Connectedness

The power of togetherness

Human beings are social creatures who need contact with others like the air they breathe. Yet one third of people in industrialised countries suffer from loneliness. Since this feeling strongly triggers chronic stress, no other factor has as great a negative influence on our health and quality of life. In fact, social relationships not only enrich life, they also prolong it.

With the threat of the coronavirus slowly subsiding, most of us have to relearn to be carefree with others. This requires confidence and the willingness to become physically close again – because body odours in particular convey a lot of information to us; they are so-called honesty signals and many of our reactions are based on them.

Prof. Pause sheds light on the healing power of physical and emotional closeness in its psychological, biological and evolutionary theoretical aspects, entertainingly leading us into highly complex scientific contexts and findings from the as yet relatively unknown field of research called social neuroscience. This research area provides us with solutions for the pressing problems of the future, because the strength to get through difficult times can only be drawn from mindful togetherness.

• Latest studies from social psychology and bioscience
• New ways out of loneliness, the No. 1 stress and disease factor
• From the internationally leading researcher in the field of social communication