(dramatic music)
The things we choose to do as humans
are endlessly fascinating.
Tonight tens of thousands of people
have come to a park to look at
beautiful, hand-made lanterns.
The best our closest relatives
the chimpanzees ever managed
was siting in trees together.
So why do we create rituals like this,
why do we choose to come together in such large groups?
Is it just for the lanterns or is it for each other?
We spend most of our lives with other people.
We think about them when we're not with them
and if we don't have enough people around us,
we can become depressed.
Our brain is an incredibly complex bit of kit
but scientists know that it spends
a large amount of its time
thinking about social networks,
about other people
and could that be the key to our success,
the secret that's allowed our species
to dominate the entire globe?
In this episode we'll find our how our brains
connect with each other
and what kind of things drag us apart.
We'll find out what love actually is
and just what it's so important to the human race
that we connect with one another.
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
This is a rat's brain.
This is a cat's brain.
(cat purring)
And this belongs to an orangutan.
And this is an actual human brain.
It's the largest of all animal species
as a proportion of body weight.
Brain size tends to increase with body size
across the animal kingdom
but if it was just about size,
elephants would be four times smarter than we are.
So how come we ended up with the largest cortex?
Well it turns out it has a lot to do
with something we do
that none of the another animals do.
(upbeat music)
We know we need food, water, shelter.
And so when we're hungry, thirsty, or cold
our brain automatically starts searching for solutions.
But there's another thing that we need too,
social contact.
That in itself isn't unique
because there are lots of animals that live together
in social groups.
But there are no other animals that create
the highly complex relationships we create.
We've known each other for 20 odd years
and within that time, apart from playing bowls
we've duck shooting and deer stalking.
A bit of this. -: Fishing. (laughing)
We both have the same sort of values
and so we enjoy each other's company
and we're always doing something together.
Why are humans better in groups?
Because we're really smart. (laughing)
We've got all these abilities that other animals
don't have and think about what other people are thinking
and we have not just that but we can think about
what other people think about other people, right.
And that's a, there's a real kind of advantage in that
because we can start to really have these large groups
that we coordinate with,
that ability to be social,
beats out being fast, strong, ferocious,
any of that, right?
That socialness is what makes us really,
interesting as humans.
This was just a picture when we were at the Taj Mahal
and I think that's the seat that Diana sat on,
there's photos of everyone sitting on that seat
and that was just Colin and I
with the old Taj in the background
and we had some wonderful experiences
on that ship going around the world.
I think there was about five women
to every one bloke. (Colin laughing)
And we had to play hard to get sometimes. (laughing)
This idea of a social brain,
it's not just some nice flouncy thing,
it really is a social brain.
Yeah, I mean granted there's a lot of stuff in there
that's necessary for breathing and digestion
and whatever else there is but you know
that really, that human bit,
that stuff that's really unique to us,
that huge neocortex that we have,
that's the thing that's is so different
from our primate ancestors,
that's just so much bigger and we see within that
all of these kind of things that seem to be related to
this social monitor, this thing that helps us
kind of negotiate our social world,
this intelligence, solving novel problems,
which are often very social problems that we have to solve.
Yeah, you don't have many close friends
but I've always considered Colin a close friend
and we gel well together.
(girls laughing)
By the time we're 10,
our brains have spent almost 10 thousand hours
on social thinking.
Thinking about other peoples' thoughts,
feelings and intentions
and how we might relate to them.
We are pretty much an expert.
Freya, she's usually always happy
but when she's sad, you can tell.
'Cause she's always happy.
Yeah. -: Yeah.
(girls laughing)
Yeah, I never know if Abby's like happy or sad
or confused.
Yeah, she's really hard to read.
She's like, hides her emotions,
she's like-- She's so hard to read.
Like if she's like--
The idea is that in our down time,
whenever we have a spare moment,
our brain starts to think about other people.
It uses every spare moment to get ready
for what comes next,
whether that's thinking about the birthday party
you want to plan, the friends you need to catch up with,
the family members you need to care for
or the people you want to impress at work.
It promotes understanding, empathy, and cooperation.
And Baby X can help us understand exactly
how our brains connect with one another.
Created by scientist and two-time Oscar winner
Dr. Mark Sagar and his team,
she can show us exactly what happiness in our brain
when we begin to connect with somebody else.
We all know that making eye-contact with other people
is a powerful way to create a sense of connection
but why is that?
Well there's a chemical in your brain
called oxytocin, the hug drug,
which also has an amazing effect
on how we connect with other people.
If I set Baby X's oxytocin levels to very low,
watch what happens.
The green square shows where Baby X is looking.
She doesn't seem to have any particular focus
and she's not really making any eye contact with me.
And now I'm going to increase her levels of oxytocin
and let's see what effect that has.
(consol beeping)
Now, Baby X makes a clear shift to focus on eye contact,
we're connecting and she even gives me a smile.
Inside Baby X's brain we can see oxytocin being released.
Here it's the green-y blue bits
secreted by her pituitary gland.
This simple act of connection means she's rewarded
with oxytocin which makes her seek even more connection.
And even though I'm interacting with a digital baby
the same thing is happening inside my brain.
Every day I buy a cup of coffee and I get a hit of caffeine.
But weirdly, I'm also getting a hit of dopamine from Anna,
the person who makes my coffee.
Flat white?
Flat white would be lovely. Anna: Awesome.
If you take away--
Alongside the oxytocin from eye contact,
the dopamine from this small talk makes me feel happier.
What about your weekend?
Oh you know, usual stuff.
We don't say much but even a little exchange like this
can make us feel better.
Take a seat. -: All right.
I'm gonna bring-
Can we get this feel good chemicals
when we connect online?
Two billion of the world's population spend,
on average, 14 minutes a day,
getting micro connections by using Facebook.
And that popularity is no accident
because Facebook has tapped into the very thing
that makes us tick, people.
Facebook makes us feel like we've got our loved ones
around us because it gives us a dose of dopamine
regardless of whether we're with the actual person
or just looking at their picture.
It feels like a real connection
because as far as our brain's are concerned, it is.
(upbeat music)
But how does connecting with complete strangers
make us feel?
Hello. -: Hi.
How are you? -: Good, how are you?
Good.
In this experiment,
we get two people that don't know each other
to sit together on a bus.
Something we usually try to avoid.
We've given them some cards
with suggestions on how to get to know each other better.
Find something in common.
(laughing)
Were you born in New Zealand?
No I was born in China. -: Ah!
Well that's something in common.
We weren't born here. -: Yeah.
(laughing)
At the moment my cleaning music around the house is the,
soundtrack from "Hairspray".
Yes!
Okay. (man laughing)
I have definitely
cleaned my house to "Hairspray" like definitely.
Oh wow, an experience that changed your life.
Mine was probably really recently,
I found out that I had a brain tumor
which was really not cool, really scary.
It's benign which is great.
Oh thank--
Which is awesome. -: Jeebus, yeah.
It was right before exams and they kind of just,
I guess put everything into perspective for me.
It does, yeah.
Our passengers show how readily
we want to connect with other humans.
(man laughing)
Describe your first time in love.
I've got one word. Okay.
Train wreak. -: Oh no!
(laughing)
Met him on a camping trip in the Boundary Waters
in northern Minnesota, I feel for him hard
but I don't think it was mutual. (laughing)
Create your own special handshake.
I'm not the most coordinated of people.
Okay. (man laughing)
Yeah my daughter goes, like this, she goes like that.
This willingness to connect
from an evolutionary perspective
meant we could form larger, more cooperative groups.
Wait, wait, that way?
We're pretty weak and frail by ourselves.
We're not fast, we don't fly,
we can't burrow well, we can't climb trees well.
Can't swim, we're not particularly ferocious
and so, the thing that we have on our side though
is our ability to coordinate action with other people right?
And so, we can make a plan with lots of other people,
this takes a lot of work
but we can do it because of that ability to be social.
Bam.
We need to blow one up in the end.
Yeah, has to.
It's gotta blow up in the end.
Every handshake has to have a blow up.
(laughing)
It was nice to be able to talk to someone,
'cause often I don't, I just sit by myself
and listen to music or something.
I don't know why, it was just something,
I felt like being very open and talking and,
which isn't necessarily something I would always do,
especially with a complete stranger
that I've just randomly met on a bus.
It was cool, it's just, connecting with people is nice.
It's clear connecting makes us feel good.
We have the skill of empathy to make us better
at connecting but what exactly is empathy
and what is it that makes us cringe?
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
Our brains like to connect with other brains.
We want to do it because it makes us feel good
but we need to do it because humans working together
is what's allowed us to advance as a species.
But what skills do we have to encourage this connection?
Would a toddler help me to open this cupboard door
and if so, why?
Well it's all about empathy,
the ability to imagine what someone else
is thinking or feeling,
literally to read someone else's mind.
But could a toddler do something as complex
as mind reading?
Can a toddler's brain make a prediction
about why my brain wants to do but can't?
Can she empathize with me?
Ah.
Even toddlers have the ability
to put themselves in other people's shoes.
But what's the point of empathy?
Well understanding others means we can predict
what the people around us might do next.
Thank you.
Because if we understand how they feel
then we can predict what they might do.
Empathy also means we can help each other out.
Cooperation requires empathy
and it's this unparalleled ability to cooperate
which has made humans so successful.
Ah thank you.
Scientists have speculated that one of the fundamental
building blocks of empathy
comes from specialized brain cells called mirror neurons.
When you watch these dancer's feet,
feet dancing neurons in your brain start to fire
even if you've never danced,
your brain is literally feeling to a small extent,
what the dancer is feeling.
And this is also what's happening
when you cringe with embarrassment.
Hey, so you're our guys.
Yes. -: Yes.
You're? Gen: I'm Gen.
Gen? -: Gen, G-E-N.
I'm Gen, yeah.
This is hidden camera footage
of me meeting the participants of one of our experiments.
Like, what's it short for?
Genzy.
How do you spell that?
G-E-N-Z-Y.
G-E...
How do you pronounce it?
Genzy.
My handshake seems to be going on for quite a while.
So, we've been, so you guys are doing an experiment later.
Yep.
And now some of you watching this are cringing,
unable to watch.
Well, that's potentially mirror neurons at work.
You're physically responding to the situation playing out.
This empathy is stronger in some people than others.
Studies have shown our brains process
the breaking of social norms
and the breaking of bones through similar neural pathways.
So watching this awkward handshake
can actually activate parts of the brain
associated with physical pain.
The more empathetic we are,
the more we'll want to avoid these kinds of situations.
Instead we'll create harmonious scenes
which allow us all to get along and work together.
There was something that was interesting.
The handshake goes one for another minute.
Our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others
starts off young.
Good guys and bad guys,
it's a story as old as stories themselves.
This is a very basic plot.
We all see the yellow triangle helping out poor red circle.
(upbeat music)
But there's also a bad guy, the blue square.
I'm going to show this drama to young babies.
They'll watch the kind, yellow triangle.
And then they'll see the big blue meanie.
And now I'm gonna offer them
the two characters to see which one they want to pick up.
Time after time they select the helpful yellow character
which is amazing.
Ah the yellow one's a nice one.
Even when we switch the colors of the blocks
for the experiment,
the babies still chose the helpful character.
This shows even very young babies
are able to form a mental model
of what the personality of the shape is like,
to make predictions about how the shape is going to behave.
You'd like the nice one, very good.
Connecting is vital to humans
and one of the most important relationships
we'll ever have is with the people who look after us
when we're the most vulnerable.
To help us do that,
we're hard-wired with this connection bias
from the very beginning.
Babies begin bonding with their mothers voice
in the womb and over the first few days of their lives
they quickly learn her smell, her face,
and the sound of her voice.
For the mother, the bonding process is also very rapid
and just as powerful.
Given that the bond between Isla and her baby Indigo
will be one of the most intense relationships
of both of their lives, what does that powerful bond
actually look like inside Isla's brain?
(dramatic music)
To answer that question,
we're going to conduct an experiment
with Isla using an MRI machine
which let's us look inside her brain
as she thinks about her baby.
We can see parts of Isla's brain reacting
as she looks at pictures of baby Indigo.
A couple of things kind of stand out.
The first is that it seems to involve regions
that we know are important for,
amongst other things, memory.
I can see here on this little blob
in the posterior cingulate.
There's a wealth of research showing that the insular is
and important region for feelings of love and affection.
Both romantically and maternally.
Previous research has shown that if you
give people oxytocin intranasally, through your nose,
and do an experiment very similar to this one,
activity in this part of the brain increases quite a bit.
Dad.
Our brain reward us with oxytocin
when we see our baby, which we experience as love.
And it's that desire to love and be loved
which is one of the most powerful influences
on all of our lives.
But how is romantic love
different from maternal love in our brain?
(dramatic music)
(peaceful music)
The strongest social connection of all, love,
is a fairly complex emotion.
But it's the one thing millions of people
around the world seek out every day.
So what is love and how do we know when we're in love?
Neuroscientists have been asking these questions
for decades and we're beginning to get
a better understanding of the science of love.
Hi everybody, welcome to the mixology class.
I'm gonna be teaching you a few cocktails today.
There are three stages of romantic love
and each stage contains a different cocktail of chemicals
inside our brain.
Stage one begins when we're attracted to someone.
This doesn't happen in our cortex,
the thinking part of our brain,
it's more basic than that,
taking place in the mammalian and reptilian
parts of the brain where feelings like lust exist.
This is Eric and this is Amber.
They're both young, single
and looking for a new relationship.
What'll happen when they see each other for the first time?
There's a whole lot at play here and it happens quickly.
Things like assessing the symmetry
of the other person's face
and judgements about how they smell.
And then there's personal preferences.
Amber is attracted to a guy takes care of himself
and has his life together
and Eric is attracted to a woman
who shows compassion towards others.
And if that attraction occurs,
your body language changes,
the tone and speed of your voice changes
and you seek out ways to spend more time with that person.
Eric seems really nice,
like when I met him he had a big smile on his face
and he can take a joke and yeah,
he's funny, like good banter and stuff you know, yeah.
We got lovely hair and really nice eyes.
Eric and Amber
are clearly attracted to each other.
He seems like a guy
that I'd want to get to know a bit more,
a bit deeper I think.
I'd definitely go on a second date with Amber.
Perhaps they're ready to move to the next stage.
After attraction comes passionate love.
Matt how would you describe love?
The most common definition of love
that people immediately think of,
the most salient is what we would call passionate love
that immediate infatuation with someone,
which is closely tied to the experience of falling in love.
Passionate love is rooted most in dopamine system.
The dopamine system is the system in the brain
that is all about craving motivation, reward,
that's the same system that gets activated
when you have chocolate and you get sugar
and you want to eat more sugar
because sugar is something your body needs to survive.
(peaceful music)
This second stage is about the intense feelings
at the beginning of a new relationship
but can last for years.
Sandra loves this feeling.
What does it feel like when you first
start going out with someone?
If you really like them it's,
yeah, it's exciting and dangerous
and uncertain.
And fun and you just get a rush.
The parts of the bran most heavily affected
by the rush of romance
are also the parts of the brain
most heavily affected by addictive drugs
like nicotine and cocaine.
So in some respects, we experience this intense
early stage of love as a form of addition.
Do you feel like you're, kind of, addicted to that,
that feeling, that first kind of rush of romance?
I think addicted's too strong
but it's definitely something that I like and I enjoy
and possibly I look for
or I welcome in with open arms (laughs)
when it's there.
So what actually ended up happening when you--
Sandra loves that feeling of passionate love.
But what happens when the dopamine hits stop coming?
Like you just look around and think,
what was I doing?
And all those thoughts and feelings have gone away
and you can't rationalize being with that person any more.
The third stage of love, attachment,
is all about oxytocin.
It's nickname is the cuddle drug
and it's no where near as exciting as the rush of dopamine.
Perhaps Sandra just doesn't want or need oxytocin.
When I was in early 20s
I was in a long, happy relationship
where those things were of value to me
but I think now,
at this age I get the feelings of salability
from other areas of my life or other people
and the dopamine rush is the thing that I don't have
and that's why I enjoy in relationships.
If we do want to take a relationship further,
even as far as getting married,
that's stage three of love, attachment.
Which is love for a person where you're together,
and you trust one another and you rely on one another
and so attachment love is about you finding someone
who you can navigate the world with.
We feel more capable of taking on challenges
when we have someone we think we can rely on.
When we think, we have someone who is there for us.
But that doesn't always mean marriage.
This is "Married" it was painted in 1896 by Walter Sadler
and it shows a couple married but clearly no longer in love,
if they ever were.
At the time of this painting,
the idea that our lives should be filled with happiness
was a new and popular concept.
Including the notion that we should marry a true love.
But the institution of marriage
actually began around four thousand years earlier
and it had nothing to do with love.
So marriage was all about strategic gain,
well means strategic gain.
It was about power and money.
Once we introduced love into the equation,
then divorce rates skyrocketed.
So why do our brains still want us to get married.
By now, the brain has got used to all the dopamine
from the passion phase
and one of two things happen next.
We neither break up to chase the next dose of dopamine
or we move on to phase three, attachment.
Our brain tells us to stay and commit
to the person we've fallen in love with.
One of the more traditional signs of commitment
in relationship is marriage.
Justine and Mike have been together nine years
and have decided to tie the knot.
Why did you decide that you wanted to get married?
Because I love her
and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
Having all our family there,
having both families joining,
and probably a point in our life
where now we're moving on to another stage,
where they'll be family and things like that in the future.
Yeah, it's a step in the relationship.
I don't think there was a moment,
I think it just, was kind of the next step.
Like we've been together for a while,
we've lived together,
we knew we wanted to stay together
and we wanted to have a family together
so, marriage was just the next step I guess.
I don't think it's gonna change anything
in terms of the relationship.
I believe it's an important process to go through.
Those who move on to the attachment phase
are having their brain flooded with oxytocin.
It's not as exciting as dopamine
but it creates a sense of wellbeing and security
which acts as the glue for a long term relationship.
How have you feelings, how has it changed over the time?
It's obviously got a lot stronger,
so I guess in the beginning days it was more so
about having fun and just having a friendship
but just a little bit more
and then over time, the support for one another
and watching each other grow has just gotten stronger
and so, you like to celebrate your achievements
with that person and celebrate life
and the more memories I guess that you have together,
the more the feelings sort of grows.
And you just don't wanna be without them.
Has the feeling of love changed
over that nine years?
Well the feeling of love has stayed the same,
I think the values and things
that attach to it have changed.
As time went on, you start to respect them
as you learn more about them.
Just increased steadily.
And hasn't really stopped to be honest.
And the male gets
an extra hormone at this stage, vasopressin.
This is a strong neurohormone
that sees the male wanting to protect his partner.
Do you feel protective towards Justine?
I think at the start of the relationship
there was definitely some physical protection
and you're still, young, and fresh in a relationship
and people can be threats. (laughing)
But now it's more emotional,
don't like to see her hurt or upset
or anything like that.
So there is a definitely a protective element there.
It's just changed over time.
And in a study of prairie voles,
researchers found that vasopressin
saw previously playboy voles
turn into loving, monogamous voles.
It makes sense for our brains to procure oxytocin
and vasopressin, because that makes us stick together,
which, from an evolutionary perspective
gives our offspring a better chance of survival.
The modern marriage is a physical manifestation
of this stage, under the shared influence of oxytocin,
helped along by guy's vasopressin,
we say to the world, we're going to stick together forever.
Maybe people who choose to break up every couple of years
have a higher sensitivity to dopamine
or higher levels of oxytocin
and those unfaithful males maybe they could learn
from the prairie voles and find a way
to increase their levels of vasopressin.
Perhaps an extra glass of soy milk might do the trick?
But how does our brain feel without love
if it's unconnected to others?
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
Even though making connections with other brains
is really important to our brain
it isn't always easy.
People aren't all the same
and in a world with conflicting views
and different personalities,
it's easy to feel alone.
So what happens for our brain
when a connection doesn't occur?
You don't have to be a scientist or a psychologist
to know that being left out of something,
even if it's something as trivial as passing a ball
feels bad but here's the weird thing.
That hurtful feeling of being rejected socially
has been crucially important to the survival of our species
and to demonstrate that I've got a very famous,
but slightly mean experiment.
(upbeat music)
We have two people who are in on this experiment,
and the third has no idea.
What will happen is that we begin with everyone passing
the ball to each other.
In our two insiders, pass the ball only to each other
excluding one person, how does that feel?
Well I'm a pretty awkward person anyway,
so, pretty awkward yeah.
Right, so it's quite an pleasant feeling, right?
Yes it is, yes.
I was confused, at first,
because it was supported to be the three of us
and then, yeah it just go weirder.
Its so horrible that we want to avoid it
almost at all costs.
I just wanted to feel like I was part of a team
but I didn't know how I could go about doing that.
To avoid this feeling,
we try to make ourselves fit in by being more agreeable
and more open to compromise
which lowers our chances of rejection.
We try to be likable which reduces conflict
and allows us to live together in large groups
which in turn, allows us to achieve big things.
So being excluded from things like this,
being socially excluded it lights up
the same parts of your brain that light up
when you're in physical pain.
Would you agree with that, does it kind of feel
like it's a really unpleasant feeling, being exuded?
It is, especially when you're not expecting it.
I guess, yeah.
Well I suddenly felt,
oh why aren't they passing it to me,
what's going on?
It's like it feels really mean, right?
Yes.
But we can also feel this pain
when we become isolated and alone.
Helen took isolation to unheard of levels.
I lived on a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific,
12 thousand kilometers north of Rarotonga.
For 17 years.
There were only 200 people living there.
And I was the only English speaking person.
What does loneliness feel like?
Yeah that whole feeling that you don't have anyone
you can talk to, no one to share all your,
all your triumphs, all your sadness.
That to me is loneliness.
And I think along with loneliness comes fear.
Frightened to step out,
frightened to show that you are,
that person with needs.
Loneliness is a, phenomemon
which can actually cause
a lot of harm for humans.
In fact, we now consider isolation and loneliness
as a mortality risk factor.
So in addition to smoking,
and not exercising, isolation and loneliness
is a mortality factor.
It increases our risk for dying early.
Helen's isolation continued even when
she returned to New Zealand.
Didn't know anyone, except my mum.
So I stayed by myself but I rode buses and looked at people
and was fascinated with the society that I had left behind.
But I still stayed on my own.
Do you think that loneliness
contributes to unhappiness?
For most of us, connection, is essential.
I say most of us because some of us,
a very small percentage are wired differently
that they would rather be alone.
But for most humans, since we're social species,
connection is crucial, not just for happiness
but for survival,
for maintaining our health,
for procreation, reproducing,
as well as taking care of our children.
What's the difference between isolation and loneliness?
Loneliness occurs I think even when you're in the middle
of a whole lot of people,
you can still be lonely.
To me being lonely means,
I wish there was someone here to talk to.
I wish I could share my feelings with somebody.
That to me is loneliness.
When we're isolated, when we're disconnected,
the brain will naturally crave for more connection,
it feels lonely so that the individual is mobilized
to do something about that loneliness.
That's why loneliness is painful.
Because it wants the individual to find connection.
You've done some things to change
that pattern of isolation.
Dancing, was the answer.
(upbeat music)
I saw the pamphlet and thought oh,
I'll just find out about it,
came along to Feisty Feet,
which is a group of women who dance together.
What do you get from the dancing?
Well A, exercise,
B, the women.
We dance like no one's watching.
And we're safe among ourselves, we are safe.
For me it was discovering that,
everybody thinks the same or have had similar experiences
and are open to share those experiences
which was something I hadn't realized.
If the impact of loneliness is that it makes you feel
kind of inward facing and it shuts you down,
how do you break through that to connect up
with other people again?
With great difficulty.
I had to fight myself,
to leave the house, to come, you know,
to the dancing.
I had to get back into the pattern of stepping out,
it's really re-patterning my brain
to be able to get out, I think.
Connection,
showing care,
being cared for.
It's what gives us meaning.
Not the nice car,
not the fat paycheck,
not the nice shoes,
they're superficial, they're temporary.
But it's the connection that makes people feel
that their life is meaningful.
Every morning I wake up and I say,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
I never really thought I'd ever meet people
that I could relate to,
not realizing that basically
you can almost related to everybody if you open up.
But I was too scared to open.
(baby crying)
Baby X is upset because she's been left alone.
She's upset because being left alone
actually feels painful to her,
as it does to us all.
But the good news is, there's a very easy way to help her
and it's both ancient and very simple.
With this screen, I can simulate stroking her arm.
We all have specific receptors in our brain
that are tuned to a soothing touch.
It's what you do as a parent, right,
if your kids are upset, then you stroke their arm
and they feel better.
We can even quantify it,
anything less than 10 centimeters per second,
our brain experiences as soothing.
You can see Baby X responding.
The touch sends signals to her brain,
releasing oxytocin from these deeper brain structures.
In particular, we can see her pituitary gland lighting up
as it releases its stockpiles of stored oxytocin.
It's simple.
Physical connection makes us feel better.
(upbeat music)
And that doesn't just have to be physical connection
with one person.
Sometimes we literally gather together in tribes,
with a common goal and a common culture.
Because social rejection feels so unpleasant for our brains,
they instinctively steer us toward ingroups.
It could be that club you belong to,
a clique at work, the political party that you support,
or even our lawn bowls team.
(people cheering)
And we do this to help build a corporative group of people
that can create a society that will ensue our survival.
We'll have more empathy for our ingroup
and we'll see their point of view more easily
than they'll see ours.
Being a part of this ingroup makes us feel happier,
and connected but what happens
when you don't seem to fit in anywhere?
(dramatic music)
So if you just grab a little seat there.
We shouldn't be too long and...
This experiment is about how our brain
really just wants us to fit in.
Four of these people are plants, working for us.
The fifth person just thinks they're waiting to be filmed.
But our hidden cameras are already rolling.
If our four plants do something, like put on a coat,
will the fifth person conform?
Do they want to feel part of the group?
(upbeat music)
This participant obviously feels awkward,
but not enough to conform yet.
Again, it's awkward, but still no conforming.
Another word scientist use for confirming
is harmonizing.
This participant puts the jacket on straight away.
What was your first thought when you walked in?
Well it was a bit, unusual,
'cause they were all sitting in a line
and all doing the same thing,
just sitting straight, so I didn't know what to do,
so I had to do the same thing.
I don't know. (laughing)
Why do you think it is that we do this?
Well I think it's 'cause
people don't wanna feel left out sometimes.
And if you're around people and you're doing the wrong,
like different thing, you don't want to stand out too much,
you just wanna blend in.
I think that's what happened to me here. (laughing)
But what does this all mean for us as humans?
Studies have shown that about a third of us
will follow the group, even if that behavior
doesn't have any immediate benefit for us.
Fitting in is more important than what the group
is actually doing.
These conformists, are harmonizing the group,
everyone feels connected,
in the pursuit of a goal.
You just sat down literally
and then they would start walking, I feel,
are they rejecting me, you know?
I'm like, do I have something on my face
or the way I speak, or anything?
Because they starting doing stuff as a group,
you started to try to figure out
if they wanted you to kind of in their group
or out of their group?
Yes, yes.
I think as, the feeling of,
belonging, I would say, because once you belong somewhere
you feel included, I would say.
Yeah, very included, very like I am them too
and that's the majority.
(fire crackling)
For most of the history of our planet,
fire was one of the most powerful
and destructive forces in nature.
For millions of years, nothing could stand before it.
Fire took anything and everything in its path.
But humans changed all that.
Because even though as individuals we're actually very weak,
when we combine our amazing brains,
with their incredible ability to work together
with other brains, focusing on a single objective,
we shifted the balance of power from nature to us.
It was our unique ability as a species
to combine a powerful brain
with the powerful brains of those around us
which elevated us above every other species.
Teamwork has played the pivotal role
in human history and as is our way,
we weren't just content to conquer fire,
we domesticated it, we made it work for us.
Lots of us find starring at a fire relaxing.
One study even showed that seeing a fire
and hearing it crackle,
can actually lower your blood pressure.
But why does it do that?
Well, the theory goes that the campfire
was one of the first places that our ancestors experienced
a sense of safety that comes with being part of a group.
It's where we join together
to create something bigger than the individual
and that sense of connection changed everything.
(women chattering)
Humans banding together and cooperating,
it's what's made us the most dominant species on earth.
It allowed us to create the incredibly complex world
we now live in and it's taken us
from the campfire to the moon.
It's one of the most important functions of the human brain,
connecting with other people.
Which is why our brain,
pushes us towards other brains.
Because it knows that connecting with other humans
is the single best thing that we have going for us.
So when we do it, it rewards us and we feel complete.
(upbeat music)