Research Proposal

For this research paper, I plan to address the correlation between social interaction and neurological activity in the brain. More specifically, I wish to see how positive social interactions between people can boost brain activity and affect long-term behavior in both the person’s brain and in their personality. In other words, how do people’s interactions with one another promote growth or activity in the brain, and how much do these neurological responses influence a person’s character? While the focus would be on the effects of positive interaction between people, it would be impossible to discuss this topic without also addressing the consequences of negative interaction. Society, after all, is comprised of both, and people are shaped by both as a result. From childhood to adulthood, every person will experience both the good and the bad and grow from their experiences. This paper intends to see if growth also extends to the mind in both its physical and psychological aspects.

This is a topic that is relevant in any context, as humans are constantly being influenced by their surroundings: whether it is environmental factors, social factors, or anything in between, all variables will have some effect on how a person behaves. However, how much of our personalities are derived from “nature” versus “nurture”—or, inherent biology versus acquired sociology—is a highly debated topic. The focus of this paper would suggest that “nurture” would play a large role in developing one’s temperament; methods of upbringing, exposure to cultures, and individual encounters are all great contributors to personality that would make someone distinctly unique since no two people can share the same experiences. In addition, these experiences generate different reactions within the brain, thereby stimulating growth in varying sections that further influence the development of our characters. This raises the tentative hypothesis that positive experiences and interactions would boost brain activity and thereby give a person a more positive disposition; conversely, negative interactions would not stimulate the same areas in the brain, possibly resulting in less growth and later leading to a more negative disposition overall. However, there is still room for development of this argument as it rests mainly on the idea that positive neural stimulation leads to growth, as well as not focusing on exactly what neurological activity is occurring during interactions between people.

To address the finer details of this topic, I plan to first build off of the essay Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become by Barbara Fredrickson. In these excerpts from her novel, Fredrickson explores the effects of neural coupling, oxytocin, and the vagus nerve on people’s emotional connections with others, she insinuates that forging more connections subconsciously affects a person’s willingness to interact. I can expand on this point in particular in my paper, using her relation of chemical and biological processes within the brain to human behavior to find a correlation between the two. As a result, this reference will likely be one of the main sources, if not the main source, of the paper. To back up this argument, I can use the findings of scientific studies such as “Don’t Hide Your Happiness! Positive Emotion Dissociation, Social Connectedness, and Psychological Functioning” by Iris Mauss and “Influence of a ‘Warm Touch’ Support Enhancement Intervention Among Married Couples on Ambulatory Blood Pressure, Oxytocin, Alpha Amylase, and Cortisol” by Julianne Holt-Lundstand. These two scientific papers explore positive emotions and interactions, respectively, and their effect on improved physiological and psychological health. From this information, I will be able to support the argument with statistical and analytical evidence that positivity can create beneficial effects on the human body: people who are exposed to more positivity are physically and mentally healthier, and as a result, more positive in personality. Finally, I would like to place this concept in a social setting. To do so, I can use Malcom Gladwell’s The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime to argue that societal interactions between people can affect their mindsets and characters. In his essay, Gladwell discusses crime rates in New York City and poses the idea that people continue to commit crime in the city because they see the chaos around them and decide there are no consequences if they add to that chaos. Their actions seem okay in that context, yet when put in a different situation would seem very wrong. I can link my argument to his ideas by making the claim that the negative interactions between people in the community result in less positive brain activity, therefore causing the people to act more depressed and pessimistic. This would explain their indifferent attitude towards the well-being of their community. Had these people been raised in more positive environments, they would have been more sensitive to positivity and thus more optimistic as a result.