Human nature and the need for social connection

Loneliness by John T.Cacioppo & William Patrick

Two cornerstones of classic economic theory are the assumptions that individuals are rational decision makers and individuals have purely self-regarding preferences.  These assumptions fly in the face of most psychological theories, where individuals are depicted as characterized by bounded rationality if not also by bounded self-interests.

writes John T. Cacioppo

One of the themes of my current thinking is that one of the reasons we are driving technology hard towards products and tools that amplify human talents for cooperation is because we desperately seek meaning and identity in a world that forces us to quest for identity and meaning. Social isolation can be as harmful to your health as smoking or a sedentary lifestyle. A large part of this effect is driven by the subjective sense of social isolation called loneliness. New research shows that human beings are simply far more intertwined and interdependent—physiologically as well as psychologically—than our cultural prejudices have allowed us to acknowledge.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

In Loneliness, human nature and the need for social connection by Cacioppo and Patrick, we get a psychological insight which underpins discussions and thoughts around collaboration and co-creation. I explored this area a little in The issue of self-identity in a post modern world. And here

Once again, we see why human beings do not thrive as the “existential cowboys” that so much modern thought celebrates. While it may be literally true that “we are born alone” and that “we die alone,” connection not only help us to make us who we are in evolutionary terms it helps determine who we become as individuals. I both cases, human connections, mental health, psychological health, and emotional well-being are all inextricably linked.

One of the most terrible things we can do to people is to exclude them from society. The ultimate punishment in prison is solitary confinement. A term we used to use in the UK but so much any more was social ostracism which was described as “being sent to Coventry”.

Dorothy Day wrote that we have all known the long loneliness, and we have learned that the only solution is love, and that love comes with community.

Dorothy Day

Looking more deeply at the invisible forces that link one human being to another helps us see something even more profound: our brains and bodies are designed to function in aggregates, not in isolation. That is the essence of an obligatory gregarious species. The attempt to function in denial of our need for others, whether that need is great or small in any given individual, violates our design specifications. The effects on health are warning signs, similar to the “Check Engine” light that comes on in today’s cars with their comptuerised sensors. But social connection is not jusy a lubricant that like motor oil, prevents overheating and wear. Social connection is a fundamental part of the human operating and organising system itself.

This research affirms for me the theory that we are evolving our world into one that more reflects human nature. This is a world that defies the logic of the industrial society. And reinterprets it as one that brings more meaning to our lives.

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