New research has found that the absence of hugging people during the lockdown may impact people’s mental health. Scientists have found that the craving for human touch is influenced by a variety of factors such as social and genes.
Kory Floyd, professor at the University of Arizona, spoke about the inherited interplay between skin-on-skin touch and the psyche.
“There’s something special about touch that I think relates back to the fact that we, as human beings, are born in such a state of immaturity that we have no ability to take care of our own needs,” he said. “Touch equals survival as infants. If we don’t have someone touching us and helping to meet our needs, then we don’t survive.”
Those who are living alone might be suffering from hereditary “skin hunger”. His study found that genetics play a strong role in women but not for all men.
For women, affection is driven 45% by hereditary factors and 55% from their environment, such as personal experience and the media. Men, on the other hand, seem to rely solely on their environment.
“A study like this makes room for us to talk about the possibility that a number of social and behavioral traits that we automatically assume are learned may also have a genetic component,” he adds.
The researchers could not conclude the reason why men do not show the same variability between genetics and environment as women. However, they note that previous studies have found that men express their affections less overall.
He concludes: “There is some speculation that affectionate behavior is more health supportive for women than it is for men, and that it helps women to manage the effects of stress more than it does for men.”
