How do social interactions impact our behaviour?

Eye contact entails a better perception 

Whether we are introverted or extroverted, contact with other people has an extremely positive effect on us. It improves our memory of a situation. It generates more altruistic behaviour and a more positive perception of the people we interact with. And it even leads to greater self-awareness. The best part is that these benefits take hold without you even realising it. 

If you are not the talkative type, you should know that even without verbal exchange, social contact has benefits. Exchanging eye contact also activates these positive effects in our brain. That's why when you are told that it is important to look a recruiter in the eye during an interview, it is actually important - but don't linger... 

The origin of these effects 

Why do our social interactions affect us so much and in such a positive way? The answer lies in our evolutionary history: we are fundamentally social animals. Our self is formed throughout contact with others. This is true for the evolution of our species as well as for our personal life story.

At an individual level, social experiences have a facilitating role in the development of our sense of identity. By realising our differences and similarities with the people around us, we gradually define and redefine the essential parameters of our identity. That is, what characterises us as a unique individual. And this is why social interactions are essential in building a sense of self, both during childhood and in our adult lives. 

As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “we get to know ourselves in the presence of others [...], humans [...] realise that they can be nothing (in the sense that we say we are spiritual, mean, or jealous) unless others recognise them as such. [...] Others are indispensable [...] for me to know myself [...] Thus we immediately discover a world that we shall call ‘intersubjectivity’, and it is in this world that humans decide what they are and what the others are”. In other words, self is defined throughout interactions with others. 

Sartre was a philosopher, but he had already understood what would later be demonstrated by neuroscientists. Self is, in a way, the neural trace of our organism's past experiences in interaction with its environment - an essentially social environment as far as humans are concerned. It helps us understand how we construct our sense of identity over the course of our lives. First, comes a sense of embodiment, or a sense of one's own body as differentiated from the rest of the world. Second, a sense of self constructed in interactions with others. And finally, the awareness of a self integrated into a society.

Well-established (and useful) evolutionary mechanisms

The brain mechanisms that allow us to have a social life have been selected in a privileged way during the evolution of human beings. Why is this? Because a reflexive self that can anticipate the actions of others is a real advantage in a complex social society. 

Theory of mind 

Our societies are organised around large-scale collectivist behaviour. Our survival depends on the existence of others and our ability to interact with them. In this respect, the role of our brain would be above all to be able to construct mental models capable of anticipating the reaction of our fellow human beings and reacting in an adapted manner. This is what is known as the theory of mind.

Our brain machinery would have evolved to allow us to quickly detect non-verbal clues indicating the direction of another's attention, such as eye contact. If we know the direction in which someone is looking, we can know where their intention is directed. Therefore, it will help us estimate what they are thinking and what their next action will be. For instance, if someone keeps looking at their watch while you're talking to them, you can suspect that they're probably pressed for time - or that you're boring them to death... And so, they'll soon interrupt you and leave. 

Detecting these non-verbal social signals such as facial expressions, looks, biological movements is essential to reacting in an appropriate manner in our social environment. 

Furthermore, when we detect that another person's attention is focused on us, it naturally leads us to focus our attention on ourselves. To quote the poet Arthur Rimbaud: “I am someone else.” And to be self-aware is to be able to become the object of our own attention. This is why social interactions also help us know ourselves better and be more self-aware. And knowing yourself is a crucial step in finding your path and getting the job you want. Think about this before your next interview.