One advantage of
belonging to a cohesive society in which people help one another is that the
group is often better
equipped than an unconnected set of individuals to deal with threats from the
outside. People intuitively realize that there is strength in numbers and take
comfort in the company of others, especially in times of anxiety or need. Or,
as Patrick Henry famously said, “United we stand, divided we
fall.”
**
Social connection
is such a basic feature of human experience that when we are deprived of it, we
suffer. Many languages have expressions—such as “hurt feelings”—that compare
the pain of social rejection to the pain of physical injury. Those may be more
than just metaphors. Brain-imaging studies show that there are two components
to physical pain: an unpleasant emotional feeling and a feeling of sensory
distress. Those two components of pain are associated with different structures
in the brain. Scientists have discovered that social pain is also associated
with a brain structure called the anterior cingulate cortex—the same structure
involved in the emotional component of physical pain.
It’s fascinating
that the pain of a stubbed toe and the sting of a snubbed advance share a space
in your brain. The fact that they are roommates gave some scientists a
seemingly wild idea: Could painkillers that reduce the brain’s response to
physical brain also subdue social pain?
**
Social rejection
doesn’t just cause emotional pain; it affects our physical being. In fact,
social relationships are so important to humans that a lack of social
connection constitutes a major risk factor for health, rivaling even the
effects of cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, obesity, and lack of physical
activity. In one study, researchers surveyed 4,775 adults in Alameda County,
near San Francisco. The subjects completed a questionnaire asking about social
ties such as marriage, contacts with extended family and friends, and group
affiliation. Each individual’s answers were translated into a number on a
“social network index,” with a high number meaning the person had many regular
and close social contacts and a low number representing relative social
isolation. The researchers then tracked the health of their subjects over the
next nine years. Since the subjects had varying backgrounds, the scientists
employed mathematical techniques to isolate the effects of social connectivity
from risk factors such as smoking and the others I mentioned above, and also
from factors like socioeconomic status and reported levels of life
satisfaction. They found a striking result. Over the nine-year period, those
who’d placed low on the index were twice as likely to die as individuals who
were similar with regard to other factors but had placed high on the social
network index. Apparently, hermits are bad bets for life insurance
underwriters.
**
When we think of
humans versus dogs and cats, or even monkeys, we usually assume that what
distinguishes us is our IQ. But if human intelligence evolved for social
purposes, then it is our social IQ that ought to be the principal quality that
differentiates us from other animals. In particular, what seems special about
humans is our desire and ability to understand what other people think and
feel. Called “theory of mind,” or “ToM,” this ability gives humans a remarkable
power to make sense of other people’s past behavior and to predict how their
behavior will unfold given their present or future circumstances. Though there
is a conscious, reasoned component to ToM, much of our “theorizing” about what
others think and feel occurs subliminally, accomplished through the quick and
automatic processes of our unconscious mind. For example, if you see a woman
racing toward a bus that pulls away before she can get on it, you know without
giving it any thought that she was frustrated and possibly ticked off about not
reaching the bus in time, and when you see a woman moving her fork toward and
away from a piece of chocolate cake, you assume she’s concerned about her
weight. Our tendency to automatically infer mental states is so powerful that
we apply it not only to other people but to animals and even, as the
six-month-olds did in the wooden disk study I described above, to inanimate geometrical
shapes.
It is difficult
to overestimate the importance to the human species of ToM. We take the
operation of our societies for granted, but many of our activities in everyday
life are possible only as a result of group efforts, of human cooperation on a
large scale. Building a car, for example, requires the participation of
thousands of people with diverse skills, in diverse lands, performing diverse
tasks. Metals like iron must be extracted from the ground and processed; glass,
rubber, and plastics must be created from numerous chemical precursors and
molded; batteries, radiators, and countless other parts must be produced;
electronic and mechanical systems must be designed; and it all must come
together, coordinated from far and wide, in one factory so that the car can be
assembled. Today, even the coffee and bagel you might consume while driving to
work in the morning is the result of the activities of people all over the
world—wheat farmers in one state, bakers most likely in another, dairy farmers
yet elsewhere; coffee plantation workers in another country, and roasters
hopefully closer to you; truckers and merchant marines to bring it all
together; and all the people who make the roasters, tractors, trucks, ships,
fertilizer, and whatever other devices and ingredients are involved. It is ToM
that enables us to form the large and sophisticated social systems, from
farming communities to large corporations, upon which our world is based.
Scientists are
still debating whether nonhuman primates use ToM in their social activities,
but if they do, it seems to be at only a very basic level.10 Humans are the
only animal whose relationships and social organization make high demands on an
individual’s ToM. Pure intelligence (and dexterity) aside, that’s why fish
can’t build boats and monkeys don’t set up fruit stands. Pulling off such feats
makes human beings unique among the animals. In our species, rudimentary ToM
develops in the first year. By age four, nearly all human children have gained
the ability to assess other people’s mental states. When ToM breaks down, as
in autism, people can have difficulty functioning in society. In his book An
Anthropologist on Mars, the clinical neurologist Oliver Sacks profiled Temple
Grandin, a high-functioning autistic woman. She had told him about what it was
like to go to the playground when she was a child, observing the other
children’s responses to social signals she could not herself perceive.
“Something was going on between the other kids,” he described her as thinking,
“something swift, subtle, constantly changing—an exchange of meanings, a
negotiation, a swiftness of understanding so remarkable that sometimes she
wondered if they were all telepathic.”
