Social, Matthew D. Lieberman
Social, Matthew D. Lieberman
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Social
Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect

Author: Matthew D. Lieberman

Narrator: Mike Chamberlain

Unabridged: 11 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/05/2013


Synopsis


In Social, renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience, revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world—other people and our relation to them. It is believed that we must commit 10,000 hours to master a skill. According to Lieberman, each of us has spent 10,000 hours learning to make sense of people and groups by the time we are ten.

Social argues that our need to reach out to and connect with others is a primary driver behind our behavior. We believe that pain and pleasure alone guide our actions. Yet, new research using fMRI—including a great deal of original research conducted by Lieberman and his UCLA lab—shows that our brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure. Fortunately, the brain has evolved sophisticated mechanisms for securing our place in the social world. We have a unique ability to read other people's minds, to figure out their hopes, fears, and motivations, allowing us to effectively coordinate our lives with one another. And our most private sense of who we are is intimately linked to the important people and groups in our lives. This wiring often leads us to restrain our selfish impulses for the greater good. These mechanisms lead to behavior that might seem irrational, but is really just the result of our deep social wiring and necessary for our success as a species.

Based on the latest cutting edge research, the findings in Social have important real-world implications. Our schools and businesses, for example, attempt to minimalize social distractions. But this is exactly the wrong thing to do to encourage engagement and learning, and literally shuts down the social brain, leaving powerful neuro-cognitive resources untapped. The insights revealed in this pioneering book suggest ways to improve learning in schools, make the workplace more productive, and improve our overall well-being.

About Matthew D. Lieberman

Matthew D. Lieberman is a professor in the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on social cognitive neuroscience and uses neuroimaging to examine how we make sense of others, ourselves, and the relation between these. In addition to Social, he is the author of numerous journal articles.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Debbie on October 31, 2013

When I got to the passage explaining how Tylenol works as effectively on emotional pain as it does physical pain, I actually said "Wow" out loud. There are many such "wow" out loud passages in this book. Lieberman (and his colleagues, all of whom he generously mentions) has conducted quietly revolut......more

Goodreads review by David on December 19, 2017

Confession - I didn't finish this book, but I marked it as read! The thing is, I quit reading it because of me, not because of the book (classic "its not you its me" speech!). This book is well-written and interesting, even fascinating. But I'm just not super interested in reading about the science......more

Goodreads review by Deb (Readerbuzz) on October 13, 2013

Have you ever read a book about something you were deeply interested in and finished it and thought you somehow now knew less about something than when you first started the book? That’s how I feel after finishing this book. I usually read a nonfiction book and take notes as I read. I tried to do tha......more

Goodreads review by Tam on February 04, 2017

Lieberman presents an interesting argument about how human brain is wired to be social, it is a matter of survival as well as a great advantage that differentiate man and other beings in the animal kingdom. I find the evidence (experiments) in the book rather fascinating, especially the finding that......more

Goodreads review by Martha on December 22, 2015

SOCIAL: WHY OUR BRAINS ARE WIRED TO CONNECT by Matthew D. Lieberman. The author, Matthew D. Lieberman, presents and well defends his theory that human beings neurologically have a predisposition to be “social” and this has shaped the evolution of the species toward becoming more and more socially con......more