Last week psychologist Jo Lunn introduced us to the ‘don’t eat me’ brain. This week she explains how our desire to connect is both a strength and a weakness that can be exploited.

So, if our brains are wired to connect because we need each other to survive, and conflict creates stress, why can we have so much disagreement about certain issues and how can it divide us so strongly?

Remember Katia and Henry, our neighbours who were once good friends. They now avoid each other because they realised they held strongly opposed views to a community issue. They had enjoyed connecting over their shared love of gardening, while gardening in their respective front yards. Henry’s wife, who had died 12 months earlier, had organised the couple’s social life, so Henry doesn’t have a lot of social contact now. He found an online group that he enjoys and this, along with his chats with Katia, were his main source of social connection. Katia’s social group became complicated after her divorce. Her once tight-knit group of friends and family has fractured, and Katia feels isolated and different from them. Her financial situation has also changed; she is no longer sharing income with another person and legal bills have taken a toll. Her changed financial and social situation means she doesn’t do the hobbies and activities she used to.  She is trying to find new friends and interests but is finding it hard. The friendship with Henry had been quite easy and the thought of him living next door had helped her settle into living in the house alone. Now for both, whenever they see the other, they feel a little sick in the stomach and their hearts start to race and they no longer spend the time in their front gardens as it feels too stressful.

Our need to connect has been developed out of a need to survive. 

Our biology is so dependent on feeling connected to others that not feeling connected, literally impacts our health. How does this work?

Loneliness is the difference between the relationships a person wants and the relationships they have. You can have a lot of relationships but still feel a sense of loneliness. People can commonly relate to feeling alone in a crowded room. Social isolation is a measure of the lack of social connections or interactions. When we are feeling lonely or, worse, socially isolated, our body experiences what is called a stress response.

This response happens when our ‘don’t eat me’ brain sees a threat to our survival or the survival of who or what we care about. We would all have experienced the feeling of our stomach dropping or sinking, heart racing, thoughts speeding up, feeling fidgety or not being able to sit still, not being able to relax or sleep – these are some of the physical effects of the stress response. 

The stress response system is activated in times of threat, to get out of a dangerous situation and to safety.

The amygdala (the part of brain scanning environment for danger) can start the chain reaction of the bodies stress response so quickly, it can happen before we have become consciously aware that we are stressed! Initially our bodies release a burst of adrenalin, causing the heart to beat faster than normal, pushing blood to the muscles, heart, and other vital organs. Pulse rate and blood pressure go up. We also start to breathe more rapidly. Small airways in the lungs open wide. The lungs take in more oxygen with each breath. Extra oxygen is sent to the brain, increasing alertness. Sight, hearing, and other senses become sharper. The adrenalin also triggers the release of blood sugar (glucose) and fats from temporary storage sites in the body. These nutrients flood into the bloodstream, supplying energy to all parts of the body. 

Then, if the brain perceives the threat is on-going, a secondary stress response system is the hypothalamus, which alerts our pituitary gland, which alerts our adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol. 

Cortisol causes our body to mobilise against the threat and take ‘extra’ energy and supply it mainly to our muscles (particularly our legs) to get us out of danger. This ‘extra’ energy comes from energy that would normally be used by our digestive system, immune system, reproductive system, and insulin production. This is fine for a short-term stressful situation like running quickly to grab a child from being hit by a car but when we are stressed day in, day out, it can cause significant health problems in our major organs and systems as they don’t get the level of blood supply they need to function properly.

A systematic review in 2016 (a review pulling together the results of numerous peer-reviewed research papers) analysed the data of 181,000 people. Chronic isolation and/or loneliness, increased risk of heart attack by 29% and the risk of stroke by 32%. The risk of loneliness being statistically equivalent to the risk of smoking or being obese and the likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke.    

Another important study showed that strong social relationships can increase the likelihood of surviving if you have health risks by 50%, compared to people whose social relationships are weaker. Our need to connect doesn’t just impact our survival and our physical health.  A Dutch study occurring during Covid found higher scores of loneliness increased the likelihood of having Major Depressive Disorder by 14 times (men being affected more than woman) and loneliness increased the risk of Generalised Anxiety Disorder by 11 times.

So, it makes perfect sense that humans want to join groups – we need to connect for our physical, psychological and emotional well-being. 

Studies have regularly shown that we will generally try to conform with those around us, even if we are with a group of strangers. But what is conformity?

Conformity is the level of agreement a person has with the views, ideas, culture (e.g. language, clothing, lifestyle) of a particular group. Conformity can occur for several reasons – a desire to fit in or be liked, a desire to be correct or ‘right’ or a desire to identify with that group.  

The more we conform with those around us, the more we feel connected. From a survival perspective it makes sense. We need to have conformity in our values and decision making. If we didn’t have conformity, groups of humans wouldn’t be able to agree on our group rules (social norms) or get anything done and our ability to cooperate is our greatest survival skill. 

Our 'don’t eat me' brains, particularly a stressed 'don’t eat me' brain, feels so much safer when we are surrounded by like-minded people.

There is a feeling of safety and certainty when the group we identify with, thinks and feels the same way we do. This is a strength but also our weakness that can be exploited.

There is a dark side of our need to connect, when threat overestimation comes into play.  When our need to connect and conform morphs into groupthink.

Groupthink happens when the dynamics or social rules within a group, shut down the option to express any doubt, judgment or opportunities to discuss disagreements and problem solve them with other members of the group. If a group member questions the group ideals, they can be ridiculed, bullied, excluded or exiled. 

Groupthink at its worst causes group members to ignore or shut down their concerns about the moral or ethical issues of the group approach.

The way our brains work has long been understood and used by cults, the media, political groups, advertisers and corporations. The natural human processes are being used to create all sorts of damage to our communities for the primary reason of power and/or money.

Scaring us captures our attention, and our attention means money for media through advertising and unquestioned power for political groups or movements.

An example of how the don’t eat me brain is manipulated by media for profit occurred at the end of the last US election. Several outlets, including Fox News, reported that the election outcome was rigged, claiming that voting machines used to count votes were deliberately programmed to change the election outcome. 

This ‘news story’ later proved to be undisputedly false.

When staff emails were subpoenaed in a court case against Fox by the voting machine company, it showed the staff reporting this knew they were reporting a lie. With overwhelming evidence against them, Fox settled out of court, paying $787.5 million in damages, one of the largest court settlements in US history.

So, why would a media company (especially a news company) deliberately promote lies and risk being sued?

Because they understand how the human brain works. They know that the scarier or more threatening the news, especially the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ criteria, the more it will get our ‘don’t eat me’  brain’s attention. People’s attention on a media company's product equals views and that equals money.

The longer people watch, the more they intently focus on the information being presented, the more money media outlets can charge advertisers, retailers and, in some cases, even the viewers themselves for our attention.

Getting our attention and focus is the main goal of media such as Facebook, X, news outlets, influencers etc.     

One of the quickest ways to grab our attention and make us run back to ‘our tribe or group’ is to use targeted lies or deliberately misrepresent information to create a common enemy.  

Often this ‘enemy’ is a smaller, vulnerable group of the larger community’ – for example, those with different racial, cultural, or religious backgrounds, or of alternative sexual identities.  Differences are highlighted, expanded, misinterpreted, or outright lies are created and this results in the classic ‘us and them’ story.  With people being manipulated to believe one particular group of human beings (‘them’) are not the same and is a direct threat to ‘us’.

The ‘us and them’ story is dangerous, because if it works well, people start to see other human beings as so different from themselves, they can view them with contempt and disgust.  Contempt and disgust lead to people being dehumanised, creating a situation where we will sometimes tolerate treatment of other human beings in ways that we would normally find completely unacceptable.

We will then vote for or support groups or movements who will save us from this ‘threat’. In some cases, we conform to a group or ideology that we don’t completely agree with, but our fear and ‘don’t eat me brains’ lead us to not listen to diverse views and/or ignore our internal concerns.

Media and political groups often manipulate and expand human ‘differences’ creating and ‘us and them’ stories. The more distressed we are about a threat, the more we talk about it, share it with our group of like-minded others – the more money media make.

The more fearful we are, the less we question social norms, groups or movements and our political leaders (those in power and in opposition), and the less we hold them accountable, as even though we see that they may have a whole lot wrong or that we don’t agree with, they will keep us ‘safe’ from this scary ‘threat’.

Why do I want you to know how easily we all can get manipulated for the purpose of money and power?

The more we are aware of how our brains are used against us, the more we can make sure that we are connecting with people who are adding to our lives, rather than getting caught up in groupthink and groups that will reject us if we question parts of their social norms we may disagree with.

The next article will be looking at ways we can all protect ourselves from being impacted by our normal need to conform and signs of groupthink.

Read the 'Don't Eat Me' Brain series

Part 1: Inside the ‘don’t eat me’ brain: Why we’re hardwired for connection

Part 2: Groupthink: The dark side of our need to connect

Part 3: Groupthink: What is it and how can I avoid it?

Part 4: Taking our brains back: How to avoid traps targeting profit and power for others

Part 5: Does it pass the CRAAP Test: A guide to spotting misinformation

References

• Understanding the stress response, Harvard Health Publishing, April 2024
• Liar's war: Protecting civilians from disinformation during armed conflict, International Review of the Red Cross, 2021
• Why Groupthink Happens, Psychology Today
• What Is Conformity? Definition, Types, Psychology Research, Simply Psychology, 2023
• Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, and Layton JB. Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine, 2010 
• Xia N, Li H. Loneliness, Social Isolation, and Cardiovascular Health. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2017
• Steen, O.D., Ori, A.P.S., Wardenaar, K.J. et al. Loneliness associates strongly with anxiety and depression during the COVID pandemic, especially in men and younger adults. Scientific Reports, 2022
• Von Känel R, Weilenmann S, Spiller TR. Loneliness Is Associated with Depressive Affect, But Not with Most Other Symptoms of Depression in Community-Dwelling Individuals: A Network Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021 
• Loneliness a leading cause of depression in older adults, Science Daily, 2020
• Social Isolation and Loneliness, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
• The Social Dilemma – 2020 film, a production of Exposure Labs, a film and impact production company
• The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy, book by Anand Giridharadas, Penguin Random House, 2023