The Guardian view on learning to socialise: getting to know you
“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,” says Duncan, about the duplicity of the first Thane of Cawdor, in Macbeth. Which on first glance has the authority of evidence – the king did not see the betrayal coming – but on further examination is patently untrue. Reading each other is one of the most complex and widespread of human achievements, even if our efforts don’t always succeed.
In fact, the way in which we perceive and respond to others very much shapes who we are. There is neuroscientific evidence that the earliest brain development occurs through the relationships a baby has with the people around it; the minute by minute testing of whether an adult will come when called, and whether or not their faces and actions tell the baby they are kind when they come, being laid down in the structure of the growing brain, and forming the basis of instincts that influence our interactions with others throughout our lives. This applies most intensely to primary carers, but also to peers and society – one of many reasons why it is so concerning to read reports that some children, accustomed to a combination of reduced social contact and masks, are arriving in early years settings having difficulty reading faces.
Listening and responding to others is how we learn to speak. Again, this is at first unconscious, and is always highly determined by who – or what – we are responding to (the pandemic, again, has provided incidental laboratory conditions: there are reports of children speaking in the accents of their favourite cartoons). External language, and tone, of course becomes internal language too: the medium through which we articulate our thoughts and feelings.
Language is not just for humans. Whales, apes and parrots all can communicate. This week it was suggested that even mushrooms might be talking to each other via electrical signals. What could they potentially tell humans about the state of our ecosystem? Nothing good, one imagines. “So long, and thanks for all the fish” was the message left by dolphins when they departed the soon-to-be demolished Earth in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy.
But to be human is to imagine, and to appreciate others’ imaginations. In 2013, an influential study found that reading literary fiction improved participants’ empathy. The ability to guess with accuracy what another may be thinking or feeling is a skill that develops before most children go to school. Empathy provides a foundation for moral and emotional intelligence; skimping on these foundations risks narrowing a person’s cognitive range. While there is a serious argument that empathy, as a basis for moral action in the world, has its limits, no one would argue against its usefulness.
Too much time on one’s own has social costs, as lockdowns have shown. A lack of interaction damages mental health. Science has found that neurons in the brain are fired both when we perform an action and when we see an action performed by others. Varied and open socialisation, at all stages of life but especially for the very young, is not an optional extra but a fundamental necessity – both for individuals and for the society of which they are a part.