Evolutionary Psychology
Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008, p. 11) offer the following summary perspective regarding the evolutionary implications of the human need for relationships (and the damaging effects of being alone):
“The roots of our human impulse for social connection run so deep that feeling isolated can undermine our ability to think dearly, an effect that has a certain poetic justice to it, given the role of social connection in shaping our intelligence. Most neuroscientists now agree that, over a period of tens of thousands of years, it was the need to send and receive, interpret and relay increasingly complex social cues that drove the expansion of, and greater interconnected ness within, the cortical mantle of the human brain. In other words, it was the need to deal with other people that, in large part, made us who and what we are today.”
Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 127) use the term “obligatory gregarious species” as a way to affirm this powerful push toward the formation of interpersonal relationships: “our brains and bodies are designed to function in aggregates, not in isolation.” They quote George Williams, a prominent evolutionary biologist: “an individual who maximizes his friendships and minimizes his antagonisms will have an evolutionary advantage and selection should favor those characters that promote the optimization of personal relationships.” (Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 57) This evolutionary advantage appears to be closely affiliated with the “pair bonding” of the male and female, leading to protection of offspring. Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 70) push it even further: “parental teamwork meant not only that increasing numbers of children might survive, but that these creatures could afford to be more developmentally and behaviorally complex. Greater behavior latitude led to greater diversity, which led to innovation, which lead to more rapid cultural learning.”
All of this leads to the conclusion that evolution favors interpersonal relationships among human beings. Isolation is contrary to the survival of the human species—and even to its continuing improvement (via cultural learning). In order to keep people from choosing a life of separation, some biological mechanisms are built in to make this separation painful and alien from a life of physical and mental health. We are “wired” to be with other people and are biologically “punished” for choosing otherwise. Yet not all people suffer from being alone. The condition of loneliness might not apply to them. Why is this the case? The answer is to be found not so much in the study of collective behavior (the sociological perspective that I offered in the second essay in this series), but in the study of individual experiences with regard to being alone. This requires that we introduce a psychological perspective on loneliness.
Psychological Aspects of Loneliness
Cacioppo and Patrick set the stage by citing some disturbing research findings. 20% of individuals surveyed in a major study indicate that they feel quite isolated, and that this isolation contributes significantly to a feeling of unhappiness in their life. Cacioppo and Patrick (2008, p. 5) propose that:
“. . . the culprit behind these dire statistics is not usually being literally alone, but the subjective experience known as loneliness. Whether you are at home with your family, working in an office crowded with bright and attractive young people, touring Disneyland, or sitting alone in a fleabag hotel on the wrong side of town, chronic feelings of isolation can drive a cascade of physiological events that actually accelerates the aging process. Loneliness not only alters behavior but shows up in measurements of stress hormones, immune function, and cardio vascular function. Over time, these changes in physiology are compounded in ways that may be hastening trillions of people to an early grave.”
Their exploration of the psychology of loneliness is based on more than 20 years of research conducted by Cacioppo, supplemented by their review of many other studies of loneliness. A good place to begin in summarizing their psychological exploration is a focus on the beginning.
