Building social networks

This week I had a conversation with friends, how us biologists can sometimes become obsessed with funny-sounding phenomena. That talk gave me an idea for this week’s blog post: ants - or actually, social behavior. And although my friends laughed, this time I am serious. To get my point, think about ants’ social structures, which are extremely fascinating. In a nest all individuals have very specialized roles (like we have in our cities). There is the queen (mayor), soldiers (experts) and workers (the “middle-class”) all serving for their specific purpose by performing a very specialized role. I will leave it to my brilliant colleagues specializing in studying the social relationships in ant colonies to update their newest findings on the dilemma concerning evolutionary costly altruistic behavior, meaning the behavior, common to some species, where individuals may help others at the cost of their own good. However, this comparison of us to ants, gives a good introduction to my topic.

Us people are just as much social animals as ants are. Although it may seem as we all become independent during the teen age years, becoming responsible for only our own actions and career, eventually we all still need others to survive. There is an entire field of psychology studying social relationships, and new biological theories are discovering how our genotype and the environment where we live define our social phenotype (Blumstein et al. 2010). According to new results, our sociality may directly promote our health through influences on our gut microbiota. In our gut, we may harbor up to 1.5-2 kg of bacteria, and the microbe composition has very extensive health effects ranging from autoimmune- and neurological conditions to chronic diseases.  In chimpanzees, for example, social interaction has been found to promote the microbial diversity within individuals and across communities. The transfer of microbial fauna through social behavior may even be the main factor shaping the gut microbiota of the infant chimpanzees (Moeller et al. 2016).

These findings give only some direction of how important sociality may be. Although I find this topic extremely intriguing, my purpose today is not to write a science project on this topic. Rather, I here want to give some real-life perspectives regarding the meaning of social relationships to me, and I want to share how I attempt to value such relations. Particularly, I want to write about relationships in the context of working life. In addition, I want to share how I have learned to appreciate such connections with people.

As adults, we may face a lot of surprising situations. A project you start may not deliver as expected, which may lead to not only you feeling as a failure, but also you may concretely lose a job opportunity. This has happened to me too. It is not always easy to look at yourself and realize that you must rethink the whole situation. The career plan you might have built for you may become destroyed for a reason or another. I know a celloist who injured her arm and had to become a teacher instead. I myself ended up in a situation with no way out other than changing direction from the originally planned path I had in mind. At the time, to be honest, I was not at my best. Some days I did not even see a way out. However, being confident in myself and relying on the right people, despite the gloomy-looking circumstances, I managed to find a new direction and found myself a new career path.

I am not saying here: “learn from my mistakes, never plan ahead too much or never say the truth what you really think and just stay out of trouble living a constant, boring and comfortable life”. Instead, I am saying, that if it wasn’t for people, I may not have made it. I was supported by honest and caring people who believed in me. I think we all have those friends who are genuinely there for us wanting to support us, it is just about letting them do that. And yes, there are also those who may not be thinking of you at every moment, especially at that moment when you are desperately in a need of a friend. People have also their own agendas, their own plans, and you just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time saying the wrong things, may cause a conflict situation in some way.

I believe that for career the rules are similar as what they are in the private life. We can probably all count with one hand those people who would be there no matter what happened. One point I want to make is that it is crucial to know who these people are. But here comes the other thing: it is up to you how your contacts range beyond that point. This may sound funny, but contacts do not come automatically. I have realized in my own life that getting the right connections and networks requires work. Obviously, you will make the effort for your friends. However, making the effort outside the normal circle of friends may pay off, as well. We all had colleagues at the previous workplace, or nice hangouts at a past hobby, or the class mates whose company was fun during school years. Getting in touch with these people and showing genuine interest in their lives, might just pay off some time in the future.

Building a network is not an easy task. At least when it comes to me trying, I am not always in the mood for it. Instead of active networking, I love to relax after my working days, mainly watching my favorite Netflix show while lying on the couch. I am not saying we should spend all our free-time networking. However, maybe the answer could be something simple? Perhaps just becoming aware of the fact that life is unpredictable, and that giving to others may some day turn the other way around, is enough. Maybe it is worth giving some thought to how we treat people around us, and who are those people and where are could those networks be located, which may one day become crucial to us. And perhaps occasionally putting in extra effort, by giving a call to that nice boss you once had, would not hurt.

Have a lovely and sociable weekend, everyone!

References used:

Blumstein, D.T., Ebensperger, L.A, Hayes, L.D., Vásquez, R.A., Ahern, T.H., Burger, J.R., Dolezal, A.G., Dosmann, A., González-Mariscal, G., Harris, B.N., Herrera, E.A., Lacey, E.A., Mateo, J., McGraw, L.A., Olazábal, D., Ramenofsky, M., Rubenstein, D.R., Sakhai, S.A., Saltzman, W., Sainz-Borgo, C., Soto-Gamboa, M., Stewart, M.L., Wey, T.W., Wingfield, J.C., Young, L.J. (2010) Toward an integrative understanding of social behavior: new models and new opportunities. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 4 (34). doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2010.00034.

Moeller, A. H., Foerster, S., Wilson, M. L., Pusey, A. E., Hahn, B. H., & Ochman, H. (2016). Social behavior shapes the chimpanzee pan-microbiome. Science Advances, 2 (1), e1500997. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500997

Source of the image: 

USC University of Southern California (https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2017/10/usc-isi-lead-project-simulate-dynamics-online-social-behavior/)