#3 - Social by Matthew Lieberman

Social - Why Our Brains Are Wired To Connect, by Matthew Lieberman marks the beginning of my venturing into psychology. It explores the myriad of ways that evolution built us to be social, by discussing the scientific findings of the last few decades on the topic. I found Matthew's arguments to be well-backed and convincing, and his writing to be fun and engaging.

The Default Network: the brain's favourite pastime

Our brains have multiple regions, and different combinations of regions are typically associated with different cognitive tasks. Scientists can establish this correlation by using tools such as fMRI, which allow them to know which brain regions are currently more active than others. For instance, the parts of the brain that consistently "light up" when an individual is given a math problem are different from the ones which become active when they're tasked with playing musical instruments, for instance. These brain imaging technologies have only been invented in the last few decades, so the kind of insights presented within this book have only become possible very recently.

In 1997, neuroscientists noticed that there was a particular neural network that consistently became active as soon as the subjects stopped doing the task they had been asked to do. No matter what task they were doing - analytical, creative, physical, etc. - this network would kick-in as soon as participants had a break. They nicknamed it The Default Network. Later on, they realized that this network was the same as the neural network that consistently becomes active when participants are doing social reasoning tasks: thinking about their relationship with other people. In other words, whenever people have a break from any task, their minds start thinking about others, maybe about recent conversations they had, whether someone they like also likes them, or perhaps what a coworker really meant when they said something.

Scientists subsequently wondered whether this was intentional or automatic: were people consciously choosing to think about others, and thus activating the default network, or was the default network activating itself, causing people to think about others? They performed experiments in which participants only had about 2 seconds of break between one task and the next. The result? The default network still became active during those tiny breaks, which wouldn't be enough to allow participants to intentionally think about anything other than the task at hand. They also found the default network active in babies as young as 2 days, who are too young to have much agency or conscious interests.

This evidence shows that, whenever the mind has a chance, it automatically drifts to solving the social puzzles of our lives. We evolved to be this way because being successful with people is of great survival importance for humans. We need to excel at reading other people's minds, figuring out their intentions, figuring out how to act, what to say, etc., so our brains literally spend every second they can to help us achieve this goal.

Needs and pains:

In 1943, Abraham Maslow published his paper describing the now-famous hierarchy of human needs, depicted below. The layers are organized in order of importance, from the must-have at the bottom, to the nice-to-have at the top. In this theory, a human being will first attempt to fulfil bottom-layer needs such as food, water, and shelter, before caring about things such as feeling loved or realizing one's potential.

Matthew observes that the needs on the bottom layer are typically accompanied by a pain that encourages us to fulfil them. The need for food resulted in us developing the uncomfortable feeling of hunger, which encourages us to look for food. The same is true of water and thirst, for instance. In fact, pain is vital for survival. For example, children born with no sense of physical pain typically die in the first few years of life, due to frequently hurting themselves.

Social Pain: why it hurts when we are apart

Humans are born immature. When a baby is born, they can't function like an adult. They can't walk, talk, plan, make decisions, etc.. Humans are typically born with 1/4 of the adult brain size. Therefore, most of the brain development takes place in the decades after we are born. For instance, the pre-frontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for planning and decision making, only finishes developing in the third decade of life (explains why your teenage relatives seem to only make dumb decisions). Humans are born the most immature, but all mammals share this characteristic to some extent.

A consequence of being born immature is that, for several years, infants cannot survive on their own. Therefore, they need caregivers to fulfill their biological needs, i.e. the bottom layer of the Maslow hierarchy discussed in the previous section. In other words, for an infant, being socially connected actually comes first, because they have no way of fulfilling those needs by themselves. For that reason, Matthew suggests that we place "Social Connection" as the base layer of the Maslow hierarchy. Moreover, he makes the following central argument:

1. Every essential human need is accompanied by a pain that encourages us to fulfil the need. E.g: food and hunger;
2. For infants, social connection is an essential need;
3. It follows that there must be some kind of pain that encourages infants to stay connected to their caregivers;

This type of pain is what the author calls social pain. He also argues that humans of all ages experience social pain in various forms, e.g.: the death of a loved one, being embarrassed in public, being excluded from a group, having your partner break up with you, and so on. Although social pain is not physical, like a broken leg, it is just as real. Ultimately, it's the brain who creates the experience of pain, whether the source is a physical stimulus or not.

The first hint of the existence of social pain is the language we use to describe unpleasant social situations: "he hurt my feelings", "she broke my heart", which are surprisingly present in several languages across the world with different origins. As an anecdote, I vividly remember being depressed for over 4 months as a teenager due to the girl I dated for 1 month having broken up with me :).  

The second evidence of social pain is the separation distress vocalization in infants, i.e.: babies crying. The argument is that, when a baby experiences separation from their caregivers (e.g. parents), they literally feel pain. Experimental studies with infant mammals such as rats and monkeys were performed in which surgically disconnecting the brain regions responsible for the experience of pain caused the infants to not "cry" when separated from their caregiver. Furthermore, if the same surgical procedure was instead performed on the caregiver (i.e. a mother rat), they would not look after their offspring or respond to their crying, thus hurting their chances of survival. The same behavior has been observed when surgery is replaced with painkillers. This evidence supports the notion that both infants and adult caregivers have an attachment system that causes a sensation of pain when they are apart, ensuring that both parties are motivated to stay together, thus ensuring the survival of young mammals.  

The third evidence comes from a multitude of studies done with adult human subjects. Using fMRI, Matthew and other scientists have been able to show that the pain regions of the human brain "light up" in the same way when participants experience physical pain vs social pain. In these studies, social pain was induced by having participants experience social exclusion in a computer game called Cyberball. In other studies, they found that having participants take painkillers such as Paracetamol for weeks reduced their feeling of distress when faced with social exclusion, compared to control groups who took placebo.

Besides pain, another important driver of behavior are rewards. Just as we experience distress when in undesirable situations, we experience feelings of pleasure when in desirable situations. Think of the last time you had a bit (or a lot) of chocolate: overwhelmingly pleasant, right? As it turns out, the regions of the brain that create that experience are also activated when we face positive social situations: when we feel liked or valued by others. Multiple experimental studies showed that people are even willing to sacrifice money or receive electric shocks to feel loved, or to make others feel good.

In short, evolution used pain and pleasure to drive us to seek connection with other human beings.

Cool info, but so what? Some thoughts on life and product

• When you get a rejection notice for the position you applied to; when people don't seem to be interested in the product you're selling; when the professor hates your presentation. Your brain probably interprets these situations as painful social rejection. Now that you know that, remember not to let that pain cloud your judgment or make you quit. Instead, learn and move on.
• Facebook and other social information apps are so compelling because of our social nature. The default network forces us to do social reasoning, and these platforms are a great source of this kind of information: you can get information about what the people you care about are doing, with whom, etc. It must be pretty incredible to literally have brain mechanisms that constantly push your users to open your app and spend hours in it.
• Think about your product or service. How can you make your users feel part of a community? How can you design your product so it evokes feelings of social acceptance? Can you design your product so it provides compelling social information, so your users want to use it more? Should you? Where do you draw the line between catering to your users vs exploiting their biology to your advantage?
• It's interesting to look at the world, and wonder how people currently fulfill their social needs. We now live in times of social distancing due to the COVID-19 epidemic. People can't see their friends or loved ones. How are they going to fulfil the need for social connection? Perhaps there's room for a few new startups to be born in this space?

My favourite things of the week

Here's a list of things I've been listening to, reading or watching this week, that I find amusing in one way or another:

• Jhené Aiko's new album: Chilombo. I am a longtime diehard Jhené fan, and this album does not disappoint. My favourite songs so far: None of Your Concern, Speak and Summer 2020 Interlude;
• Peter Attia podcast interview with David Epstein, touching on topics such as: quality of scientific research; nature vs nurture in athletic performance; whether one should generalize or specialize. I recommend learning about Peter and giving his The Drive podcast a try if you are interested in health, wellness, longevity, and performance, grounded on scientific evidence.
• Netflix's new movie: The Platform. This is a thought-provoking movie that sparked interesting conversations with family and friends. Highly recommended. Warning: there are lots of violent scenes, so viewer discretion is advised.
• Netflix's new reality show: Love is Blind. Although a little (very?) cheesy and unrealistic at times, my girlfriend and I have nonetheless been enjoying it a lot :). It's a dating experiment that explores the potential benefits of prioritizing deep connection vs visual attraction.
• Houseparty. It's an app that allows friends and family to hang out over video and play games together. Lots of fun.

Thanks for reading. Hit me up on twitter with your thoughts and feedback. Stay safe.