Quotessence
Home / Books / Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection

Book by John T. Cacioppo · 2 quotes · Loneliness, Genetical, Human Nature

Filter quotes by topic

AllLonelinessGeneticalHuman NaturePsychologyWell Being

Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection Quotes

“Among Norway rats, males ejaculate more sperm when copulating in the presence of male rivals, seemingly because the competition to reproduce persists all the way up the fallopian tube to the surface of the egg. For the same reason, an ape’s testicles are proportionate to the size of the male breeding pool. The male chimpanzee, surrounded by ruthless competition, has reproductive equipment that is truly prodigious, while the gorilla, living with a harem as the only male, has nothing to brag about. The evolutionary reason: A male without rivals needs no special adaptations to increase his odds of becoming a father. Once again, the social and the physiological cannot be separated any more than we can separate the length from the width of a rectangle.”

Human NatureLonelinessGenetical
Book:Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
Create image

“In English, we have a word for pain and a word for thirst, but no single, specific terms that mean the opposite. We merely reference the absence of these aversive conditions, which makes sense, because their absence is considered part of the normal state. Our research suggests that “not lonely”—there is no better, more specific term for it—is also, like “not thirsty” or “not in pain,” very much part of the normal state. Health and well-being for a member of our species requires, among other things, being satisfied and secure in our bonds with other people, a condition of “not being lonely” that, for want of a better word, we call social connection.”

PsychologyLonelinessWell Being
Book:Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
Create image