Business & Society BADM 605 Modules 7-8

Let’s recap the content of modules 7 and 8 and I’ll add some insights that I found interesting about the content of these weeks.

The Social Brain – Very short video introduction

Humans thrive when they work in groups, sharing resources, knowledge and tasks, because in the early human world, being in a group was a matter of survival. This explains why our brains are highly aware of our social status and interpret social situations and interactions in similar neural pathways of pain and pleasure. Our brains can trigger reward or threat responses depending on our interactions with others, even if subconsciously.

Lieberman Ted Talk: Social Brain Superpowers

Lieberman in this TED talk talks about the importance of social pain and connection, presenting these terms as a “superpower” that can help us improve our happiness and productivity.

Social pain: situations such as rejection or loss activate the same areas of the brain as physical pain, having, in fact, an impact on our lives. We cannot neglect the challenges in the socio-emotional sphere.

“Mind-reading”: we try to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings to foster a deeper connection and make team collaboration happen, in the modern world, this is essential in the professional context.

Survival through connection: social relationships are very important in our context for survival as mammals.

Social learning stimulates retention: learning with a social motivation helps us with retention and understanding, illustrating the benefits of cooperative education models.

The importance of social skills in leadership: leaders who have social skills not only motivate the team, but also increase productivity, showing that effective leadership depends on relational capabilities. Wealth and happiness: a balance between these two is necessary.

Helping children develop social skills: teaching children about empathy from an early age helps them develop an essential life skill, preparing them for the challenges of the future.

Brief Video Description of Lieberman’s Social

This video summarizes Lieberman’s book Social, discussing the impact of social connections on our well-being and happiness. Recognizing our social nature can have a more positive impact on education and work productivity. By applying insights from neuroscience, we can create better environments.

Wikipedia entry on Lieberman

Lieberman is a Harvard graduate who works in research in the area of social cognition and social experience. He coined the term social cognitive neuroscience. He uses functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and neuropsychology in his hypotheses. He founded the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

Short Interview with Lieberman: Why we are wired to connect – Sci Am 2013

In this interview, Lieberman shared some interesting insights. We already know that the scientist analyzes neurobiological mechanisms to analyze our social interactions and behaviors. The brain evolved in this context of social interactions, which is very important for our survival as a species. The prefrontal cortex is specialized in this issue of the complexities of social interactions. The neurochemical oxytocin is very important in the issue involving the bonds between people. Strong social connections contribute to good physical and mental health. Being socially isolated can have harmful effects such as stress, depression and even mortality. The discovery of mirror neurons suggests that our brains are programmed to have more empathetic behavior, helping us to perceive the emotions and intentions of others.

Main ideas of Social – Lieberman book.

– Chapter 1 (Who Are We?): Our brain’s primary function is to connect with others. Our survival depends of collaboration, communication and ability to form relationships.

– Chapter 2 (The Brain’s Passion): We feel rewarded when we belong to some group and have social recognition.

– Chapter 3 (Broken Hearts and Broken Legs): Researches show that social rejection activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. The social exclusion has a big emotional impact. It is important maintain strong social bonds.

– Chapter 4 (Fairness Tastes Like Chocolate): The brain responds to fair treatment with pleasure, similar how it responds to the taste of chocolate. Fairness is very important item of social relations and cooperation, influencing small to big societal structures.

– Chapter 5 (Mental Magic Tricks): The brain has the ability to understand and predict thoughts and feeling of other people, in a process known as “mentalizing”, it’s affected how we navigate in social interactions effectively.

– Chapter 6 (Mirror, Mirror): The mirror neurons enable us to mimic and understand the emotions and actions of other people. These neutrons have a big role in empathy and the process to learn by observation.

– Chapter 7 (Peaks and Valleys): We have a joy of connection and a pain of isolation; it’s linked to out brain’s reward/punishment system.

– Chapter 8 (Trojan Horse Selves): The person controls and regulate he/her behavior to fit into expectations and social norms. The “Trojan Horse” refers to the ability that we have to hide some aspects of ourselves to have more social acceptance.

– Chapter 9 (Panoptic Self-Control): Just the possibility of being observed by other people can chance our behavior to greater self-control and adherence to social norms, even, in fact, no one is watching us in that moment.

– Chapter 10 (Living with a Social Brain): In the workplace, it is important foster a positive social interaction to the business enhances team performance, leadership, and overall job satisfaction.

– Chapter 11 (The Business of Social Brains): The companies can use the knowledge of the social nature of the brain to create more appropriate work environments for boost employee motivation and productive. Lieberman use the term SCARF (Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness) that identifies key social drivers thar influence people behavior in a social and organizational context.

– Chapter 12 (Educating the Social Brain): Understanding the social brain could lead to better educational outcomes, improving student engagement and learning.

Contribution Points Considering the learning from this week’s reading and materials. I would like to share some insights:

Chapter 1: In this course we learned about the power of social connections, but something is happening in this world where it seems like people are feeling more disconnected from each other.

1 in 5 US adults reports daily loneliness.

In Japan the situation is so bad that they have a word for people who stay isolated at home: “hikikomori”.

Japan: Nearly 4,000 people found more than a month after dying alone, report says.

Chapter 3: Anyone who has ever been through a heartbreak, a breakup in a relationship, when you feel like a friend doesn’t value you the same way you value them, knows that this is true, you feel something inside.

Chapter 8: I’ll tell you about a personal experience: I used to work at a large company and I wanted to change my hair color. I bought a spray that subtly lightens your hair while you sunbathe (I had gone to the beach for a few days when the weather was really sunny). The change wasn’t radical, but it was noticeable. The next day, my boss was already bothered by my new look (which wasn’t a big deal), but I had to adapt to the environment to be more socially accepted. I’ve always liked my long hair, but I’ve kept it shorter for most of my life to fit in with society’s acceptance.

Chapter 9: I remembered the book 1984. Obviously, if people feel like they’re being watched, they won’t act the same way if they were relaxed in private. We make an effort to live in society, and at certain times we want to relax, not worry about our hair looking messy. Women want some time for themselves, like not wearing heels, not wearing makeup, wearing something more comfortable, things that sometimes the corporate environment doesn’t allow, because it’s necessary to get ready in a social setting. I believe that in societies that are more monitored, people constantly self-examine themselves, which can generate stress and more fear of taking risks, which can harm creativity that can affect future innovations. I keep thinking about societies like China, which generate social credit for people by monitoring their behavior, and the consequences of this after a few decades.

China ranks ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizens with ‘social credit’ system

Chapter 11: I remember when I was a child and I went to my mother’s workplace, each person had a desk with very large dividers on the sides, preventing contact between people. When I entered the job market, in the places where I worked, many desks were open and continuous. The manager had a desk further away, but everyone worked in the same room. If someone had something more private to talk about, they could use the meeting room on the floor. Probably over time, human resources began to realize that people being closer to each other, with fewer barriers, increases the quality of work. Some companies want to increase barriers (I believe this happened more in the past), because they believe that if people don’t have communication, they will talk less and focus more on work, but what we saw in Lieberman, this cut in social connection made by some companies can have the opposite result, people feeling less motivated and integrated into the company.

References