How important is human interaction?

Amidst many shelter in place orders, nationwide shutdowns of establishments where we could be social and the notion of “social distancing” all leave us feeling like anyone could have the killer virus. Based on this experience, it’s apparent to me that we are becoming more socially isolated than ever in many ways. Understanding our need as humans for deep and meaningful human connection made me realize that all of our facilities for social interaction are molded around food or drink (interestingly enough, these are results and not causes). 

With those establishments closed, and the discouragement of social interaction that brings two humans closer than 6’ turns our focus to our psychological need for social connection and the importance of social communication in society. These aspects all seem to be compounding on a slow degradation that has been fueled by technology where we are more connected than ever, but seemingly more socially distant due to a trade-off between quality and quantity. This article attempts to lay out humans’ psychological need for group interaction, some challenges we are facing with the current economic and health landscapes, and finally, what we might be able to do about all of this. 

Why do we need social connections?

We were tribal beings. Social interaction allowed us to be more efficient and effective at survival due to cooperation. When we cooperate, we can overcome more complex problems than a single human could achieve. We can face chaos and transform it into order. To ensure that we coalesce as a group, we have been molded to come to know ourselves through the actions of others toward us. 

“The fundamental problem of life, however, is not the terror of death, although that is an important sub-problem. The fundamental problem of life is the overwhelming complexity of being. ...The innovation of social being itself is one such solution. Individuals group themselves into social dominance hierarchies, find their position within the phalanx, and employ the resources of the entire group against the challenges of nature and the unknown. To do so, they rearrange their internal natures, so that they can exist in productive harmony within their group. This grouping requires conflict, war, within or between individuals – and then its resolution. As a child, matures, for example, he has to temper his passions so that they reflect his desires, and the desires of the group. ...The group wants the individual to manifest the possibilities of his being in the manner most beneficial across different spans of time and place and to the smallest and largest number of individuals, simultaneously. The group thus offers the individual the opportunity to extend his powers, as well as forcing their limitation.” Pg. 16

We have evolved to understand ourselves through the feedback of others. We outsource the problem of sanity and gain our orientation in the world by how others act, react, and interact with us. We can achieve this feedback via mirror neurons, which allow us to feel the emotions of others (empathy) along with learning without ever doing so by literally mirroring what another does. 

“Mirror-neuron mediating understanding cascades downward from the abstract, through the emotional, to the physical. The mirror system accepts sensory, cognitive and circadian state inputs, and produces somatic, endocrine, and neuroendocrine output (Swanson, 2000). ... This implies that mirroring extends beyond action, to its emotional, motivational, cognitive and neuroendocrine concomitants. ... The development of the mirror neuron system allows a maturing child to embody the action and motivational states of those he directly observes, with greater or lesser fidelity. .... A plan is the projection of a compelling fiction onto agreed-upon objects and contexts. The successful joint establishment of such a plan, motivationally significant, emotionally gripping, eliminates the very necessity for uncertainty, anxiety and conflict. ... Thus, in a properly formulated dominance hierarchy, the presuppositions of the individuals match the structure of the group. This matching keeps the group stable, and the individuals affectively regulated. Any challenge to this match (and not simply to the intrapsychic or social structures themselves) therefore simultaneously dysregulates motivation and emotion.” Pg. 9

These neurons help us to modify our behavior to better fit into the group at large by being better, or more suited to play games (we will talk about games shortly). We have hardware that enables us to easily take on the behavior of those around us so that we can cooperate. 

Being entrenched in a group also helps us to assign meaning to our lives. When we work toward an end goal that perhaps will not be fully realized in this lifetime, we can know that we are contributing to the greater good of the group. What work we conduct in our life can become part of the foundation that the rest of society sits on going forward. 

“By belonging to a group, we feel as if we are a part of something bigger and more important than ourselves.”

When we are connected in a group, working towards goals is the same as playing a game. To attain the goal is to win the game. If we are correctly oriented in the group structure, then there is no need for violence. 

“Interaction can be cooperative at one level, and competitive at another. The dominance hierarchy is in fact a form of extended cooperation, establishing the frame for within-hierarchy striving, and aggression is counterbalanced by two powerful regulatory processes. One is innate and internal; the other, emergent and social. The internal process is empathy, the ability to feel another’s experiences (Preston & De Waal, 2002). The maternal circuitry governing empathy is deeply rooted (Panksepp, 1998), and modulates response to those deemed kin.” Pg.7

“De Waal (1989b) has suggested, instead, that it is the whole troupe that constrains the ambitious individual, becoming agitated en masse when any battle goes too far. Thus, a well-socialized individual may not generally need a super-ego. If he is acceptable to his peers, the modulating effect of their reactions will remain at hand, and effective. When human children are socialized, they learn socialized alternatives to violence, which serve as more effective means to social status. They do not simply inhibit the primal aggressive circuits. Instead, they integrate these circuits into more sophisticated behavioural games.” Pg. 7-8

We can work in a concerted effort toward a common end goal. If we are not adequately socialized, that does not necessarily mean that we lose games, it means that we don’t get invited to play these games. When we can play more games, it provides us the opportunity to improve. With no chance to play, there is no opportunity to refine our skills.

“In a good game, there are many opportunities for joint gain. There is no need to be predatory or defensive, so there is little need for violence. Well-socialized adults add their opinions to the process, insisting that the players’ play fair, and act as good sports: “How you play the game is more important than whether you win or lose.” The adults know, implicitly, that life is a sequence of games, and that those who play properly during a given game become the popular players of many games, benefitting cumulatively from playing each. Thus, a vital form of meta-morality emerges: the best player is he who is invited to play the most games.” Pg. 8

It’s crucial here to illustrate the detrimental effect of social isolation. When we receive feedback from others directly (verbal and non-verbal), we can quickly learn and adapt on the fly. This interaction continues to reinforce how we should act as long as we are receiving signals that contribute to positive emotion. If we do not see people, then this can allow our minds to wander and necessarily get into an open loop. This notion is to say; we have no feedback from our surroundings to bring us back to the structured reality that is enforced by a well-functioning society. This concept is why if you have ever interacted with someone who has lived in isolation for a long time, they seem “weird.” They have drifted from the socially acceptable path of the group driven norm.

How society lets us know how we should act is through story or myth. We can compile a great deal of knowledge and data into stories. The idea of the archetypal story suggests that there are individual storylines that play out in human existence time and again. When this happens, we should take note; we should pay attention. When we pay attention, we can learn something about the world that is far too complex for a single brain to comprehend fully. These stories are guiding principles for how we should best act so that both the individual and the group thrive.

“We tell stories about how to play: not about how to play the game, but about how to play the metagame, the game of games. When chaos threatens, confront it, as quickly as possible, eyes open, voluntarily. Activate the neural circuitry underlying active exploration, inhibiting confusion, fear and the generation of damaging stress responses, and not the circuitry of freezing and escape. Cut the unknown into pieces; take it apart with hands, thumbs and mind, and formulate, or reformulate, the world.” Pg. 17

To be successful in fitting correctly into the dominance hierarchy, we must take into accord our own best interest and that of the group. Therefore, we simultaneously modify our goals to be more like the group’s goals via mirror neurons and other neural activities. We must also be willing to take personal responsibility, that is to say, voluntarily face the chaos that shines through reality. When we take on something meaningful to us as an individual and assimilate it for the group, we become more valuable. During this process, we both transcend the hierarchy of competence and assign meaning to our lives by what we have done and continue to do for the group. 

“What is the best way to successfully play the largest number of games? The answer is not simply computable. Over time different modes of playing emerge, in the attempt to seek the solution. Each individual wants to be maximally valued. Pure aggression is one possible solution. The physically dominant individual can force others to value him as a player. Sufficient display of negative emotion can have the same effect: someone may be invited on multiple occasions into different games by appealing to the sympathy of the other players. These are not optimal solutions, however. Even among chimps, rule of the merely strong is unstable (De Waal, 1989b). Rule of the weak, likewise, breeds resentment: social animals want reciprocity, and will not give continually.” Pg. 16

It’s critical to note that we cannot lose ourselves for the group and continue to be a heroic creature. That is to say; we cannot face the chaos of the world and hope that the group will coddle us. We must rise to the challenges at hand and bear an appropriate burden. There is a balance between having a structure and order to the world, especially within our social groups, and having one of chaos and disorder. If the order becomes too strong, then we have tyranny. If we slide to the side of chaos, then there is no protection against the unknowns of reality and life becomes exponentially more difficult. 

Where did we go wrong?

We live in a world of increased connectivity, yet decreased depth of connection. 

The devolution of agrarian culture from tribal times has played out over the decades. In a tribe, we were an arguably close-knit community. As we became domesticated and started to live in houses, we initiated the isolation process. As farmers, we had to go to the market and were able to interact with many other folks. With the advent of the supermarket, we only had to interact with a single cashier to obtain food from all over the world. Now with self-service checkout lanes, we can go to the grocery store and speak with no one. Many retailers are taking it one step further by rapid home delivery. It seems evident that we once had to interact with many people to conduct daily life. This abundance of inherent interaction no longer appears to be the case.

Another blatant example is how people interact socially, even when at a gathering. Next time you are in a public space, especially a restaurant, take a look around. How many people are sitting together at a table but are glued to their cell phones? How many times during a meal does the person that you are with check their phone? We are having conversations with physically distant people at the sacrifice of the person in front of us in the present moment. We cannot fully and deeply.connect with another when technology builds an invisible wall.

These examples are clear indicators of the effects technology is having on human interaction. These advancements are slowly socially isolating us and leading to a lack of high-quality social interaction.

What are the challenges to human interaction?

There are many challenges to human interaction in a healthy and functioning society. We all have some level of developed social skills and emotional intelligence. Depending on how refined those skills are, they will place us in the social hierarchy. If we are not pleased with where we reside in such a structure, then we can become bitter, cynical, or even angry at a system that we feel has done us wrong. 

There is also emotional intelligence that, if not developed, can lead to emotional immaturity. According to John Gottman, when we are emotionally immature, we tend to distance people (geographically or emotionally), or cut them out of our lives completely. We also tend to be emotionally reactive and try to change others, which makes people not want to interact with us. We base our decisions on emotional pressures. These reactions do not help our social relations to be healthy and to prosper. The onus is on us to change from within to reduce these emotional character traits. 

These, of course, are all challenges to human interactions because we must work on ourselves to get past such shortcomings. When we develop a certain level of self-mastery, we can transcend the dominance hierarchy and reside where we would like to be. 

What makes us feel lonely?

Curiously, two different people can feel drastically different levels of loneliness under the same circumstances. We all have evolved to need a differing amount of social interaction. Some people are okay with bi-weekly interactions with a few close friends, while other people can have a packed social schedule and be left feeling alone or isolated. Much of how we feel comes down to our individual needs and perceptions. If we think that we need a lot of social interaction and the experiences that we are having are not of the quality that we want, then it is easy for us to feel alone.

“In the West, we like to think of ourselves as relatively immune to sway of those around us while we each pursue our personal destiny. But I think this is a story we like to tell ourselves rather than what really happens. ...Across many studies of mammals, from the smallest rodents all the way to us humans, the data suggests that we are profoundly shaped by our social environment and that we suffer greatly when our social bonds are threatened or severed. When this happens in childhood it can lead to long-term health and educational problems. We may not like the fact that we are wired such that our well-being depends on our connections with others, but the facts are the facts.”

Conclusions

The reality that we exist in is far too complex for our albeit relatively sophisticated brains to fully and accurately comprehend in a useful manner. Therefore, we use others, and more precisely, groups that act out schema in the world. These systems of ideas, rules, and concepts are played out in the world. We need others, more specifically, groups of others to act these out so that we can engage and participate in these games that are illustrated via story and play. If we are not able to engage in these games, it is our job to question how it is that we are acting in the world that disallows such participation. Are we playing the victim card, or are we trying to coerce others into playing nice with us? In other words, how and why are we engaging in poorly performing games? Both of the actions, as mentioned earlier, are emotionally immature approaches. 

We need to take responsibility and to voluntarily face the chaos of the world while being rooted in a group structure that we agree to abide by and function within. These simultaneously juxtaposed actions (individual exploration and enforcement of rules by group quorum) are what allows us as humans to face the chaos of reality, to navigate it successfully, and to assimilate ordered knowledge that we can leverage for the propagation of the species at large. 

“Life is not the constant shrinking away from the terror of death, hiding behind an easily pierced curtain of beliefs. Life is the forthright challenging of the insufficiencies that confront us, and the powerful, life-affirming existential meaning that such pursuit instinctively produces. It is that which keeps the spectre of mortality at bay, while we work diligently, creatively, at work whose meaning is so powerful and self-evident that the burden of existence seems well worth bearing.” Pg. 18