Stress: Women need cuddles, men need kudos

June 12, 2007 3:55 PM

Stress-fi: Women need cuddles, men need kudos
posted by johoney (28 comments total)

The one on the right, that is the man, no?
posted by damn dirty ape at 3:57 PM on June 12, 2007

"We all need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth." - Virginia Satir
posted by carsonb at 4:05 PM on June 12, 2007

HUGS FOR EVERYONE!
posted by saguaro at 4:07 PM on June 12, 2007

"We all need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth." - Virginia Satir

I was gonna be all "A-men to that!" until I realized it didn't say "mugs" after all.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:08 PM on June 12, 2007

Yes, but the true Adonises among us will tell you sweet things and cuddle you.

/sucks in tummy
posted by Firas at 4:12 PM on June 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

My husband is way more into hugs when he is stressed. I normally don't like to be TOUCHED when I'm stressed out. Fun times.

He likes chick flicks too, if it matters.
posted by konolia at 4:14 PM on June 12, 2007

*hugs all the girls*
*tells all the boys that they're brave and strong*
posted by amyms at 4:18 PM on June 12, 2007 [4 favorites]

Isn't this kind of research more usually found in the Daily Mail's Femail section? I hear.

Come on: the study was based on 67 women. And only their partners by extension. Sorry to snark, but flagged as super-thin content. Even if the journal has the longest single-word title of any mag I've ever seen.
posted by imperium at 4:24 PM on June 12, 2007

Acutally ... I thrive more on verbal reassurance than I do on hugs, and my husband is the opposite. Then again, we exchange about 30 emails a day saying 'I love you' and spend quite a lot of time hugging when we're together, so I don't know how good a sample we are...
posted by ysabet at 4:58 PM on June 12, 2007

Okay, the hubs just came home from work. I asked him about whether he preferred hugs or kudos for stress.

He said, and I quote: "I need SEX!"

(quoted WITH permission.)
posted by konolia at 4:58 PM on June 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

I am brave, and strong!

(Tell me again, while you hold me?)
posted by steef at 5:23 PM on June 12, 2007

Yeah, to heck with kudos, men need blowjobs.
posted by Skorgu at 5:31 PM on June 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

ysabet, me too. I need praise so much more than my boyfriend does, and he needs physical contact vastly more than I do.
posted by crinklebat at 5:33 PM on June 12, 2007

Ianybody who tries to hug me while I'm stressed had better be brave and strong.
posted by lekvar at 5:35 PM on June 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

Huuugs!
posted by arialblack at 5:43 PM on June 12, 2007

I think men need Kudos.
posted by epugachev at 5:49 PM on June 12, 2007

Women requiring hugs please form an orderly line to my right.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:56 PM on June 12, 2007

We may have instinctively guessed as much, but now we have some scientific proof.

Here's the problem with this sort of research: everyone always takes it as reinforcing their predetermined stereotypes. What you really want to look at, and what they're not telling you in this blurb, is what the in-group variation is versus the cross-group variation.

I'm willing to bet you the former is greater than the latter, meaning that really, the outcome is "women are slightly more likely to respond better to physical contact than to verbal reassurance".

People don't want weak results like these, they want to reinforce their gender essentialist views, facts be damned.
posted by Arturus at 6:05 PM on June 12, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm willing to bet you the former is greater than the latter, meaning that really, the outcome is "women are slightly more likely to respond better to physical contact than to verbal reassurance".

For your classical statistical tests, within group variation being greater than between group variation would mean the results were not statistically significant. This would mean that the study would not have been published.

But yeah, you should always pay attention to effect sizes and individual variation, these are pieces of information are unfortunately often left out of science journalism. But it seems a bit funny of you to call this result "weak" based solely on your hunches at the same time as you deride the general public for saying "facts be damned."

But this is the internet, where I have done similar things. Since I'm procrastinating, though, here's the actual article. Those of you not on university campuses probably won't be able to see anything more than the abstract.

So, just how big are the effects, and how variable are they?

The first effect is that on cortisol. Variability:

There was a significant group by time interaction effect (F[4.31,138.0]=2.64, p< .05), with the lowest cortisol responses to stress in the physical contact group. in addition, there was a significant main effect of group the total amount of cortisol increase (auci) (f[2,64]=3.29, p<.05), indicating the lowest increase of cortisol concentration in the physical contact group.

Effect size:

The mean absolute increase in salivary cortisol in response to stress was 11.98 nmol/l in subjects with no interaction, 13.29 nmol/l in subjects of the social support group, and 4.33 nmol/l in subjects with positive physical contact.

So I have no idea what those cortisol levels mean, but if you compute those p-values, they are both between .03 and .05. So significant, but not hugely so.

FWIW, the heart rate effects appear to be bigger. Interestingly, they do some psychological assays of stress and anxiety, and there are no significant differences between the groups (no support, touching, and talking) on those tests.
posted by epugachev at 7:04 PM on June 12, 2007

I'm willing to bet you the former is greater than the latter, meaning that really, the outcome is "women are slightly more likely to respond better to physical contact than to verbal reassurance".

And you know that if the researchers had found exactly the opposite result, the spin would be that women are more emotional/verbal and men are more physical.
posted by transona5 at 7:07 PM on June 12, 2007

This goes a long way toward explaining why long-distance relationships never seem to work out...
posted by litfit at 12:51 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Since nobody brought up the implicit point, I'll add that it may just mean that women are conditioned into getting something out of hugs than men are denied in a men-don't-touch-much culture (I'm not sure why the other thing--women not responding as favourably as men to verbal buckups--would hold though) thus meaning that neither hugs nor kudos really mean anything and are just mechanisms to incite some entirely separate psychological process.
posted by Firas at 1:06 AM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Skorgu writes 'Yeah, to heck with kudos, men need blowjobs.'

Same thing. Men with no kudos get no blowjobs.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:06 AM on June 13, 2007

There's a book called The Marriage Builder that my wife and I read some years ago before our wedding. It boiled down to this:
Women need to feel secure, men need to feel significant. If you can minister to your spouses need, you will increase each other's happiness.
posted by joecacti at 6:28 AM on June 13, 2007

as much as i enjoy a good cuddle, i must admit that this seems true of me and my lady-thing.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:25 AM on June 13, 2007

I like hugs and kudos both. What does that make me? ::glance::
posted by Foosnark at 7:49 AM on June 13, 2007

HIII-YAAA!

ohhh, kudos. never mind.
posted by jonmc at 8:13 AM on June 13, 2007

It is exactly the opposite, gender-wise in my house.

I, the chick, need talking, but really, super do not want to be cuddled ever.

He is a glommy fucker.
posted by mckenney at 2:51 PM on June 13, 2007