Often we see people on college campuses giving out “free hugs.” Most people love hugs, so why do they not jump at the opportunity of a free hug? The answer to this question is social norms. It is not normal to hug random people in the street.
When I see the free hug people on my college campus, I run away. The reason I do this, and why most other people do not readily accept free hugs is people have fears of personal space invasion or what might be wrong with the person giving free hugs. It is an awful and presumptuous thought, but what if that person has some sort of disease or is sick. Hugging them would inevitably lead to infecting myself. Thus, this could be called the fear of unknown. No one wants to let some stranger into their personal space.
This video shows how society reacts to free hugs. Most people tried to politely decline the free hug and found the proposition strange. Few readily accepted the hugs with open arms. The amount that readily accepted the hugs further declined when it was a male giving the hugs rather than a female. When one man was interviewed about whether or not he would take a free hug, he said he would to any female, but he would not, regardless of looks, to any male. Another woman said she would not receive a free hug because she finds it an invasion of personal space. Finally, another lady would not accept a free hug because of a fear of touching other people since her child got lice recently.
Most excuses show society’s unease with touching other people and how it is not seen as normal to hug strangers. As children we were always taught not to talk to strangers, for whatever reason, so why would we want to hug strangers?
I personally hate the whole “free hugs” social experiment, campaign, whatever else people call it, I guess because I have personal space issues. I think it first started out as a reaction to some “research” about how we need a certain number of hugs a day to survive and grow. It is probably true to some extent — no one is solely self-sufficient and people need encouragement from time to time. Actually, hugs is probably one of the main ways that people retain their humanity; I think it helps us to sympathize/empathize with others, and in that way we learn how to treat each other. (Socialization)
Anyway, what I would conclude about the experiment above is that people accepting/declining hugs has less to do with the manner of dressing, and more to do with sexuality, or what most people perceive of male versus female. The girl had more people accept her offer of free hugs, and her outfit didn’t really make much of a difference. (By the way, I don’t think sweatshirt and glasses is grungy enough if you want to test out how to repel people). The guy only got a fist bump at most. I think these results come from some kind of shared perception that girls have “innocent” intents when asking for hugs, but a guy who asks for hugs would be considered “skeevy.”
The man that they interview at the end about why he hugged the girl and not the guy confirms what I believe. Even though guys in the young generation today are more prone to accepting “bromances,” the man was just like “I don’t roll that way.” Meanwhile he would hug the girl regardless of how she was dressed. Creepy, I say.