends, and then man kiss to cheek woman friends.

Sometimes man kiss man on the cheek but its mostly considered a joke.

There is also religious 3 times to the cheek, I am gonna ignore that since everybody do it. That kiss is almost non existent tho, its more of a gesture.

Same here.

I live in Japan, but lived in South Korea as well. I have to say, I have never seen so many public displays of affection as I did in South Korea (and I'm an American). Matching clothes -- down to the shoes, hugging, hand holding, piggyback rides, and on more than one occasion a loud lover's quarrel. Take from that what you will.

Another interesting thing I noticed about physical touch in Korea is that the culture doesn't seem to have the same hangups America does about two heterosexual male friends touching. School kids holding hands as they walk together, and guys in their twenties resting their heads in their friends lap as they lounge at the park. It was refreshing and enlightening.

I'm in the Netherlands, which is pretty close to France. Among younger age groups, hugging among friends is very common (and instead, kissing on the cheeks, especially between men, feels very intrusive).

Which is to say: don't be too quick to generalise.

In France we kiss.

In Australia we hug. I discovered it the hard way.

When a girl walks up to you, at work in causal work situations, in France you start a kiss on the face. But in Australia she walks 20cm closer and the kiss lands in the neck, and it’s a very, very awkward moment.

(Fortunately she accepted my deep excuses while I babbled to explain what had just happened).

I have seen toddlers try to hug people. They run up, wrap their arms around your legs, whatever they can reach in a visibly affectionate way. Not sure if it's their intention to hug but definitely surprising in a culture where there's absolutely no hugging.

Amen friend. Please keep out of my personal space.

I'm fine with a good handshake in a professional setting to seal a contract. Shows peaceful intent to respect boundaries. Anything else is a rude intrusion and you're just trying to touch me for your own personal satisfaction. That makes you pretty creepy.

Too bad.

You must be having congenitally low levels of “cuddle hormone” :)

Do you at least give side hugs to your friends?

Friends: one arm over, one under.

Praise or love: both arms under.

Comforting: both arms over.

Then, by definition, one of the participants will always be praising and the other will be comforting, unless you use the cross-hug.

Only assuming equal roles. These roles assume a huggee and a hugger, as described from the hugger's point of view as a gesture of support.

You can keep hands on someone's lower back and simultaneously they can keep hands on your lower back. The same for shoulders. The first seem fitting to a couple the second when both want to comfort themselves (I would also imagine foreheads touching).

well hugs can be directional or mutual too.

two friends hug each other, mutually. a comforting partner gives their partner a hug, who receives it. a parent praises their child with a hug.

Yeah but if you go with "arm position means X", it can only be that for one of the two people.

I think you're all overthinking hugging :)

I don't see anyone discussing the position of the head? I was recently taught that it is a much "closer" hug if you put your head to the right of the other person's head than to the left, since the hearts come much closer to each other. I've tried it since, and indeed, it feels more intimate if I put my head to the right.

Five to ten seconds!

From a game theoretic perspective, hugging too briefly could be optimal. Even if the majority of people prefer a hug longer than 5 seconds, you might view the slight gain from having hugged them perfectly as not worth the risk that you creep them out.

On the other hand, one might consciously want to weed out people uncomfortable with a hug of that duration.

Not sure what game theory has to do with this?

In the most abstract, game theory is the theory of how to interact when you don't know how who you're interacting with will respond. It doesn't imply competition or conflict, even if most common examples have that.

Words, words, great words. "When I heard the learn’d astronomer... How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick..."

Also, my 2 year old boy gives the best hugs. Here is where he learned https://youtu.be/kQjtK32mGJQ

I am amazed.

Some scientist went to the boss to express interest in studding hugs. And it passed! :)

Achievement completed I guess :)

to be fair, this one received no (external?) funding

I didn't mean anything negative. I am honestly impressed.

Then again, how much could it cost to study hugs?

From my understanding, this test was between strangers, what about between very close people? (partner, child, parent). I can hug my children or partner for minutes. Avid hugger.

> The study sums up its finding on “pleasurable hugs” thus: “We advise using a five-second criss-cross hug to model a familiar and pleasant type of experience.”

Yeah, I think the criss-cross hug is best. I think they are missing some things though for the best hugs. The feet should be alternated the same way you would when slow dancing and that is how close you should be. This allows for a tighter hug that isn't off balanced. Additionally, a slow sway left to right to left is also key for a feeling of comfort. When you do use the criss-cross, make sure you head is on the side of your lower shoulder. This is the easy way to the world's best hugs.

This is a pretty good way to hug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEq-r2agqc

Damn, I need me a 6 minutes hug too!

I am not sure about this, because I don't like to be hugged at all, and if someone does hug me I want to run away and hide.

I like hugging but if you don’t like it, it’s ok to tell people that. The intention behind a hug is to make someone feel more comfortable, but if that doesn’t work for someone, I’d rather them tell me.

It might be easier to tell people you are more comfortable with but those are probably people you see more regularly so it’ll still be helpful.

According to uppercased Science (science.org), while science.org has the same story in lowercased science.

I think the different hug styles also depend on the heights of the individuals. I personally think it's tough for a criss-cross hug approach when the height differential is more than a foot.

I’m over 2m tall (2.08m / 6’10) and I once almost broke the nose of one of my friends with my shoulder trying to give him a hug..

Needless to say I’m a lot more careful now

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

-Frank M.

"grab her waist, pull her close, lift her up, ..."

WARNING: "tumblrgallery . xyz", the "source" for the header image, promptly fed me explicitly NSFW results. Viewer beware.

On a less PSA note, I visited the site to check if it was a tumblr API scraper, which it does appear to be. Referencing such sites as (ostensibly) first-order sources is IMO just a couple notches beyond plausible deniability, like a site I chanced upon ages ago with a header image "sourced" from images.google.com.

TL;DR: got pedantry-sniped, was handed eyeful. Woops.

I love to give longer hugs, the issue I run into is that after a certain time I have an erection. This erection doesn't come from sexual arousal, this is just how most penises work, it seems. Does anyone have any tips for avoiding accidental erections?

I'd love to hug but that is pretty much suicide in the workplace. We are taught to never hug or touch someone and that's probably good for lots of people and situations, but I do miss people giving me hugs.

I was concerned hugging, shaking hands and kissing would be going away due to the pandemic but it seems to have survived... so far: even if for one year or more it was gone. People were all fist bumping or elbow bumping instead of the traditional hand shake or kiss but now it seems to be going back to kisses (at least between french / belgians / russians for those that I know).

Hand shakes are back too.

Or, well, they were before the Omicron variant.

Because seen that the vaccines either aren't working or are working for a very short duration of time (half the people in ER due to Covid are fully vaccinated), it looks like it's another round of lockdowns / scare tactics. The only clear thing is they're non-sterilizing vaccines: what's not even clear is if they're vaccines at all (I got my shots btw, but apparently I'm in the threadmill now for shots every 9 months...).

I don't know if people hugging / kissing / shaking hands can survive several years of pandemic fearmongering.

You think they’re giving people placebo shots?

> the vaccines either aren't working or are working for a very short duration of time

Citation needed. That's an extraordinary statement. The vaccines (at least the ones we have in the US) have very high efficacy and are probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives saved to date.

For example, Pfizer-BioNTech is 90-95%: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

> (half the people in ER due to Covid are fully vaccinated)

I'm sorry to derail, but [citation needed]

Even if poster was correct, absolute numbers mean nothing. You have to look at rate of hospitalizations between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Every measure I've seen has shown a much higher rate of hospitalization in the unvaccinated.

Different cultures have different ways of expressing emotions. Hugs are not a big thing outside of the US. But let's make a general statement either ways because it's psychology research after all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com