How Our Social Nature Makes Everything Contagious
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.8 • 615 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kay Hymowitz joins Brian Anderson to discuss how our social instincts, and especially our social networks, affect our behavior and choices, in areas as wide-ranging as divorce, obesity—and even rioting.
Humans are social animals, as the saying goes. Our social nature, Hymowitz writes in her new story, "The Human Network," makes nearly everything contagious, from viruses to behaviors. For example, new research suggests that people can, in effect, "catch" divorce from their friends or extended family. But while network science can be a useful tool for understanding human action, it cannot explain why some are more susceptible to social pressure than others.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. |
| 0:21.3 | Joining me on today's show is Kay Heimowitz. Kay is the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. |
| 0:28.3 | She's a longtime contributing editor at City Journal. You can follow her on Twitter at Kayeimowitz. |
| 0:34.9 | And her latest story for City Journal, which appeared in our spring 2020 issue, |
| 0:41.0 | is called The Human Network, with a subtitle, Our Social Nature Makes Nearly Everything, |
| 0:46.3 | From Behavior to Viruses, Contagious. It's a very timely story. And if I might add, and I think |
| 0:53.5 | Kay would agree, this social contagion also extends to the kind of protests and rioting and looting that we've seen all over the country over the last two weeks. |
| 1:05.7 | We'll be sure to get her to talk about those events a little later in the interview. |
| 1:10.7 | Kay, thanks very much for joining us. |
| 1:13.0 | My pleasure, Brian. Your essay is a very rich and comprehensive look at what you might call |
| 1:21.0 | human social networks, families, neighborhoods, schools, friends of friends, workplaces. |
| 1:29.3 | What isn't widely understood, as you point out, is how these networks affect the behavior |
| 1:34.6 | of human beings. |
| 1:36.6 | For example, while parents of teenagers struggle to help their kids navigate peer pressure, |
| 1:43.1 | adults aren't free from such kind of peer pressure |
| 1:45.7 | or social contagion, as you call it, themselves. |
| 1:49.2 | So this phenomenon, as you open your essay, is quite evident when it comes to divorce. |
| 1:55.6 | So how does network behavior influence divorce? |
| 1:58.7 | And maybe you could just describe a little bit more about what you mean by and what researchers mean by network behavior influenced divorce, and maybe you could just describe a little bit more about |
| 2:01.3 | what you mean by and what researchers mean by network behavior? |
| 2:05.2 | Well, I think the best way to start is to think about the way microbes go viral, |
| 2:14.0 | that is, they get spread, and something similar can happen with social phenomenon as well. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Manhattan Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Manhattan Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.