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Human Connections
Letter From the Author As a member of society and a passionate believer in human connections, it is my obligation to inform you why your relationships matter.
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Part 1: Intro Research behind the development of the human brain to operate and thrive for the need of human connections.
Part 2: Who We Are As humans we gravitate towards acceptance, connection, and gratification but the obligation to be socially connected is greater.
Part 3: Being Passionate Our brains are not wired by accident. They are designed to make our lives purposeful. The human brain made a choice to be passionate about connections.
Part 4: Why it Matters There is understanding and there is implementing. To truly leave your mark on this world we need to understand how we thrive.
Part 5: Living to Be Social We understand that our life is most fulfilled when we spend it with others but that understanding needs to be applied to every aspect of what we do.
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Intro Research behind the development of the human brain to operate and thrive for the need of human connections.
As humans our actions are triggered by our social obligation. We are a species wired to be social. This wiring to be social with others is what motivates us to connect with others, to build relationships, and to be curious about what other people are thinking.
Who we are as people is influenced by those around us; our identities, values and beliefs, are all formed from the people we keep close to us.
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The people we keep around us influence us in ways we don’t always expect, causing us to act and live in ways we might consider strange, defying our exception of our self beliefs. The study of these connections and need for a social life is called Social Cognitive Neuroscience; a new kind of science dedicated to understanding the human brain’s response to our social world. Understanding how our brain works in response to these social situations is critical in improving the lives of families, organizations, and most importantly ourselves.
“The importance of having and developing personal relationships isn’t a want, it’s a need. A basic human need that embraces us all. Looking back, even though I was surrounded by many people whom I considered to be positive role models, I was more concerned about “me” rather than “we.” My focus was on receiving and taking than delivering and giving. But the things I got didn’t last long and the friends I had soon disappeared, only to be replaced with feeling of physical, mental and emotional emptiness. I began to notice and question why my positive influencer’s were content and even joyful at times. I soon realized their happiness wasn’t in receiving, but in giving … of time, understanding, joy, wisdom, compassion, empathy, and passion.
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I am certain that empty feeling would still exist within me today if not for the fullness of faith, family and friends. In reflection, my upbringing has instilled within me how to live a full life by fulfilling the lives of others: In all things, be thankful; Understand that there are much greater battles to be fought other than my own; Treat others as I want to be treated; Make someone’s day special; Respect and honor the elderly; Understand and help the younger; Lend an ear, not guilt; Be a solution, not a problem; Give hope, not despair; Love without condition; Provide discipline, not anger; Forgive and forget; and Lead by example. So the lives that I encounter will help make this world a better place one second at a time; one minute at a time; one day at a time, one week, month and year at a time; and most importantly, one person at a time.� -John Koziatek
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Who We Are As humans we gravitate towards acceptance, connection, and gratification but the obligation to be socially connected is greater.
These relationships we hold so dear to us not only give us immense happiness, they can also give us extreme pain. Why is it that when these relationships are over, they make life feel like life it is not worth living? When these loved ones pass away, or the relationships end, it is an seemingly indescribable feeling. Why is it that our brains make us feel this way? Over time our brains have developed to experience these threats to our happiness in the same way that respond to physical pain. Due to the fact that our brain’s view social and physical pain in the same way, we as a society need to start doing the same. Social pain is just as important to our well-being as any physical pain.
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The neurological overlap between our social and physical pain guarantee that we will spend our entire lives dedicated to making our social connections as beneficial as we can. When we are in an unfamiliar situation we have a need to find someone to trust. When deciding who that will be, we don’t base it solely on who looks most like us; we look to the people around us to see who they trust the most. We are social people who gravitate towards the most socially acceptable decisions. For example, a situation that paints this picture so clearly happened during the Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale debate.
The public was skeptical of Reagan’s capability to do his job due to his age of 73 at the time. During the final debate Reagan’s performance was recognized as a turning point in the election, not by the typical stabs at his opponent or boasting about his viewpoints did he pull this off, it was the comedic one-liner he made in response to the moderators question concerning his age affecting the election. His reply was, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” A statement that to this day is still comedic and clever. It wasn’t Reagan who made us believe in him that day, it was the support and laughter that we heard from the audience. Because of the few hundred people laughing, we thought Reagan was funny because they did.
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“We are influenced by innocent social cues. As social beings, we will believe and agree with the people around us.�
We believed a group of strangers in the audience because as social beings we are influenced by social cues that help us relate to their beliefs. This is something that will happen in all aspects of our lives; we will forever be social beings believing and agreeing with the people around us. As social beings these thoughts we often call our own are not as nearly independent from one another as we tend to believe we are. As Matthew Lieberman explains in Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, “social reasoning is what allows us to build and maintain the social relationship and infrastructure needed for groups to thrive.” He adds that “even though social reasoning feels like other kinds of reasoning, the neural systems that handles social and nonsocial reasoning are quite distinct, and literally operate in disagreement with each other.”
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The greatest accomplishments in life could not happen without two social beings coming together to work as a team in achieving their goals. When we put this idea of “thinking socially” to work, we are able to think about the people around us in a fascinating way. We start to care about their interests, their stake in the situation, and ultimately how they affect our lives. This is how we gage who we are as a self. These thoughts we have towards people influence our own thoughts to create what is not so individual and independent as we would like to believe. As Lieberman stated, “The self is more of a superhighway for social influence than it is the indestructible private fortress we believe it to be.”
“Relationships are important to me because they are what defines us as a people, me as a person and validates my connections. Connection and belonging are our basis human need - and my closest relationships are genuine, connecting and consistent. Even if I go months without seeing one of my friends or family members - it is as if only hours have passed since we connected before, we can talk about everything or nothing - we can celebrate joy, be proud with success, embrace in sadness and support each other in helplessness. There is a comfort that is like music, knowing I will be accepted in any condition and my friends will know I will accept them in any condition. Life does get very busy but true friendship and family is knowing that your friend or family member will be there in a moment’s notice - as I will be for them.
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Reciprocation is the key - what I do for them - they will do for me; never having regrets and knowing at the end of our time together - that we made each other laugh and smile, we were there for each other and we knew each other genuinely. We had purpose when we were together to fill each other’s cups and make Life that much more meaningful.� -Julie Schaefer-Space
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Being Passionate Our brains are not wired by accident, they are designed to make our lives purposeful. The human brain made a choice to be passionate about our connections.
When the brain is not focused on a specific task, the brain turns to its lifelong passion of thinking about others. When a region in the brain has more active neurons, more blood travels to that specific region. It was found that a set of brain regions were constantly more active when people were at rest–doing–nothing, than when they were performing any specific tasks. The name of this special network is called the “default network.” This network helps us in another way to relate ourselves to other people. This region assists our social cognition, how we process, store, and apply information about other people and our social situations. Physiologists use this topic to understand how our cognitive process effects our social interactions. We are built to think of the social world around us because of how our brain reacts to these situations. The brain is most active when it is thinking about other people, specifically their thoughts, and their feelings. The truly intriguing aspect of the brain is that it chooses
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to do this in its free time instead of resting, making the choice to continue working to advance our social standing. We spend twenty percent of our time thinking about other people and ourselves in relation to others. “Mind wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness,” Killingsworth, a doctoral student in physiology at Harvard says. “In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged.”
In adult humans, the brain makes up two percent of a person’s weight, yet at rest the brain consumes twenty percent of the body’s energy.
This makes the human brain one of the most energy needy organs in the body. Due to our large and advanced brains, we can engage in a variety of intelligent activities. Just as our brain allows us to master complex games and equations, it also allows us to apply such problem solving skills to our social world. We apply this social game to how we build upon the first meeting of a person. When you look at how we develop friendships, it is a bizarre encounter. Friendships start by connecting with a stranger, typically someone who we share no biological connection with, yet this person becomes someone we choose to share our innermost secrets and thoughts with, often depending on them more than our family. Americans spend almost two and a half hours per day on social media, with Facebook accounting for eighty-one percent of the total digital use.
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It is no coincidence that the most successful social media platform is dedicated to assisting us in connecting us with people in our lives we cannot easily do so with. As our brains are wired to connect, feel empathy, and choose to think of others first, we should choose to engage in activities that promote these attributes. When we switch from thinking about non-social problems to thinking about our social game, socially thinking, we feel as if we have simply switched focuses, rather than thinking we consciously changed the way in which we are thinking. Just because we cannot distinguish the difference doesn’t mean the differences between social and nonsocial thinking isn’t real, it simply means that the differences aren’t blatantly obvious to us. One thing that makes our social connections so important to us is the fact that social pain is directly linked to physical pain. When we experience bullying, loss of a loved one, or even a heart break, we experience threats to our social relationships. When this happens, the brain responds in the same way it does to experiencing physical pain. The way our brains are built makes it that when we focus on connections we are most successful. When we feel any threat to our safety, our immediate response is to fix that problem to end our suffering.
In relation to physical pain, it is less physical than we typically assume. In opposition to that, what we experience and think is simply a psychological event are much more physical than we assume. Our society has a misconception of how physical and emotional pain actually affect our lives. When we think about social pain, the memories we have attached to that are much more intense than memories of physical pain we have experienced. How we choose to think about social distress is dependent on us having a better understanding of social pain. When we are younger we have a strong bond with our parents; such a strong bond that when we are not connected we start to panic and send a distress sign, such as crying. This form of distress is called social distress. Having this connection built into us at such a young age affects our survival. This leads to social cries when we are not connected to the ones we feel most safe with later on in life. The reasoning for our social success at connecting to a loved one is because of a lifelong need to be like and loved by the ones around us.
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“We have settled on the fact that suffering was an acceptable price to pay for all the rewards of being human.�
The pain and stress we feel from social separation is alleviated by the same neurochemical that is instrumental in alleviating the distress of physical pain. We need to recognize that social threats take over the physical pain system in order to remind us that there is threat to one of our basic needs. The conscious distress of physical pain motivates us to take our hand off the stove, the pain of social exclusion motives us to work to reconnect with others. When we are experiencing what we consider to be social pain, our brain interprets it in the same way that we experience physical pain. The experience is as painful if not more painful emotionally than physically. When we experience these two types of pains, our brain alarms in the same exact way; to panic and fix the situation. These forms of suffering are the price of being a human being and having such a complex and social brain. Throughout our lives, we are certain to experience different forms of social rejection and loss. The absence of support during our lives is also taken as a sign of mass rejection.
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Similar to that, unfair treatment and feeling demoralized and often leading to an abundance of negative feelings. While these unfair treatments may be so obvious to us, fairness seems to be harder to recognize. Much like air, its absence is more noticeable than its presence. The social signs and cues that we receive reinforce our connections to an individual or group. When we receive positive social signs the reward system in our brain is activated. Just as physical and emotional pain share the same neurocognitive process, so do physical and social rewards. This meaning both physical and emotional processes are treated in the same regard whether positive or negative. As linked to our life long need to be accepted and loved, these signs are central to our well-being. While we may think that showing affection towards a person, or simply talking to them is rewarding, the most powerful and dramatic sign that we give to another person that we care for them is to simply write them a hand written letter that expresses our deep feelings towards them.
“Relationships are important to me because they are what formed me into who I am today. I believe I can learn something from every relationship in my life. For example, my family has taught me core values and morals and from my friends I have learned about acceptance and support. My romantic relationships have taught me about love and selflessness. Lastly, my relationships with strangers, people that I have had only had a 5 minute interaction with, these are the people that teach me compassion and understanding. When you combine all these
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relationships into your life it creates something in you that will change your life forever. That is why relationships are so important to me because weather I met you for five minutes or have known you my whole life, you have influenced me and taught me something that I did not know previously and that is something that I am grateful for.� -Carly Smith
Being the person on the other end receiving such words of affection activates our reward system in the same way that other basic needs are met. Our brains crave the positive reassurance of others to an embarrassing extent. We are not just “sensitive� to the positive feedback of others, our reward system in the brain responds to this feedback far more strongly than we assume. For example, people tend to cooperate when they stand to benefit directly from their cooperation, that be a good feeling or a physical benefit produced from helping. While we may be motivated by self-interest, we are also interested in the well-being of others. It feels good to help those we care about because it creates good social groups. When others treat us with respect and care for us, or we treat them in the same way, it is received as a positive reward. Having a stranger tell us they like us or that we have impacted their day is rewarding because we have generalized the feeling of being cared for. When others spend time verbally boosting our self-esteem, is it just another sign that we are being cared for by another person. This is incredibly reinforcing to our well-being seeing the fact we are dependent for so many years.
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Having a poor social network can lead to an early death and is literally as bad for your heath as consuming fifteen cigarettes a day.
According to Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstand, when you are connected to a group, you fell a sense of responsibility for them. Because you know they are there for you, you feel like taking care of yourself in a better way. Knowing other peoples happiness is dependent on your life encourages less risk taking. Connection is the foundation on which our social lives are founded on, making sure we make the most out of our lives. As humans we have the ability to see and understand others in the terms of their intentional mental process. We are built to assume that others are intentional in what they do. Because our own mind thinks about the thoughts of others, we assume they do the same. We all take part in a sense of mind-reading. That is why we are always surprised by miscommunication, because we assume others will interpret and think in the way we do. Without each of us having an understanding of the psychological meaning of others’ behaviors, we wouldn’t be able
“The most dramatic way to show your affection towards a person is through written words.”
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to participate in this subconscious interaction. This ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others as well as the ability to understand that others have these beliefs is known as the Theory of Mind. When people choose to participate in this interaction it is called mentalizing; making sense of each other and ourselves. Overtime we start to develop an assumption of different encounters and how we and others are going to react. Because we have this ability to assume and mind-read, it motivates us for further connections. During past studies of the brain in relation to the Theory of Mind, it has been demonstrated that the default network (preferred state of thinking) and our mentalizing system automatically overlap in function. Our default network that is always choosing to think socially prepares us to be social, it gets our brains ready to see and interact with the world on terms of how we understand the people around us. When we think of the people around us in terms of their priorities, goals, fears, and intentions, we are able to interact with them more productively. We use mindreading to anticipate the desires and worries of the people in our lives and act accordingly to make their lives better. The choice to mentalize is the difference between social pain and pleasure being random, and understanding their cues so that we can make the best of them. As humans we make a choice to want to understand the actions of those
around us. We do this by understanding and watching what they do in response to why things are happening. For instance, when someone watches a person about to trip on an object, we can watch that person reacting in order to inform them or even save them. By starting to make sense of everyone’s intentions, we develop a better mentalizing system. We live in a society dedicated to associate meaning and understanding to why the people around us act the way they do. These systems of mind reading and mentalizing give humans the ability to be empathetic. We can imagine what others are going through without experiencing them. By simply hearing a person describe their situation, we are able to visualize it through our mentalizing system to put ourselves in their shoes. In Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, an article published by Oxford University Press, the author talks about the power of reading fiction. Findings from neuroscience show that reading fiction and social cognition both use the default network. This is due to the fact that it causes the brains default network to involve the theory of mind. The ability to have a stronger default network, giving the brain the chance to think more often about our social encounters, enhances our overall social cognition. In a more physical manner, Tania Singer
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ran an empathy study that examined the brains of people receiving an electric shock or watching someone else receive the shock. On different trials of the study, either the woman inside the scanner or her boyfriend outside the scanner was shocked using electrodes that were attached to their arms. The woman could see her boyfriends arm as shocks were delivered to him. Singer and her colleagues looked at which regions in the brain were active during both the receiving and watching of the electric shocks. Singer found that the women activated the pain distress network in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and the anterior insult regions of the brain regardless of who was receiving painful stimulation. Singer demonstrated that it may literally be painful to watch a loved one feel pain. Both of these studies give power to the humans ability to be empathetic. When we are witnessing someone else experience agony, it is painful in a way similar to feeling our own physical pain. Having the ability to be empathetic is a powerful advantage of being human, the highlight of our social thinking brain.
“First of all you have to understand where I came from. Bring a product of older parents (that lived through the Great Depression), who owned and operated their own business (lived on site with my beloved Grandmother as babysitter) and watching the poor choices of your much older brothers, it makes one very opinionated (at a very young age) on what you want out of life. I was raised in the business world and saw first hand how interaction with others was so very important. At a time when the “N” word was used daily with no regard on how it effected people, we were ahead of times in our family, we were only allowed to use the word Negro. Segregation was a way of life not only with African Americans, It included Jewish, Homosexuals, inter racial marriages, etc. My parents believed in diversity long before it was the thing to do. It was not unusual to find young, old, all different ethnic groups, gays, straight, Jewish, Catholics and non believers at our dining room table, in our eyes, everyone was equal, we all belonged to the human race. We were interested in the wonderful relationships this diverse group of people provided.
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My parents rules: Always follow the Golden Rule. Keep God’ Commandments, God gave you arms for hugging not harming, Look before you leap. If you break it fix it, God gave you 2 eyes, 2 ears, 1 mouth -- observe more, listen more, talk less (I have a hard time with the talk part), Most important of all, LOVE as you would want to be loved. If there were any other rules, they were self created. My parents ALWAYS let me know I was loved unconditionally. It was my choices in life and behavior they could be disappointed in and I was required to suffer the consequences of my choices. With all that being said, I believe relationships are what makes the world go round.
When you have a
relationship with someone, whether positive or negative, there is always something to learn from the experience. It is in the learning where we grow into the individual that makes you, you.
Relationships are what you put
into it, if you give negative, you get negative, if you are
positive, you usually get positive. On the occasion when you are positive and you receive crap, learn from it. It’s all about communication in a relationship. Example: I could tell you that your dress looks like crap and you would be instantly offended. OR I could tell you it’s a nice dress but I’m not sure it is for you, it doesn’t flatter your best features, the message becomes more acceptable. Same message, different communication. Being social has effected my life by being able to fit into about any situation.
I’m comfortable being with the
famous/non famous, rich/poor, young/old, straight/ gay, handicapped/non handicapped, different ethnic groups,
different
religions,
small
crowds, just about anywhere I go.
gatherings/large We all come into
this world the same way, we are all leaving this world the same way and what ever differences we have while we are here, that’s what makes life interesting.
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I’m not better than you, you’re not better than me, let’s all try to get along and have a good time while we are here! My social ability with relationships has let me met many people along the way and I have gained friendships I treasure. I have been afforded the knowledge that if I were in need of anything, these treasured people would be there for me ready, willing and able to give me what ever I need. Had I not been the social animal that I am who valued relationships, I would have missed so very many genuinely beautiful people in my life. I would not have been able to be in sales, management and the all around person that I am today. I feel like a people person who can get along with just about anyone. (Except Areatha Franklin, just couldn’t pull that one off) I wouldn’t have had great times while traveling in other countries. I wonder what my life would have been like without the give of social ability and good relationships, most likely sad and boring.” -Ann Wilbur
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Why it Matters There is understanding and there is implementing. To truly leave your mark on this world we need to understand how we thrive.
As social beings we live in a world that is continuously imparting their beliefs on life, the self, and what accounts for a meaningful life onto others. We take others beliefs and values, adding them to our own which influences our behaviors. Often what we believe to be our own identity is actually made up of the beliefs of those around us. Humans are built to be influenced by those around us, to follow their lead, and do what is best to fit the standards. We are far more able to be influenced than we think or would like to admit. In the West, this type of action is called “conforming”, something the majority of the population looks down upon. But in the East, the same behavior is called “harmonizing”, something essential for successful group living. In every aspect of our lives we are influenced by others’ opinions, specifically in the media and advertisements. Constantly being given advice on what is the best choices for our life to be lived to the fullest extent. When our brains interpret these advertisements it not only predicts how we will implement those changes in our lives, but suggests how an entire population will change as well. The region of the brain that is strongly linked to our conceptual sense of who we are is also the same region that is so easily influenced by outsiders’ opinions. By this region allowing us to be influenced by others beliefs, it ensures that a common set of values will
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be shared amongst surrounding people. Most of society will eventually embrace an identity that is focused on our relationships to friends and loved ones, as well as the many other groups we are connected to. Once we stop trying to define ourselves exclusively in terms of our uniqueness and accept a more balanced social identity, we often feel that we are finally who we are meant to be. Our sense of self is what ensures that majority of the society will conform to what is best for the success of the group. We tend to believe the world shares our same beliefs and viewpoints much more they actually do. We use our own perspectives to assume what people also agree upon. In some cases this is an appropriate assumption but if the beliefs are not shared, it can lead to problems and ultimately the loss of social connection. Psychologically we as humans are much more sensitive to the idea of a loss and will do as much as possible to avoid this happening. Having a brain that is very focused on one’s self makes it a challenge to put our own values aside to consider that others can think differently. This is a challenge that we all face daily but in order to have successful connections it is a choice we have be dedicated to make.
With having such a complex thought process around how we engage socially, we have a fascinating ability to change how we view a situation to make it easier to handle. This process where we consider a new perspective or quality of a situation is social reappraisal. Unlike suppression, reappraisal is better at making you feel less distressed instead of simply looking less distressed. When you are interacting with another person, the choice to suppress your feelings or reappraisal of them will affect your outcome of the encounter. Suppressing will interfere with your memory of the interaction and make the experience unenjoyable for those around you. When people are around suppressors, it will increase their heart rate more than being around a someone who chooses to reappraise their emotions. The author Henry Miller once wrote, “The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature.� By simply recognizing our emotions and writing them down can improve our overall health, happiness, and even immune functions. Think back to when kids weren’t able to communicate why they are so upset, we often tell them to use their words. Preschoolers who can describe their feelings have fewer emotional outbursts, get better grades, and are more popular with their peers. Likewise high school students who write out their anxiety before a test or speech perform better during those activities.
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The question still remains why conforming and having self-control plays an important role in having social harmony. This idea is that we are taking our self and either taking control of how we feel or that our self is in control. Having self-control not only benefits ourselves but also those around us. If I value the people around me having self-control, than they must also value my self-control. In reality having self-control is more beneficial to those around me than to myself. By having self-control we are more liked by others and well accepted in society; having self-control is the price of acceptance. As a society we tend to believe that the greater good of the community is more important than the good of the individual. While this may seem contradictory since individuals believe that their self is the only thing that matters, community patterns show differently. People who have a stronger sense of self-control get paid more, are more liked by those around them, and have a greater chance at success. When one is believed to have greater self-control they are capable of making decisions that are best for the rest of society and not just themselves. This philosophy holds true for strangers and even those we hold dear to us. We have greater general trust in people who show self-control.
“We’re all we’ve got. It is so easy to get caught up in the stress of work, bills, chores, and other obligations. It often feels like there is not enough time in the day. Life is overwhelming. Life is busy. Life is messy. What makes all of this stress worthwhile? We do, together. Although educational, financial, and career-based achievements are incredibly valuable, they do not satisfy the most basic need of human connection. I work my butt off in school and at my job, but getting to talk on the phone with my mom at the end of a hard day makes everything okay again. As much as I’d like to think I can solve all my problems alone, I’m start enough to know better. As humans, we can be independent while still relying on others for support in both good and bad times. Fostering healthy relationships in different social circles is imperative to mental health and overall happiness. No matter how crazy life gets, we can ALWAYS make time for one another. My mom and dad ingrained that message in my mind. Growing up, I made a personal vow to be there for my friends and family whenever they needed me, even when it wasn’t convenient for me.
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I have found that this vow has led to some late nights doing schoolwork that would have otherwise been finished much sooner, but it also led to some of the most heartwarming and enriching relationships. It is an honor to be there for someone, not a chore. That being said, it is important to remember that a healthy relationship is a two way street; it’s all about finding someone who is willing to ride alongside you on a sunny day AND in a raging storm. So, let’s reach out to someone today. Call your parents. Listen to a friend. Cheer on a teammate. Help a coworker. Smile at a stranger. Because look, in the end, we are all we’ve got.” -Laura Simpson
In any relationship having trust is crucial; when we know they express self-control it ensures they we know they will be faithful in their actions. Society views this self-control and greater good of the community as more important than our own well-being. Sharing the same beliefs and trusts as those around us helps us to harmonize and be in good terms with one another. This cohesion is often shared without even vocalizing our actual beliefs. The majority of this comes from the fear of being judged or pushed out of the group. To ensure our happiness in the group and the group’s acceptance of us, we are wired to have self-control to increase this feeling of acceptance in society. By taking a step back and looking at our actions in the way that others see us, it is powerful enough to keep us from matching society’s expectations. When we think about people who are important to us and what they would say in regards to our actions it can alter our end behavior. The thought of people we respect and care for disapproving of our actions can be as strong as their actual disapproval. While we tend to believe the purpose of self-control is to promote our individual goals and values, it its more of a mechanism to help shape our behavior to be in line with the group’s when they conflict with our own.
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We tend to think of people who conform as lacking in courage and initiative. Yet current analysis suggests that in certain situations, people with the greatest capacity for self-control will actually conform more than other people. The idea that we may be seen as a threat or be disciplined for standing out causes those with more self-control to conform more easily. However, all of this input from the outside world would amount to nothing if we weren’t born to soak all of this up. While we believe these are our own beliefs, to defend it rarely registers with us that we are in reality defending society’s beliefs. It motivates us to be better members of society and experience more social pleasure than pain in our lives. In a sense, neither the self nor self-control end up serving us in the way we imagine they should. They do, however, serve to ensure social harmonizing. They make us strive to support the group, sometimes at the expense of our beliefs, and this effort makes us more valuable to the group. All of us are operating with the same end goal in mind; to have beliefs that promote our lives and the ones around us.
“I believe relationships or human connections are the base of humanity, all other life forms, and their environments. I also believe that human connections are art forms and the main responsibility of our brain is to share them. Our brain is the center of our social self which is always working and creating. It is healthy to maintain our brain for collecting resources we need for living. In doing this, its tendency is to reach out and connect to others, to co-create or join together to find purposes for life--hopefully for positive purposes that will help us lead all, not just a few to true happiness and love. So, what does my belief have to do with my senior status and my well-being? Well, with everything that is happening in my environment, I always have to evaluate my social self if I want to make the most of my senior years. I may need to improve my connections. Well, today I did not want to accept some of the current programs that misuse public communication systems to inspire us to value materialism over relationships which often decreases the happiness that can be gained from human connection. This was obvious to all that I was not a happy camper about this. Then, something started to happen to change my attitude! The mail came today bringing the November 2016 AARP Magazine with a article about ways seniors can stay useful and creative such as being active, using assets wisely,
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paying attention to good nutrition, and above all, caring more for worthwhile causes and connections to others who can share commitments. That was it! I got the message. My attitude was bad. I don’t have to like all that is going on, but I do have to be civil towards what it represents. Up until now, some of my relationships have given me many gifts I treasure. I have no intentions of changing them, but my streak of anger led me to think I may have relationships needing attention. My goal then, is to update my human connections by reviewing what I already know as an educator, that human connections are art forms that can cultivate empathybychanging perceptions. I need to ask myself if my perceptions are making me happy, creative and open to opportunities. If they are, I will strengthen my commitments to relationships by accepting random connections, making time for the current important ones, and learning more about them and honoring them as they are. I will also commit to being more open to myself and those who support human connections. This all made me thankful for being a senior who just might be able to help others develop meaningful relationships by understanding that past relationships are the building blocks for growing upon.” -Dr. Barbara Buckbee
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Living to Be Social We understand that our life is most fulfilled when we spend it with others but that understanding needs to be applied to every aspect of what we do.
Our brains are wired to be social, this wiring is what motivates us to stay connected. It reminds us to stay connected and subconsciously continues to focus on understanding those around us. As part of how we are wired we have a piece of us that we consider our self, this self helps us create relationships with those around us by forming similar beliefs and harmonizing with the better of the group. The depth of how social we are is important in figuring out what we consider to be who we are. There are many things in life that we will encounter or have to make a decision about and self-interest will not be the only factor in our lives. As humans we still struggle to fully understand who we are and what motivates us. Everything we do in life is centered around “who we are� and the relationships we have with people and groups are affected by our understanding of what that is. As our mind wonders we are often thinking about the self and what we are doing or can do to improve it. Whether it be at work, school, or a social gathering this act of social thinking is often seen as a distraction taking the focus away from the present. In reality, almost everything in life can be better when we approach it more socially. The more social we are, the smarter, happier, and more productive we can be. Our nature goal in life is to have a good life, to share our happiness with others, and to be healthy. Yet as a society we seem to be missing the most important link that improves all of these things; being social.
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In America we have a huge investment in people’s happiness as it pertains to the well-being of society. When people are happy and healthy they are more productive, stay out of trouble, and the biggest advantage is that it cost society less money. The issue though is we do not fully understand what makes for a happy and healthy life. In 1989, more than 20,000 college freshman were asked about their life goals, and one goal stood out from the rest–to be well off financially. There’s no question that monetary wealth is valued worldwide and that it can make life easier. But does it honestly make us happy? When economist need to configure the standing of our society, they measure our value and what we have. One of the biggest questions they have been struggling with for decades is if money makes us happy. The income of an individual and of nations was often taken as an objective indication of well-being, or being taken care of. The relationship between money equaling well-being was simply made because you could not physically measure the status of a person’s well-being. During every attempt of economists to measure the relationship between one and well-being, the outcomes were the same.
Money has less to do with happiness than we give it credit for.
An individual’s income only explained two percent of the difference in happiness. Most of this relationship has to be with being below or above the poverty line. If you are below the poverty line, every additional
$1,000 you earn dramatically alters your well-being. But once the basic needs are met, increasing income only adds slightly to a better well-being. For example in the United States changing income levels between the years 1946 and 1990 were examined and compared to reports of wellbeing. While the income more than doubled during this time, well-being did not increase at all. While the majority of society still makes the statement that money is one of their primary goals, study after study suggests that it will not reach the same results that we believe it will. In the United States not only is increased income not associated with increased well-being, well-being has decreased dramatically in the past several decades. The majority of what is missing out of all of these situations is being social. Social components significantly contribute to our well-being and satisfaction in life. The startling fact is that in the United States these social encounters and components are continually in decline. Many of these social factors include going to social organizations, being married, having friends, trusting in social institutions and the size of one’s social circle. These are the things that economists looked at and they all end up contributing to overall well-being. While we can’t imagine how much our social encounters are worth in terms of well-being, multiple studies have been done to put a dollar amount on them. The studies show how much more money you would
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need in order to achieve the same value of well-being or happiness. When people volunteered at least once a week, the increase in their wellbeing is equal to having a $20,000 a year salary raised more to a $75,000 a year salary. Having a friend you see on a regular basis had the impact of an extra $100,000 a year. Being married is worth an extra $100,000, and even seeing your neighbor regularly is an extra $60,000. While all of these are positive increases to our well-being, the shocking factor is how quickly all of this could be taken away. By simply getting a divorce your salary would be decreased by $90,000. The good news is that building a social life is not challenging for most and is very cost effective. By adding more social encounters into our life like getting coffee with a friend, talking to a neighbor, calling a loved one, or volunteering could significantly improve the well-being of your life. While the importance of being social in our life cannot be stressed enough, the reality of the situation is quite drastic. Over the past fifty years there has been a steady decline in almost all things social besides social media. Today people are less likely to get married, volunteer, participate in group activities, and even entertain and socialize in our own homes. In a study done in 1985 people were asked to list how many friends they had communicated with about important matters over the last six months. The majority of the respondents listed having three friends.
The same survey was given again in 2004 and the most common number of friends was listed at zero with only thirty-seven percent of respondents listing three or more. When you think of those around you, keep in mind that one out of four of us is walking around with no one to confide in. While social aspects are in a decline, our priorities continue to lack in social efforts. Materialism in our culture has been a priority for quite some time, and the achievement of our financial gains have come at the cost of our social connections. In 1965, only 45 percent of college freshman listed being very well-off financially as a top life goal. At that point, helping others and raising a family scored higher. But by 1989, being well-off was at the top of the list, with 75 percent of people choosing that as their priority. In America, approximately one third of the population live in apartments, an environment that seems like it should promote community living, however in reality decreases any social encounters with neighbors or nearby residents. The simple fact is that being social makes our lives better. We are wired to make social connections and keep them. Our identity, sense of self, the pain we feel when these connections are threatened, are all tied up in who we are associated with. As expressed, our brains are naturally wired to gravitate towards being social, and it affects every aspect of our lives. Knowing this, shouldn’t we make a conscious choice to work less and socialize more? Research suggests that when people think about money, they become motivated to work more and socialize less. But when people
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are promoted to think about time, the reverse happens, people become motivated to work less and socialize more. People have found ways to extract some of the same benefits of being social even without socializing.
Just by thinking or writing about a loved one can provide similar benefits of participating in the face-to-face encounter. The same holds true for
looking at a picture of a loved one. Social support and social connection can minimize the hurt and stress during hard times in our lives. As discussed in Matthew Lieberman’s book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, when a painful stimulus was delivered to a women, they reported the pain to be less painful when they were holding their boyfriend’s hand. Surprisingly, when the girlfriend was merely shown a picture of her boyfriend, the pain was still reduced. In fact, the picture was twice as effective in reducing the women’s pain as actually holding his hand. The power of the brain to think about our social relationships can be stronger than when they are happening in the present. This shows the power of social motivations and people’s need to connect and feel satisfied with their self. As children, we are built to be sensitive to cues telling us we are liked, loved, and cared for. As we grow older, being respected and valued increasingly matter to us as well. However, as parents and as adults, we are reinforced by the actions we take to care for others. Having the chance to help others motivates people to work harder. For most people at work, doing something meaningful includes helping others.
As social and caring creatures it is hard to find meaning in what we do if at some point it doesn’t help someone else or make someone happier. Creating the right social environment should be a priority for those who want the most out of themselves and those around them. Knowing that the brain cares just as much about social pain and pleasure as it does the physical, should be motivation to reinforce these features. We are motivated by the acceptance of a group as much so as we are motivated to make sure we identify with the group. This desire solidifies that we are accepted and our hard work has paid off to have a group we can call our own. This acceptance is also something businesses should take an interest in. Economists have long studied human capital as the reason for productivity in an organization, yet they have ignored social capital as a main influence; the social connections and networks in an organization. Economist Arent Greve measured the human capital and social capital of the employees at companies and related them to how many products the employees completed in a year. At the end of the survey, the results in the two companies were that social capital accounted for all the benefits of productivity. The idea that productivity is about smart people working hard has been misleading society about the fact that an individual’s intelligence may be optimized when it is promoted through social encounters. Two reasons for this motivation is self-perception and the reward in helping others. When we see ourselves doing something, we think it reflects who we are. If we are doing well at work, we believe that we are a good person, dedicated, and hardworking. When we help
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others out it makes us feel satisfied, giving us a better relationship with the organization. When our place of work promotes these rewarding encounters, it makes us more motivated to have a positive relationship with the company as a whole. At the end of the day it all comes down to who we are and how our brains are wired to think about those around us. As humans, our actions are triggered by our social obligations. Whether we chose to recognize it, this social obligation is what motivates us to have healthy, meaningful relationships that in the end will promote a better life. From now on, take a step back and think how each activity you participate in can become more social, influencing not only your future but those around you that you care about. By simply taking the time each day to say hello to a co-worker or peer will increase your health, your happiness, and the importance you feel your life was worth. It all goes back to being a better social being this is something that can be ingrained in us from a young age. We live in a world that can only interact with our species on a high intellectual level, yet we forget to value and cherish these encounters. Take a moment and remember what our purpose is here on earth.
Every day is made up of small moments and these moments are what defines who we are.
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