快猫短视频

Robin Dunbar has spent decades studying relationships, social bonding and the importance of touch and grooming in forging and sustaining our ties to others. As much of the world remains in lockdown, unable to meet loved ones and friends in person, 快猫短视频 caught up with him to ask what implications this might have.

快猫短视频: How important are touch and contact in person in our relationships?

Robin Dunbar: For all mammals, including us, grooming triggers the endorphin system [which relieves stress and pain]. Brain-imaging studies looking at people being stroked show that their endorphin receptors go absolutely crazy. With our closer friends and family, you actually do a lot of casual stroking and touching and hugging that we don鈥檛 think about, it鈥檚 all going on below the event horizon of consciousness.

Not only does this make you feel聽happy, because it releases endorphins, which raise your pain thresholds and make you feel relaxed and much more trusting, but it also seems to kick on the immune system, making you more resistant to diseases.

Are you worried about people going without this kind of touch, due to the pandemic or other issues?

For most people, in the short term, I would say no. Everything hinges on how long this lasts. Clearly, the expectation is that it鈥檚 only going to be a few months and then we鈥檙e going to be back to normal. You can also trigger this same endorphin system by going for a jog, for instance.

Are there social ways to trigger this response?

To increase the size of our social groups, we鈥檝e discovered ways of triggering the endorphin system that don鈥檛 involve touch. All of the singing from balconies and in streets. Singing is one of the social mechanisms we use. There鈥檚 laughter, singing, dancing, eating socially, drinking socially, all of those kinds of things are what we use to enlarge our social circle.

Physical grooming is very intimate. This is what ultimately limits the size of primates鈥� social groups. They don鈥檛 have enough time in the day to groom more than a set number of individuals, and the quality of the relationship depends on the time invested in it. So going out to clap for healthcare workers and the like probably makes you feel better.

So doing things with others amplifies feel-good effects?

Yes. We first discovered this with rowing crews, in a study we did about 10 years ago. We showed that just by rowing on the machines in the gym there鈥檚 an uplift in pain threshold signalling and endorphin release. But then if you link the rowing machines into a virtual boat, so the rowers are rowing together and in synchrony, it ramps up the endorphin output by about 100聽per cent for no extra effort.

We鈥檝e shown this with dance too, and even tears. We did a study in which we had a group of people watch a very emotionally draining film. People who like weepy films get this rush of endorphins, and then also feel very bonded to the group of strangers who they watched it with. The sociality ramps up the effect. That鈥檚 why I think a lot of these social mechanisms we use for bonding on the larger scale are highly synchronised: laughter, singing, dancing, religious rituals.

Can we get the benefits of shared activities 鈥� such as laughing or singing together 鈥� over video chat?

We haven鈥檛 looked at that directly, but we have looked at people鈥檚 sense of satisfaction or happiness as a result of communicating with friends via different media. Skype and face-to-face video are in a different league to everything else. Once you can see the person, it makes a big difference 鈥� the fact that you can see the smile breaking on their face before you鈥檝e finished the joke.

Do you think there will be positive things that come out of this lockdown, in terms of how we connect with each other?

We鈥檝e already seen people getting onto Skype or Zoom聽with their friends or extended family and saying, 鈥淭his is crazy, why have we never done this before?鈥� That may well continue. It completely neutralises the problem of distance. In social networks, there鈥檚 a very strong effect called the 30-minute rule that dictates how long you鈥檙e willing to travel to go to see somebody. Video and other digital聽media reduces its impact.

Many people are now contacting friends and family at rates that far exceed what they鈥檝e done normally. And I think when lockdown is聽removed, people will be making聽a big effort to go and聽visit聽friends and family.

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