Connection matters at every age and stage of life...

Relationships matter as much in adulthood as they do in childhood.  Isolation is never healthy for human beings.  Your friendship circle helps in coping with the ordinary pressures of life, and the science now suggests that your social support network even guards against the risk of dementia.  But it isn’t just in terms of the present or the future that connection features in the adult research literature.  One of the fascinating insights we have gained relates to the degree to which childhood patterns of emotional security and anxiety are repeated in adulthood.  Attachment has a lifelong impact because, at its core, it is based not in learning processes, but in biology.  Understanding how attachment styles function can go a long way toward helping people negotiate the tricky waters of romantic intimacy.  Most of the public have little idea there is a science that charts the links of these two life phases, so they continue to struggle unknowingly and unnecessarily with emotional challenges.  That is why we think everyone deserves to know about the science of connection.  It helps us live lives of greater ease and compassion.

Here are some of the discoveries scientists have made about emotional connection during adulthood:

Most of us intuitively grasp that relationships make our lives better.  But many people may not realise that there is a science that shows just how much they matter.  These findings hold serious implications for how we organise our society, our public services and our community planning. We can create healthy or unhealthy societies.  We can end up with economies that invest public funds or that waste them.  So politicians and policy makers should be required to place this science at the centre of their decision making.  Businesses and organisations would be wise to get curious, given the potential impacts not only for their workforce but for their profit margin.  Individuals who have access to this knowledge have a better chance of resolving long-standing life challenges.  It is not only they who benefit.  It is also future generations.