The Brain's Need for Friends

"Defining friendship is elusive. Oprah Winfrey summarized it this way: "Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." Scientists may say something different. Brent et al. (2014) called friendship, "the hallmark of human behavior," signified by affiliation and accumulated time spent with others."

"The science of friendship can be analyzed through multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, psychology, and anthropology. And then there's neurobiology: Why does the brain "seek" friends? How do connections to a friend, sibling, or romantic partner influence neural circuitry? Dr. Ben Rein finds the answers to these questions to be profound. The neuroscientist is the Chief Science Officer of the Mind Science Foundation and a Clinical Assistant Professor at SUNY Buffalo, as well as a well-known science communicator on social media."

"The friend-oriented brain developed out of evolution, in his view, as humans learned to survive in groups since early times. Since humans work so well in groups, the most social people were the most "fit" in terms of survival. As a result, the brain needed a system of human collaboration. "Social interaction is rewarding," he told me, and the brain uses neurotransmitters like oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine to make exchanges with others both pleasant and reinforcing."

Friendships provide cognitive and emotional benefits, engaging reward circuits and supporting social health. Loneliness correlates with various physical and mental health challenges and increases stress hormones like cortisol. Defining friendship is complex, described as affiliation and accumulated time together or captured by cultural metaphors about loyalty. Multiple disciplines analyze friendship, including sociology, economics, psychology, anthropology, and neurobiology. Neurobiological mechanisms show the brain evolved to favor social collaboration; neurotransmitters such as oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine make social interactions pleasant and reinforcing. Chronic isolation produces stress that harms health across evolutionary time scales.

Read at Psychology Today