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Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
Audiobook10 hours

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

Written by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick

Narrated by Dick Hill

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

John T. Cacioppo's groundbreaking research topples one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology: the focus on the individual as the unit of inquiry. By employing brain scans, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing immune function, he demonstrates the overpowering influence of social context-a factor so strong that it can alter DNA replication. He defines an unrecognized syndrome, chronic loneliness; brings it out of the shadow of its cousin, depression; and shows how this subjective sense of social isolation uniquely disrupts our perceptions, behavior, and physiology, becoming a trap that not only reinforces isolation but can also lead to early death. He gives the lie to the Hobbesian view of human nature as a "war of all against all," and he shows how social cooperation is, in fact, humanity's defining characteristic. Most important, he shows how we can break the trap of isolation for our benefit both as individuals and as a society.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 19, 2008
ISBN9781400178124
Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cacioppo and Patrick attack the received idea that social connection and empathy are the luxuries we annex onto our workaday existence, and instead show them as essential for human life. Through neuroscience and psychology they argue that empathic connection is something that life thrives on and, conversely, how the lack of these crucial parts of being lead to a miserable and shorter time on earth. They set a challenge to a world that is populated increasingly by isolated individuals, live and connect more or face the consequences.