Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
Social argues that our need to reach out to and connect with others is a primary driver behind our behavior. We believe that pain and pleasure alone guide our actions. Yet, new research using fMRI – including a great deal of original research conducted by Lieberman and his UCLA lab -- shows that our brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure. Fortunately, the brain has evolved sophisticated mechanisms for securing our place in the social world. We have a unique ability to read other people’s minds, to figure out their hopes, fears, and motivations, allowing us to effectively coordinate our lives with one another. And our most private sense of who we are is intimately linked to the important people and groups in our lives. This wiring often leads us to restrain our selfish impulses for the greater good. These mechanisms lead to behavior that might seem irrational, but is really just the result of our deep social wiring and necessary for our success as a species.
Based on the latest cutting edge research, the findings in Social have important real-world implications. Our schools and businesses, for example, attempt to minimalize social distractions. But this is exactly the wrong thing to do to encourage engagement and learning, and literally shuts down the social brain, leaving powerful neuro-cognitive resources untapped. The insights revealed in this pioneering book suggest ways to improve learning in schools, make the workplace more productive, and improve our overall well-being.
Review: I won this book as a giveaway on Goodreads.
Describing something as "social" is quite a broad label. Similarly, I found that Social is a collection of diverse, far reaching topics that are linked solely by their fit under the umbrella term "social." This book is a collection of studies and research results that show that the human brain is driven by making connections with others much more than we think.
I enjoyed the discussion early in this book about the "default network" or the regions of the brain that are active when we are not otherwise engaged. It's interesting that it seems the brain is churning away at thinking of others and making connections with others in its downtime - it's the brain's greatest hobby. Similarly, the section on mindreading, or how we are able to very accurately interpret the actions or intentions of others was intriguing; "without the ability to think socially and share our vision with others in a way that engages them, we would be left to our own devices to convert our vision to reality" (108).
Although I'm still not sure how well it connects with the rest of the book, or social interactions overall, the book's discussion of impulse control, and in particular, delayed gratification, showed very interesting findings. Studies have shown that preschoolers who lacked the ability to delay gratification scored lower on their SATs years later in high school. "People with higher levels of self-control have higher incomes, higher credit scores, better health, and better social skills from childhood to adulthood, and they report being happier with life" (206). (However, on the other hand this seems to be something we would guess intuitively - people who are patient and willing to work long and hard for something are more likely to reap the benefits than those who give up quickly.) Similarly, preschoolers with a greater facility for self-expression using language "have fewer emotional outbursts, get better grades, and are more popular with their peers" (219). Lieberman, by including this research in this book attributes this to language conferring an ease with social connections, however, I wonder if this might just indicate a higher facility with language in general and IQ overall, which would explain the better grades and to some extent, the increased popularity.
Yet despite how much I found some of the tidbits of this book interesting, there is neither a clear, cohesive thesis for this work, nor are there tangible explanations. I was frustrated from this first chapter of this book because the author spends 35 pages explaining to you why understanding of social connections in human are important. I was suspicious of any work that takes that long to convince a reader why the content is relevant. Interestingly, the author conveys similar feelings regarding the overall thesis of this book in the epilogue: "What I started to think about writing this book, I thought there was a series of pretty cool findings in social cognitive neuroscience worth sharing. I thought each of them stood on its own, independent of one another. Today my perspective is quite different. I see a tapestry of neural systems woven together to bind us to one another" (302). I see his point, but I also think this book tries to tackle a wide range or very different topics and would have been better to have been more focused on a particular area of social behavior.
Additionally, for every fascinating study conveyed, the takeaway given was a look into which part of the brain is controlling this behavior and the explanation that evolution drove humans to respond this way because we are social creatures. This isn't a very compelling or novel bottom line for me. Furthermore, a lot of the findings in this book, (although arguably not all), seem like commonsense knowledge which has been confirmed by scientific research.
Also, although somewhat irrelevant, I did love the cover design of this book, with the dot over the letter i trying to float away and join the rest of the group. Very fitting for a book on social connections.
Stars: 3
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