- George Orwell, 1984
The human connection is fascinating. Despite the fact that words and language can never exactly describe emotions and feelings, and that we can never have pure empathy for another's experiences, there are existences of the human connection. One is in the passage from 1984, where despite seeing someone whose head he wanted to bash with a stone fall injured, Winston wanted to instinctively help her. This is just one of the ways in which we assume the feelings of others. Watch this football hit and see if you cringe at the anticipation of such a huge hit.
Mirror neurons play a role in the human connection, too. You've probably noticed yourself yawning without fail if you see someone else yawning. Or perhaps even after reading that sentence, you might have yawned. The neurons mirror the actions of others, and when you get the idea in your head, your actions will follow. Ever catch yourself smiling if you're snapping a photograph of your friends? Well, they're probably smiling for the camera, and when you see what the picture looks like, you mimic their actions.I think that it's really interesting to think about the subtle ways that we do our best to create and establish connections with humans. We do what we can to assume the emotions of others. Maybe this is because we struggle to replace words with feelings, or maybe it's because of the true nature of the human connection. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, after all.
Humans as a creature are social. We do what we do in order to protect our in group (for more information, please see the in group, out group theory of social psychology.) In theory, the best way to protect one's in group is to empathize with that group. While that may not make much sense without any context, think of it this way; by creating a coherent group, a tribe of early humans would be better able to survive. So by smiling when others smile and by becoming aggressive when others become aggressive, we as humans trigger an evolutionary survival instinct to be "like the group." It's common knowledge that humans as a group are more powerful than humans as individuals, and it makes sense in the context of evolution. We are weak animals as individuals, but as a group we are strong. So by empathizing with the group and not creating a rift between us and the larger "tribe" we not only increase individual survival rate but also increase the strength of the tribe. One can easily see how this would be supported through evolution.
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