The Hug Project: An ISB Social Experiment
Asher Sevy (G10)
Been hugged by a stranger recently? Didn’t know why? Don’t worry, you’re about to find out. In the fourth chapter of his Buddy! legacy, our man Asher sheds light on the mysterious Hug Project conducted on ISB students, and explains its importance in cracking the key to good social and emotional health.
During the last week of September, were any of you approached by a strange bearded 10th grader yelling, “Hi! Would you like a HUG?!!??” If you have, that may have been me. Or maybe you’ve encountered a highly energetic 11th-grade girl, who posed the same question a week before. ‘Why?’ You may ask? Sit down, grab a donut, and let me tell you about the time when my friend dragged me into her social experiment and I became a human guinea pig...
Trial 1: McKenna Daley
My friend McKenna Daley (you may know her as “that girl who’s giving free hugs”) decided to perform a social experiment at ISB for her Data Science class.
Word of the poll spread like wildfire, and it quickly reached my ears (I mean, I’m her best friend, so I guess that makes sense). I was wondering why she specifically chose hugs as her project focus, so I decided to interview her.
Here’s what she had to say:
“I chose to do the Hug Poll because I love giving hugs, in part because I have ADHD... and I’ve just had a lot of struggles; like any high schooler, I’ve been stressed and tired. And hugs have been shown to give dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, which... helps relieve stress, lowers blood pressure, and it helps your heart health.”
Alright, let’s get onto the fun stuff now! *cool whooshy transition sound effect*
Let me give you a quick rundown of how the Hug Project (aka Operation: Embrace your Fate) works:
Tester walks up to a random person
Tester excitedly asks, “Hi! Would you like a HUG?!!??”
Tester waits as random person mentally evaluates the pros and cons of accepting hugs from strangers
If random person says yes, tester awkwardly hugs them (well, it wasn’t awkward for McKenna, but it was for me)
If random person says no, tester learns to accept rejection (jk)
Tester records date, gender of person, their response (yes/no), time of day (yeah, actually), and whether someone willingly asked to hug them first
Repeat steps 1-6 for LITERALLY EVERY PERSON YOU COME ACROSS AT SCHOOL
At the end of the week, McKenna had asked 392 boys and 446 girls for hugs, adding up to a whopping total of 838 people asked! Of these participants, 93 boys and 374 girls (467 in total) said “yes” to a hug, which is 55% of the sample population. That’s more than half the people that accepted a hug! While the majority of people tended to say “yes” to a hug from McKenna, there was a surprising difference between boys and girls. Only 23% of boys said yes, while 83% of girls said yes.
The difference is almost as significant as my athletic inability! *clears throat awkwardly*
What did McKenna have to say about this? She explained that often times boys feel less comfortable with physical contact as many view it as unmanly or weak. She described it as a sort of ”boundary and wall” between males and females. “However, I believe that in order to have full connections, we need to be open to physical touch and vulnerability. And men are simply taught not to feel comfortable with it the same way women are.”
Now, I know what some of you guys out there might be thinking: (imagine this with a deep, gravelly, voice) “Bro, I’m, like, not ashamed of hugging people at ALL. I literally only don’t hug people cuz I have a girlfriend, and she might think I’m cheating on her or something.” Or maybe: (again, the deep, gravelly voice) “Hugs aren’t, like, a weird thing to me. I just don’t really care for them.” Or even: (super gravelly voice) “I had a friend who gave someone a hug, and then they got abducted by aliens.” (okay, maybe not that last one...) Anyway, let me explain myself. Of COURSE, there are so many other reasons to not hug people, especially because of the ’Rona virus, and I could go on and on about all those other things. But in the context of the Hug Project, I’m focusing on gender stereotypes and hiding emotions.
Finally, the part where I come in...
Trial 2: Asher Sevy
Alright, I’m guessing you’re wondering how I got dragged into this. Well, it goes a little like this...
A cautious sophomore warily walks through the doors of the school, taking in his surroundings. Everything is quiet, he observes. Too quiet... Suddenly, he hears a voice that sends a chill running down his spine. “Hi. Would you like a HUG?” The sophomore spins around, and to his horror, an eleventh-grade girl is standing before him. Before he has time to react, she hugs him, and he watches emotionlessly as the life slowly drains out of his body, leaving behind nothing but a shadowed husk of what used to be...
Okay, that’s not exactly what happened. Basically, I walked into school one day, and I ran into McKenna, who was going through her morning routine of running around, flagging people down, and constantly asking for hugs. I waved, and she happily hopped over, giving me a hug (of course, she asked me first). “Do you wanna help me with the Hug Project?” she asked. I responded, “Sure! What could go wrong?” But little did I know, it would turn out to be nothing like I had ever imagined...
The next week, on Monday, I entered the school, where she was awaiting me with my secret weapon... a homemade notebook. It may have not looked like much, but at the time, it seemed super cool, like I had a Star Wars Holocron or something (for all the non-Star Wars nerds out there, a Holocron is an information-storage device used by the Jedi). She thrust it into my hands, and so began my career as a guinea pig.
From then on, I stood by the high school entrance, armed with a notebook and pencil, and asked people for hugs as they walked through the door. Picture this: you’re scanning your ID card, whistling merrily, eagerly awaiting what the day will bring, when a sophomore suddenly emerges out of nowhere, in a super sus way, and asks for a HUG. Probably not your ideal way to start the day.
Anyway, I asked people for hugs. I did it literally EVERYWHERE: in the hallway, in the cafeteria, during class, even in the middle of other people’s conversations...
If you’ve been there, I’ve probably asked someone for hugs there. Unsurprisingly, when I asked for a hug, most people gave me a weird look and said, “Um, no.” Some actually politely accepted a hug, though I bet it was more out of pity for this lonely- lookin’ dude who had apparently resorted to asking for free hugs. Among the girls, responses often included “Uh, I’m good...”, “You know people will think you’re weird, right?”, and “No. Just no.” Among the guys, some of my most common responses were, “Why the [censored] would you ask me that?”, “Bro, that’s creepy”, and “Dude, I’m not gay.”
Things got even worse on the second day, when people were like, “You already asked me yesterday, and I said no. Are you desperate or something?” But I had to keep asking, because that’s how the experiment works. Even some of my own friends wouldn’t give me a hug, though! Which, when I think about it, is totally fine. Don’t get me wrong--- hugging your friends isn’t a responsibility, it’s just a thing that some friends do. But I actually found that even with some of my generally huggy friends, they refused to hug me when I did it for the Hug Project. Anyway, I digress. Basically, I got quite a bit of data, though most of it kinda said the same thing (which is good scientifically, but not emotionally (jk)).
At the end of the 4-day week (it felt wayyyy longer for me), I had asked 94 boys and 69 girls, which was only 163 people in total, significantly less than McKenna’s astounding 838. Only 32% of people said yes to a hug from me, which, compared to McKenna’s 55%, isn’t that much. As for gender differences, 28% of boys and 38% of girls said yes, which is a surprisingly small difference. I guess it depends on who asks them... ouch.
Experiment Analysis
Comparing the data from these two trials, we can clearly see that girls are more likely than guys to both give and accept hugs. While both McKenna’s and my data showed a greater amount of girls accepting hugs, her data showed a much more significant difference. 23% of boys said yes to a hug from McKenna, and 28% said yes to a hug from me, but girls tended to accept hugs way more often from her. This data shows that for boys, it doesn’t always depend on who you are hugging, because guys tend to be more reluctant to accept hugs.
Some limitations of this experiment are that the sample sizes for the two trials differ greatly. As stated before, my sample size was 163 people, and McKenna’s sample size was 838 people, which is 675 more people and 514% greater than mine.
In other words, she had a little over 5 times the amount of data that I did. If we had asked around the same amount of people for hugs, our experiment would have been a little more reliable, but the main takeaways from the data are the same.
My Personal Experience
As a kid, hugging was something that I did a lot. I hugged my family, friends, teachers, and many others. It didn’t seem weird or bad because I was raised in a family that normalized hugs. But as I got older, I’d try to hug a friend, and they’d recoil or just uncomfortably stand there, not hugging me back. I was confused at first, but then I started to see that hugs weren’t as much of a day-to-day regular thing for others as they were for me. Then, hitting middle school, the teasing and rumors started, and people started treating me differently just because I didn’t always care about the “manliness” or “coolness” of my social image. I slowly stopped hugging people, and now I miss the days when hugs were more welcome and appreciated.
Throughout my life, I have often heard others say, “That’s kind of girly” or “Men are tough, they don’t do hugs.” In many of my past schools, guys couldn’t hug other guys without people saying, “Oh, that’s gay,” or “Guys shouldn’t be so sensitive and weak like that.” While it might feel cool for guys to feel “manly” and “macho” by acting like tough guys in movies, I’ve many a time found people who talk about their emotions to be much happier and have a much better mental wellbeing.
Conclusion
According to psychologist Jerry Kennard, the suicide rate for men in the United States in 2017 was 3.5 times higher than it was for women, and while women tend to have more suicidal thoughts, men are much more likely to commit suicide. The article goes on further to explain that one of the big risk factors for suicide is “not being able to form or sustain meaningful relationships” (Kennard). This has been a big problem for many men as traditional male gender roles in society discourage emotional expression. “Men are told they need to be tough and that they should not need to ask for help,” Kennard writes. “Such rigid gender norms may make it difficult for men to reach out and ask for support when they need it.” So basically, a lack of meaningful connections with others and the long-lasting norms for men to be “tough” and “manly” have contributed to increased suicide. This really shows how important our relationships with others are, and hugs are one way to connect with others.
Ultimately, the Hug Project experiment has shown that men tend to be less comfortable with giving and getting hugs, and one main reason is that traditional gender roles for men showed expression of emotion as “weak.” Showing your appreciation for others and making and solidifying those connections with others is very important, and it is so powerful that it can even help save people from suicide. So go out there, seek out people who look like they need a little cheering up, and maybe say hi, or compliment them. Or, if you’re brave like McKenna, try out your own social hug experiment. Whether you get the same results or not, it stills feels great for many people to encounter someone who pays attention to you and says, “Hi! Would you like a hug?” hug?”
Works Cited:
Kennard, Jerry. “Understanding Suicide Among Men.” Verywellmind.com, 10 December 2020, https://www.verywellmind.com/men-and-suicide-2328492.
Image citation: De Luce, Ivan and Hoff, Madison. “Here’s how much money 25 types of scientists make.” Business Insider, 1 Jun 2021, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-types-of-scientists-make-2019-5.
Daley, McKenna. Personal interview with the author. 7 Oct. 2021.
