The Science of Human Connection: Somatic Senses, Tribes, and the Need to Belong
“The secret, Alice, is to surround yourself with people who make your heart smile. It’’s then, only then, that you’ll find Wonderland.”
Lewis Carroll; Alice in Wonderland
A friend of mine studying psychology was invited to participate in a year-long training at a University in the United States. On Day One of the lectures, he, like his fellow new students, entered a large auditorium, a screen on the wall instructing them not to speak. Two hundred eager psychology students stood in absolute silence. The lecturer stood in the centre of the room and gave simple instructions. They were to walk around looking at each other but saying nothing. This continued for what felt like a semester but was, in fact, only fifteen minutes. The lecturer then clapped his hands and, still in silence, asked individuals to form pairs.
The experiment repeated, only this time pairs, in silence, had to identify a second pair to team up with and form a quadruple.
At the end of the exercise, the lecturer asked the quads to sit and spend twenty minutes talking together. Fascinating tales of shared life experiences, traumas, events, and histories that aligned with bizarre accuracy emerged between the four individuals in each quad began to emerge.
The rest of the teaching was based on this single experiment.
Homo sapiens are inherently sociable creatures. We have to be to survive. Some animals, like Polar Bears and Snow Leopards, love being alone. They are biologically and physiologically designed to do so. We are not. On our own, we die. If Homo sapiens were pets, we would have a little sign around our necks saying, ‘Only sold in pairs.’ There would also be some additional warning about breeding and reproduction, but that’s not for here.
We are herd animals, like lions, wolves, starlings, horses, and elephants. A pride of Lions, A pack of Wolves. A Murmuration of Starlings. A herd of Elephants. A tribe of Humans.
And to be successful herd animals, we need intrinsic skills to identify who is in our tribe and who is not. Or put another way, who is a friend, and who is a foe?
The science of how this works is still a mystery, but the fact that it does is clear from all the tribes that exist around us. From large corporates to tennis clubs. We know tribes have certain visible traits: shared purpose, shared stories, and shared leadership. They often have uniforms, rituals, and totems that denote who is in and out. To be in means life. To be outside the tribe means death.
In addition to the visible, there seems to be something invisible that helps in our decision-making about which tribe we belong to. After all, look at the experiment at the start of this article. Something connected people; it wasn’t shared stories, purpose, and experience. That was evident only after conversations began. Before that, something else connected people. Something else informed their decision to pair with someone or not pair with someone else.
A more extreme example of this is falling in love. It is an instantaneous affair when you fall in love with someone. It is not based on analysis, diagnostics, and interviews but on something you feel in your body. It is a process called Phenomenology (from the Greek Phenomenon), simply allowing what is there to be present and to be curious about it. Phenomenology is how we can instantly judge if someone is a friend to join forces with or a foe to be avoided.
It’s not clear how our somatic senses work. Unlike our other five senses, no eye, ear, or nose can be analysed and dissected. It is most likely connected to the vagus nervous system, and we know it is involved with releasing oxytocin - the chemical responsible for love and trust, but it’s unclear how.
But how it works does not altogether matter; that it does, that we can form meaningful relationships is what matters and is what is necessary. We need to belong, and our brains are constantly scanning the tribes we’re part of, especially if we’ve just joined, to understand the stories, the rituals, the uniform, and the unwritten rules I need to adhere to maintain a relationship with the tribe. Because if we do not follow the implicit and explicit rules, we are excluded, and in our primal mammalian brains, that means death. The need to belong trumps any other human need or desire.
This somatic skill explains the hidden undercurrents in organisations that seem to shape much of what happens above the surface. It’s somatics that cause us to fall in love and make new friendships or not. You exprience somatics when you walk into a meeting, and something feels ‘off’.
When I work with a client to craft a new purpose or narrative with four corners of a quadrant.
Reality - structures, financials, markets, results etc.
Energy - somatics, the stuff that is felt but not said.
The past - where the organisation comes from, its founders, clients, promises it made etc.
Emerging Future - what is about to come over the horizon. The unplannable future.
Somatics are an intrinsic part of corporate life.
Polar Bears and Snow Leopards are armed with various senses and super senses to help them navigate their environments. And we, too, have somatic senses that have allowed us to create beautiful families, amazing cities, and fantastic companies. We use it unconsciously daily. Once we know it, we can use it consciously to ‘feel’ what is right or wrong, friend or foe.
