Week 4 First Reader

I found that chapter 13 in the textbook was particular interesting in exploring the elevated hormonal arousal compared to perceived social threats or stressors. Since it is fairly obvious in my opinion, through recorded elevated cortisol levels, as well as elevated emotional response to social interaction that we consciously feel, that our hormone response systems and social interpretations in our brains our linked. Since I feel like I already had this answered for me, my real interest was drawn to the question of why these two biological systems became connected evolutionary and what benefits they could have provided us that overshadow the risk and challenges that they present. The conclusion I came to was that humans are by far the most socially involved race, mainly because we have the mental capacity to do so. We draw so much of our survival and well being from experience and skill learned from other people in casual or formal interaction, and it goes without mentioning the inherent importance that humans base on reproduction and our drive to continue our genetic line. As a result, the linkage between hormonal response and social interaction, in my opinion, originates with the prolonged survival ability presented to human organisms that were more social and accepted through interaction. Humans placed a biological importance on social interaction because their hormonal responses allowed them to more deftly understand a positive or negative social experience, and once they could understand the implications of each more easily they had a much easier time binding together with other organisms, and thus surviving and reproducing, which obviously passed on and strengthened the trait of hormonal response to interactions.