The Biology of Belonging
Loretta Breuning, PhD
If belonging were easy, we would not be talking about it. Belonging is not easy, and that’s hard to explain since it feels so good. Biology can help us explain.
Animals seek safety in numbers in order to survive. Natural selection built a brain that rewards you with a good feeling when you find social support. The good feeling is produced by the chemical, “oxytocin.” We humans seek social support because oxytocin makes it feel good.
You may have heard that touch stimulates oxytocin, but it’s more complicated. Touching someone you don’t trust feels bad. Oxytocin comes from trust. But how do you know who to trust? Neurons connect when oxytocin flows, and that wires you to turn on the good feeling more easily in similar future circumstances. Each brain looks for social trust in ways that worked for it before.
It would be nice to enjoy oxytocin all the time, but our brain does not work that way. Trusting everyone all the time would not promote survival. Our brain evolved to make careful decisions about when to release oxytocin.
For herd animals, isolation means instant death in the jaws of a predator. The mammal brain releases the bad feeling of cortisol when it sees that it’s isolated. Cortisol is relieved when a mammal returns to its herd, but a different bad feeling results when it competes for grass that others have trampled on. We mammals long for greener pasture, but when you go your own way, your oxytocin falls and your corisol rises. What’s a big-brained mammal to do?
Animals have a simple solution: they gather when predators lurk, and space out as threats subside. Baboons quickly forget their differences when a lion approaches. Humans do the same. We bond against common enemies because oxytocin makes it feel good. But we pay a high price for this strategy. Your groups dwell on “enemies,” and the fear keeps you following the herd when you’d rather not. It’s not easy being a mammal!
To make life even harder, cortisol is triggered by disappointed trust. We are disappointed with our friends and family a lot because we expect so much from them. Cortisol makes it feel like a survival threat even though you don’t consciously think that. Neurons connect when cortisol flows, so the bad feeling turns on faster in similar future situations.
The solution is to recognize that belonging as a skill. We all build that skill all the time. My children cannot learn the skill if I create belonging for them. They have to learn it by taking small steps toward social trust, again and again. Each step connects neurons that make the next step easier. It’s the same for adults!Know why belonging is hard so you can transcend the obstacles and meet the need.