Loneliness Beyond Friendship: What Brain and Biology Tell Us

Humans are a "true social" species.

Photo by Ingo Joseph on Pexels.

Humans are a deeply social animal. According to Edward O. Wilson, one of the most celebrated evolutionary biologists of modern time, humans can actually be characterized as “eusocial.” Eusocial species are “true” social species, or those that are social at their baseline state. Wilson gained fame at first studying ant colonies, and the way that coordinated action of ants allows the colonies to flourish. An ant alone can’t accomplish much. In colonies, they have grown to have an estimated 100 trillion individuals. A similar logic might be applied to humans: a single person alone is limited. People working together can flourish in any environment on the earth, and have grown to over 8 billion individuals.

Wilson laid out several criteria for “true social” species:

1. They live in multigenerational communities
2. They have a division of labor (different individuals do different work for the community)
3. They are ready to sacrifice at least some of their personal interests to those of the group

In this account of human nature, people are successful because they are much more cooperative than other animals. We have evolved to live and work in groups, and these groups can accomplish more through coordination than people can accomplish alone.

I recently published an article on loneliness, and I’ve ended up having quite a few conversations with people about it. My colleagues and I found that feelings of loneliness are roughly stable–and low–for people who spend anywhere from 25% to 75% of their day alone. It’s sort of counter-intuitive to think that someone who spends 75% of their time alone is no more likely to feel lonely than someone who spends 75% of their time around other people. But a larger message that comes from this analysis is that loneliness is really about perceptions. Lonely people want a kind of connection that they aren’t getting, not just to be “around people” more.

So what do we really need out of other people? One first thought is close friendship or intimacy. Having people you care about and trust feels good. But rereading a paper by one of my co-authors this weekend, I’d like to suggest that people want more than just a few deep friendships. People also want to be part of a community.

Jim Coan and Dave Sbarra (who worked on the loneliness paper with me) wrote an article outlining neuroscience and physiological evidence in favor of social baseline theory. This theory takes seriously Wilson’s claim that we are a “true social” species, and says that humans have evolved to expect to live in community with others. According to social baseline theory, people don’t just want the joy that deep friendships can bring. We need people to help us solve problems and meet goals all up and down Maslow’s hierarchy (or the evolutionary version).

• Being part of a community provides security, as friends and family typically show up to help you if you’re in danger–or if you need to recover from injury.
• Being part of a community provides information, as social networks (in person, not just online!) share information that’s important for navigating the wider world.
• Being part of a community provides recognition for accomplishments, which often adds feelings of meaning to what you’ve done.
• Being part of a community means you have a group of people who can become your close friends or romantic partners. Dating apps aside (and there are no friendship apps!), it’s easiest to start deeper relationships with people who already know you–or know people you know.
• Being part of a community means you have help with child care, if you choose to have children. Raising children would be much more difficult if parents didn’t get breathers from family, babysitters, and other parents hosting playdates.

Social Baseline Theory suggests brains are at rest around others.

Photo by Efe Ersoy on Pexels.

Coan and Sbarra emphasize two other mechanisms: risk distribution and load sharing.

• Risk distribution means that, if everyone in the group is on the lookout for threats–and then they communicate about those threats to everyone else in the group–then it’s less likely that a threat will slip by unnoticed. When it comes to vigilance, dozens of heads are better than one.
• Load sharing means working together towards shared goals. Think of an old fashioned barn raising: everyone in a community coming together to build or rebuild one person’s barn. It’s much faster for everyone to work together on a barn, and then reciprocate when the next person’s turn comes up, than to have everyone try to put up their barns alone.

At the level of neuroscience, Coan and Sbarra review evidence showing that the brain is closer to an “at rest” state when people know others are around and available than when people perceive themselves as cut off from others. For example, the brain has a weaker threat response when the person perceiving the threat (in the brain scanner) is holding someone else’s hand.

From this perspective, loneliness isn’t just about not having satisfying, deep conversations. It’s about not feeling like you have the kinds of social resources our species has evolved to rely on.

Being lonely likely reflects a feeling that the kinds of support and opportunities you want–support managing risks, solving problems together, finding out important information, and opportunities for recognition and forming deeper connections–aren’t available. Reducing loneliness, therefore, is likely to mean thinking beyond just making a few friendships deeper and more meaningful. It’s also likely to involve becoming more closely connected to a community of people who have your back.