Interoception and Social Connection

Abstract

Interoception - the process of sensing bodily signals - has gained much interest in recent years, due to its role in physical and mental well-being. Here, we focus on the role of interoception in social connection, which is a relatively new and growing research area. Studies in this area suggest that interoception may help in appraising physiological signals in social situations, but also that (challenging) social situations may reduce interoceptive processing by shifting attention from internally- to externally- focused. We discuss potential mechanisms for the influence of interoception on social connection and highlight that flexibility in engaging interoception in social situations may be particularly important. We end with a discussion of loneliness - an extreme case of poor social connection, which is associated with physiological decline and increased mortality risk, and propose that interoceptive dysregulation is involved. We suggest that interventions aimed to improve interoceptive abilities, such as mindfulness-based meditation practices, may be key for alleviating loneliness and improving social connection.

Keywords: emotion; health; interoception; loneliness; social cognition; social connection.

FIGURE 1

An interoceptive human in a social situation. In this diagram, the arrows represent attentional focus for the social actor on the left: dark orange for interoceptive attention, light orange for exteroceptive attention. Dynamic interplay between these two modalities represent an attentional tradeoff that can be triggered by certain social situations – social attention (too) outwardly engaged may detract from moment-by-moment interoceptive focus. The violet oval represents peripersonal space, which may interact with interoceptive processing in social situations. The blue double-sided arrows represent the tendency for peripersonal space mapping to expand or contract, based on social context. The large light blue oval represents the overall social environment.