Ok we all know humans are social; that's why the punishment prisoners dread most is solitary confinement. But what the author of Social makes clear by the use of fascinating and detailed examples, is just how social we really are. It shapes just about everything that we do or want to do. A very interesting read. ( )

Humans are social by default. Even "anti-social" humans. This book talks about some super interesting research that has been done on how people need to interact with each other. The book is better than this ted talk but will give you a taste of this book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNhk3owF7RQ

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Interesting collation of studies with intriguing applications - relies a bit too strongly on neuro jargon to qualify as an easy pop science read. ( )

Fascinating. I've read a fair amount of popular press non-fiction that synthesizes contemporary neuroscience research. This book introduces a line of research that I was not familiar with that I found absolutely fascinating. I listened to the audio version (from the library) so I can't go back to the text to cite things here, but I just may buy the book to hand it to friends to read - those who would be put off by the neuroscience. I believe there is a chapter entitled something like inverting Maslow's Hierarchy - and to me this sums up my "take-away" from the book. The research paths of multiple scientists are well detailed but yet very readable for those without a background in neuroanatomy. Retired now, I have some background in cognitive development, social psychology, and neuroscience. Lieberman's treatise presented me with a whole new way of thinking about human behavior. Near the end he presented suggestions about how this line of scientific inquiry might be harnessed to improve our educational system. When this started I wanted to groan. Not what I was reading this book for. But his thoughtful ideas really made sense. Highly recommended. ( )

“Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect,” by Matthew Lieberman, is an outstanding and fascinating layperson’s guide to the new field of social cognitive neuroscience—an interdisciplinary field that “uses the tools of neuroscience to study the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world.” In the process of investigating these mechanisms, this science advances our knowledge of the evolutionary path that continue to mold our social brain. The book seeks to answer: why are we wired to connect socially; what advantages did our species gain by evolving along this evolutionary path; how can we use this knowledge to improve society?

This is the perhaps the fifth layperson’s guide to neuroscience that I’ve read in the past few years. Not all have been easy or pleasurable to read. Much of neurology seems inherently difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. It the right hands it can be accessible and mesmerizing. In my estimation, this book compares very well to last year’s bestselling neuroscience book by V. S. Ramachandran entitled, “The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human.” If you are not familiar with Ramachandran, saying this is high praise for Lieberman and this book. After all, Ramachandran is considered one of the leading lights of the academic neuroscience community. He is also a profoundly gifted writer. Lieberman is not far behind; like Ramachandran, he shows an extraordinary ability to convey difficult concepts clearly and personably.

I’ve always loved psychology. Over my lifetime, I’ve read at least a master’s degree equivalent of academic psychology books. Now I’ve discovered neurology. Putting the two together has been thrilling. Lieberman’s book provided a fresh social focus on neurology. He also provides a wealth of new information and discoveries—particularly information about the results of recent experiments undertaken by his UCLA Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.

In this book, I learned that our brains’ have a default network that comes on like a reflex whenever we’re not concentrating on doing something else. That default network is all about connecting with others socially. It is an evolved predisposition. It is the brain’s preferred state of being. “Most of us have been taught that our bigger brains evolved to enable us to do abstract reasoning, which promoted agriculture, mathematics, and engineering as complex tools to solve the basic problems of survival, But increasing evidence suggests that one of the primary drivers behind our brains becoming enlarged was to facilitate our social cognitive skills—our ability to interact and get along well with others.”

I was amazed to learn that social pain (e.g., from rejection) comes from the same part of the brain as physical pain and incredibly, it, too, can benefit from over-the-counter pain medications!

Another concept that surprised me was about how the importance of being treated fairly is wired into our social brains. When we experience fair treatment, it activates the exact same brain pleasure circuits as those that light up when we eat something delicious. So being treated fairly is in some ways like eating chocolate!

I was astonished to learn that self-control center of our brain is like a muscle; use it too much and it becomes fatigued and needs time to recover. The author convinced me that brain’s mechanism for self-control benefits society more than it benefits the individual…that “self-control is the price of admission to society.” We may “think that people are built to maximize their own pleasure and minimize their own pain. In reality, we are actually built to overcome our own pleasure and increase our own pain in the service of following society’s norms.”

It is concepts like these (and many more) that kept me riveted to this book.

In the last section of the book, the author steps away from informing us about the detailed neuroscience of how our brains are profoundly social and gives us some of his own best ideas about how we might use this information to better society. He sticks his neck out on the line here, but he’s got some interesting ideas and I applaud him for starting the discussion.

Overall, “Social” was a delightful cerebral treat. I feel indebted to the author for taking the time and energy to explain these intriguing concepts in such a compelling and comprehensible fashion.

I recommend this book highly. In my estimation, you couldn’t have a better guide to understanding the social brain than this very accessible and appealing book. ( )