Will we still hug, high-five and shake hands after Covid-19?
- Non-verbal physical greetings such as hugs and handshakes do much more than say ‘hello’ or ‘I am friendly’
- Physical touch helps calm the nervous system, decrease stress hormones and boost immunity, but the pandemic has cut that down
David Sylvester has given hugs and high-fives to more than half a million people in 42 countries since starting his “Big Dave Hugs the World” project in 2001, after a friend’s death in the World Trade Centre attack. But the resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, hasn’t embraced anyone since March 16.
“It’s been rough,” said Sylvester, 55, a personal trainer. “This has been the longest I’ve gone without hugging somebody in my life.”
The hug withdrawal is also real for Edie Weinstein, 61, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who’s been offering hugs to strangers since 2014 with her “Hug Mobsters”, which grew out of daily walks to aid her recovery from a heart attack. One night she dreamed people discovered a way to hug each other back-to-back.
“I don’t know when it’s going to be safe to go out and hug deprived people out there, but whenever it happens, watch out, because there’s a lot of people who need hugs,” said Weinstein, a therapist and licensed social worker.
“I think it’s going to be like a high school dance. Everyone is nervous about getting on the dance floor,” said Sylvester.
Our non-verbal greetings usually answer three questions, according to Tricia Jones, communications professor at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication: are you a threat? Who am I to you? And what kind of relationship are we in?
“The greetings most of us rely on so much – and frankly, that Covid-19 is getting in the way of – are those greetings that, with one gesture, answer ‘Who am I to you?’ in terms of dominance and intimacy,” she said.
At the same time, these greetings stimulate pressure receptors that calm the nervous system, decrease stress hormones, and save immune cells, said Tiffany Field, founder and director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.
“It’s ironic that we’re here in a viral pandemic and one of the things that works at killing our viral cells is moving the skin,” she said.
A survey Field conducted in April found 60 per cent of people are feeling touch deprived as a result of the pandemic.
In low-contact cultures, greetings are one of the only ways we get physical contact outside our romantic partnerships, said Katie Dunleavy, associate professor of communications at La Salle University in Pennsylvania.
“I think it’s like a lot of things with the coronavirus. It’s like, ‘Wait, this is changing, but is it necessary to go back?’” she said.
Alternative non-verbal gestures from bowing to the peace sign have been proposed, but nothing’s stuck yet. Field said she likes the elbow and ankle bumps, which allow for increased eye contact, which she believes is “critical when greeting people.”
David Matsumoto, a psychology professor at San Francisco State University who founded the school’s Culture and Emotion research lab as well as Humintell, a non-verbal behaviour research and training company, believes our greetings are so entrenched in us they will return.
“I do believe the strength of that need based on human nature is stronger than the fear of a pandemic,” he said. “Humans will not let this overwhelm the need for connection.”
What Matsumoto does see evolving are our conventions about greetings. For instance, traditionally, if someone offers you a palm for a handshake, it’s rude to decline. That may change.
Not getting enough? How to boost your sex life during pandemic
“There’s more individual respect about people who have different feelings about that,” he said.
That will mean we have to get better at other kinds of communication, Jones said.
“If you show hesitancy to shake someone’s hand, how skilled are you at knowing how to explain to that person what’s going on?” she said.
I do believe the strength of that need based on human nature is stronger than the fear of a pandemic. Humans will not let this overwhelm the need for connection
Weinstein and Sylvester aren’t worried about those awkward moments (they’ve been asking strangers to hug them for years). They just can’t wait until they can hug again.
“I’ll figure out a way to get it done. I haven’t done this for 19 years with a half a million people because this doesn’t mean anything,” Sylvester said. “It means something and it’s important.”
