The Connected Species

Human beings have succeeded as the most dominant species on earth in large part due to our ability to connect and cooperate, and to innovate through collaboration and specialisation. This has fine-tuned our unconscious perception of faces, facial expressions, body language and touch. This unconscious drive to connect can draw us together, but it also emphasizes the differences between groups. And it is getting worse, as overcrowding, technology, and the media often focus us on our differences. We become more and more divided into groups as a result. Mark shows us how to recapture the drive for connection to help us look past our differences and reconnect, even with those we perceive to be outside our groups. He starts by discussing the human brain's specialisation for connection and how it evolved. He focuses on how connection works in practice, then explores the negative consequences of our drive for connection. He ends with a positive perspective by examining how we can use our drive for connection to expand our in-group and extend multicultural societies for the good of our planet.