Why do humans bond?
Bonding is done for two main reasons:
- Gain strength to fight off competing interests
- Promote internal benefits such as emotional fulfillment and basic survival needs
Quick historical background
Historically, humans traveled in groups of 50-150 people in what are known as tribes. These tribes acted as nomads and traveled around to areas in search of resources to fulfill their survival needs (food, water, etc.). Work was segregated among the tribe based on the perception of who could do what tasks most efficiently.
Eventually, with the adaptation of agriculture, humans began to make permanent settlements. With these settlements, humans began to find ways to bring resources to their settlements rather than going to the resources themselves. In this way, civilizations began to form. With civilization came the need to allocate the resources brought in by these civilizations.
The need to allocate these resources is what leads humans to manage their bonding. Either by gaining strength to take or defend resources or by promoting benefits internally via allocating resources. For our purposes, please imagine intangible elements such as emotional fulfillment as a resource in addition to basic survival needs. To see why, think about what people look for once their basic survival needs are met. Once you understand both survival resources and emotional resources as things to be allocated, the rest falls into place.
How do we determine who to bond with?
Humans use a mixture of commonality and shared “incentives based” interest to bond. Ultimately, humans bond with people when it benefits them to do so and avoid bonding when they believe it is not beneficial to do so. Regardless of what the actual reality is, humans act based off of perception of what reality is. Hence, a misperception of reality causes outcomes that appear irrational to those who see the true reality. As an aside, I define idiocy to be a perceived act of intelligence based on an inaccurate understanding of the environment in which the act takes place. Once we understand that perception rules how humans act, rather than reality, determining how we bond becomes much easier to understand.
Bonding is all about trust. People cannot possibly put in the effort to evaluate every claim as it comes in by themselves. Hence, that work gets outsourced to trusted actors and the rest gets taken care of by generalizing off of that information. Generalizing is where most mistakes occur. Humans choose who to bond with based off of common traits that people perceive to align them together. Whether that trait is a shared physical feature such as skin color, a shared nationality, or a shared incentive structure such as working for the same employer, people choose to bond when they see commonality that can be perceived to align their interests.
Of course, the effects of such bonding are varied based off of differences between perception and reality. I refer to such differences as “tracking error”, a term I borrow from my finance background. When tracking error is low, bonds work out very well and people get along. When tracking error is high, bonds get strained and infighting can occur.
How does bonding work at different levels of society?
There are different levels of bonding (from most macro to most micro)
As a planet
As a continent
As a nation
As a region
As a town/village
As a segment of town/village
As a family and as friend groups
Between individual people
General rules:
- The deeper a bond is at a given level, the better equipped the participants are to handle challenges
- People often skip levels in their bonds
- For example, people can feel a bond at the personal and family levels, skip the segment of town, town, and regional/state levels, then feel a bond at the national level, skip the continent level, and feel a bond at the global level. Any combination of the above is possible for any given person.
- The depth of combinations at any level usually vary from person to person
- The depth of bonds between people at any given level tend to vary substantially
- Different bond combinations and their depths are significant in explaining a person’s values
Historical bonding agents
Not exhaustive, but covers the basics:
Religion
Race
Gender
Nationality
Athletic teams
Special interest groups
These groups will be covered in expansion packs. These historical groups have clear “in and out” groups around them that can be used to explain much of history’s clashes and conflicts. The takeaway to remember from a general perspective is that history has yet to develop a grouping that can sufficiently hold a society together through the challenges it inevitably faces. I will explain how in and out groupings affect bonding and why we need to improve our bonding strategies to handle modern challenges.
In group vs. Out group
Once a group bonds, members of the group get special perks with the resources that the group has to offer. Keep in mind that resources are both tangible (money, food, etc.) and intangible (emotional support, friendship, sex, etc.). This concept is important as a constant regardless of context. As groups get examined in contexts through expansion packs, keep in mind the concept of an in group controlling resources and people outside the group trying to gain access to those resources. The interplay here is where contexts get involved and real analysis begins.
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