Social relationships are a large, important, and natural part of life. Not only do we live and work among other people, social relations form the core of our culture and, some might argue, are essential to our survival. In fact, it has been suggested that our brains evolved to manage social complexity in our environments (the Machiavellian Brain Hypothesis, or Social Brain Hypothesis); and work in the cognitive neurosciences has shown that cortical areas typically associated with higher executive functions (like working memory and attention) are also responsible for social reasoning and behavior. In other words, there is evidence that social and cognitive functions may have co-evolved to the extent that they even occupy similar brain regions.
To what extent can social interactions help us with cognitive tasks?
Ybarra et al. (2008) recently performed a study exploring this very question. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: the social group, the intellectual group, and the control group. Each group (run as dyads) was engaged with a task for 10 minutes before completing two cognitive function tests (of working memory and pattern matching). The social group was prompted to engage in a discussion involving privacy protection. The intellectual group performed a reading task, a crossword puzzle, and a mental rotation task. The control group sat quietly and watched Seinfeld for 10 minutes.
These researchers wanted to compare the cognitive task performance between 1) the social and control groups, and 2) the social and intellectual groups:
1) They found that the social group significantly outperformed the control group. This is an interesting comparison because the sitcom Seinfeld has many “social” elements. The major difference between these groups is that one set of participants was directly engaged, the other was passively observing. Since the social group outperformed the controls, this suggests “that face-to-face interactions or interacting with a live person is important in realizing cognitive benefits” (Ybarra et al.)
2) They also found no difference between the social and intellectual groups! Those who merely engaged in a discussion for 10 minutes showed an equal boost in cognitive performance as did those who were primed with intellectual tasks.
This is really interesting! If social interactions promoted cognitive functions, you’ve got to wonder where else in our lives are seemingly meaningless social exchanges responsible for healthy cognition? (Of course, it has yet to be shown that “social interactions” can enhance real-world cognition and practical problem solving, beyond speed-based pattern matching tasks.)
What about in online social networks? Will Twitter and Facebook prove to be useful after the fad wears off (and it still hasn’t worn off yet)? I’m particularly interested in the nature and dimensions of this “social interaction”: do the interactions have to be face-to-face? do they have to be synchronous? does the topic of conversation matter? does the user’s interest in the topic matter? What if an “exchange” never occurs, but you enter an obvious (and historically) social space, like Twitter or Facebook. Could the mere perception and presence of social actions help you be an active thinker?
As Ybarra et al. concluded:
…it may not be inappropriate to rephrase Descartes’ philosophical statement as:
“I think about and with others, therefore I am.”
Reference: O. Ybarra, E. Burnstein, P. Winkielman, M. Keller, M. Manis, E. Chan, J. Rodriguez. Mental Exercising Through Simple Socializing: Social Interaction Promotes General Cognitive Functioning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 2, 248-259 (2008).
