A Surprising Insight on Hugging and Narcissism

Some people love hugging, others do not.

While people on all continents hug each other, there are huge differences in often and how many different people someone hugs. While some people may never hug anyone, and some only hug their romantic partners, others may hug dozens of different people in a single day. While this huge difference in how often someone hugs may be somewhat explained by cultural factors, the personality of the person clearly matters, too. However, the association between personality and hugging has so far not been well understood in psychological research.

A new study on the “Free Hugs” campaign and personality

To change this, the authors of a new study, now published in the scientific journal Psychological Reports focused on investigating the association between hugging and personality in people attending fandom conventions in Poland (Stefanek and co-workers, 2025). The researcher team, led by scientist Franciszek Stefanek from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, collected data from 299 people attending such conventions. The volunteers were grouped into two groups. People who had at least once in their life attended a convention wearing a “Free Hugs” sign were classified as “huggers” (62 people), while people who had never participated in the Free Hugs campaign were classified as “non-huggers” (237 people).

The Free Hugs campaign basically consists of people who wear a “Free Hugs” sign at a convention or somewhere else, giving strangers the opportunity to receive a hug from them. While the campaign is targeted at reducing loneliness and enhancing social bonding, it is not clear, what personality variables are associated with offering free hugs. To find this out, the scientists gave several different online personality questionnaires to both groups. This included a questionnaire on the famous "Big Five" personality traits extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Moreover, personality traits within the dark triad (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and the light triad (faith in humanity, humanism, and Kantianism) were assessed using questionnaires.

People who offer free hugs are less narcissistic and have greater faith in humanity than others

The results of the study showed several personality differences between volunteers who had participated in the free hugs campaign and others. Huggers showed less psychopathic and less narcissistic personality aspects. They were also more extroverted, more agreeable, and more humanistic than non-huggers. Moreover, huggers had more faith in humanity than non-huggers.

Taken together, these findings show that participating in the Free Hugs campaign is mostly associated with nice and prosocial personality traits.

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