Why do humans feel joy when they work together?
In Chapter 3 – Hooked for Life, I blogged that my son enjoyed his first game even though the team was defeated. I attributed his enthusiasm and joy to intangible properties, like overcoming a novel challenge or working together to achieve a common goal. Owen enjoyed physically challenging himself, and the day provided many new opportunities. A few opponents were stronger than him; others were less talented, and I’m sure that some of his enthusiasm after the game was due to the thrill of the skirmishes he won. However, I think the other intangible, which involved cooperating with others to achieve a common goal, was the factor that most inspired him at the game's end. I have always wondered, Why?
Owen cooperated with two entities on that game day: his teammates and me. As my son, his link was obvious, but there was more to our interaction than a familial dependency.
Our collaboration started weeks before the game as we began to kick a ball around and play together. At practices, he helped me introduce new ideas and work with players until some semblance of understanding and ability emerged. On our first game day, Owen and I continued to prepare. We woke early enough to have breakfast and warm up in the backyard. Then, we arrived at the field in time to watch the end of the game played before ours. Neither of us had played a soccer game; observing one reduced our uncertainty and calmed our nerves. During his game, Owen was on the field surrounded by teammates who hopefully cooperated and succeeded with him.
When the final whistle blew and the handshake exchange was concluded, Owen, the team, and I had successfully worked together to achieve a common goal—we survived our first game. We had avoided embarrassment and at least played a competitive match, even if we did not win. Those events combined to produce a sense of accomplishment, but I still wondered, What aspect of human nature produced the joy we felt because we worked together? The answer to that question was much bigger than the game of soccer and required the application of scientific principles from psychology and neuroscience. Despite my curiosity, those fields were not my area of expertise; I had to accept the possibility that I might never know why Owen smiled and leaped into my arms that day after our first game—years passed, then a decade.
Five months ago, I read something that changed my mind. I was thumbing through a popular science journal and happened upon an article entitled Synchronized Minds*. The piece was about collective neuroscience, which investigates how our brains synchronize when we converse or share experiences (Yes, you read that right—brain synchrony is real, not science fiction).
Researchers have studied the brains of mice, bats, and humans, all social animals, and found that when they are exposed to the same sights and sounds, their brain waves synchronize. Investigators who study this phenomenon use various high-tech instruments to image brain activity in test subjects tasked with completing predefined activities. The findings are the same regardless of whether the study animals are in the same room or separated by hundreds of miles—brains that simultaneously experience the same stimuli respond similarly and become synchronized. Moreover, when test subjects are allowed to communicate and cooperate, a feedback loop develops that increases brain synchrony, which, in turn, may improve communication and cooperation. Humans who participated reported that the predefined tasks were more enjoyable when they cooperated than when they completed the tasks independently.
That finding was my eureka moment and suggested a likely answer to my question: Why do humans feel happy when they work together to achieve? My answer is that we feel gratified when we work together because our brains contain evolutionary baggage inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who gained a survival advantage when they learned to communicate and cooperate. Over millions of years, those behavior patterns became ingrained in our brains and genetics. The joy we feel when we cooperate successfully is our brain’s way of rewarding our body so that we continue working together. Nowadays, when we play soccer, succeeding doesn’t produce a survival advantage like it did when our ancestors cooperated in killing a wooly mammoth so their clan could eat. However, the brain-chemistry reward response is still with us.
Much about the phenomenon of brain synchrony is still unknown. What’s certain is that brains are not like quantum-entangled particles that mysteriously communicate faster than the speed of light via an unknown mechanism. Brains synchronize based on the stimuli they receive through our five senses. Then, higher-order thinking processes interpret the information. One of those processes is known as a mirror mechanism. When I watch a player kick a ball, mirror neurons in my brain are activated, which are also activated when I actually perform the same task. Those dual-purpose neurons play a role in perception and action and seem a likely mechanism for brain synchrony.
Not surprisingly, brain synchrony seems stronger between socially close individuals, and it is probably involved in more than cooperation and conversation; it may also play a role in teaching and learning, cultivating friendships, and maybe soccer coaching.
Brain synchrony explains why Owen and I felt joy at the end of our first game, even though the match was lost. We spent weeks working, practicing, planning, and jointly preparing for the game. When it was over, and I approached to congratulate him, our eyes met, and our brains synced. I saw his nonverbal cues: dilated pupils, fast breathing, skin flushed from exertion, and smile. It is no wonder that we had the same idea at the same time. When he jumped into my arms, I experienced one of the best moments of my life.
*Denworth, L. (2023). Synchronized minds. Scientific American, 329(1), 50-57.
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