The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter

From birth to death, human beings are hardwired to connect to other human beings. Face-to-face contact matters: tight bonds of friendship and love heal us, help children learn, extend our lives, and make us happy. Looser in-person bonds matter too, combining with our close relationships to form a personal "village" around us, one that exerts unique effects.


Marrying the findings of the new field of social neuroscience together with gripping human stories, Susan Pinker explores the impact of...