Psychology of Social Connection

The reality-competition game show Survivor is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, with 40 seasons aired since the American show started in 2000. The Survivor franchise has become almost cult-like: with around 7 million viewers, it continues to be one of CBS’s most popular shows (TV Series Finale). But what makes this show so captivating? Why are we as humans drawn to reality television so much? Well, there’s a lot there— so buckle in and stay tuned for our take on it! 

If you haven’t watched Survivor, one, you should (I’ve been binging it all semester) and two, I’ll break down the format for you. Basically, a group of strangers are marooned together in an isolated location competing to be the sole-survivor and winner of one million dollars. The group competes in physical challenges that earn them benefits; safety, resources, and special prizes. Here’s the catch; every few days, one member is voted out of the tribe by the others. So beyond the physical challenges and surviving in the wild, this game show has a huge psychological component. Forming friendships, allies, and trust is integral to making it through the show for the chance to win $1,000,000. 

Watching along from my couch at home, it is impossible not to think about the social dynamics within the show– especially this week as we learn about friendship and acquaintances. Along with fulfilling their basic need to survive like finding food and water, contestants must also form social connections and bonds in order to stay in the game. This mirrors our backbone Baumeister & Leary paper– that social connections are a fundamental human need (1995). In order to win, contestants must form connections. 

Forming and maintaining friendships are the only way to stay and get to the end of the show– so how do contestants form these bonds and know who to trust? We learned this week that friendships form based on proximity and chance which can be directly seen in the show (Back, Schmukle & Egloff, 2008). At the start, contestants are randomly split into two tribes and when they connect back together further on in the season, alliances are almost always along original tribe lines. 

Maintaining these friendships and allies on Survivor are mostly based on trust– and the willingness to reciprocate that trust to prove your alliance. As we see in the study by Lount mentioned in the lecturette, “trusting another person requires a willingness to be vulnerable in potentially costly interactions, with the hope that one’s partner will act with positive intentions” (2010). This is continuously seen as the contestants build allies and friends– by putting their trust in others and being vulnerable in the hopes their partner will stay true and not vote them off the island, they build a reciprocal relationship. 

However, this trust gets broken throughout the 40 seasons over and over by the players. It has been shown that humans will compromise their values when there is a monetary reward present– and with $1,000,000 on the line, people are more willing to cheat, lie, and play the game to stay ahead (Météreau et al. 2019). That’s a whole other blog post though… 

When I watch Survivor, I always ask myself, “What would I do if I were on this show in this situation?” We are entertained by shows like this because we can in some part experience and feel joy from these relationships without having the negative consequences of actually being in them. 

—

However, the use of friendships for entertainment is not at all exclusive to Survivor. One could make a strong case that friendships are part of what draws us to the realm of reality television in the first place. Reality television combines the human love for stories with our craving for relationships, friendships, and of course, the ~juicy drama~ that comes with it. Without actually experiencing the drama firsthand, we are able to invest ourselves emotionally into the characters’ lives and friendships through the plot. 

“Much narrative entertainment is about characters and social interactions…People who love exploring relationships and friendships might like shows that emphasize the ‘unscripted’ social interactions and small scale personal dramas, such as soap operas or reality TV,” explains Brendan Rooney, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University College Dublin who researches the emotional and cognitive engagement with entertainment (Ryan-Christensen, 2020). When thinking about what makes “reality TV” what it is, the storytelling mechanisms and “real-life” editing it uses makes perfect sense why we are attracted to it.

Assuming we watch these shows with a big “reality check” knowing they are warped, the exploration of reality TV relationships and the scenarios they endure becomes, in some ways, “practice” for our friendships in actual reality. Although the interactions are fabricated from our perspective, the ability to “experience” these low-cost friendships through reality TV reflects research that suggests there are rewards in “weak tie” and “low-stakes” friendships. Entertainment “friendships” are likely not a substitute for true acquaintances, but they may be a complement; maybe there exists a connection between the enjoyment we feel when watching these shows and the higher positivity ratings of more “weak tie” interactions in experiments such as Epley & Schroeder (2014). Sandstrom & Dunn (2014) also note higher happiness ratings associated with the number of weak tie interactions an individual makes in a given day relative to their average (Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W., 2014). If watching reality TV allows us to, in some ways, “simulate” these interactions, could this also be an explanation for why we choose to binge watch these series?

A large shortcoming of this hypothesis is that reality TV interactions are not necessarily “interactions” in the sense that there is communication between two individuals. The benefits discussed by Volpe (2019) emphasize the potential for developing social networks among acquaintances and low-cost friends. Volpe’s argument also uses conversation as an almost necessary cause. The experiments conducted by Epley & Schroeder (2014) and Sandstrom & Dunn (2014) observe humans interacting with other humans. Of course, watching a reality TV show does not allow the viewer to hold a conversation with or introduce themselves to the character. In this respect, it brings to question whether or not the interaction has to be two-sided in order to reap certain benefits of “experiencing” friendships.

Nonetheless, reality TV still stands as a great manifestation of the fundamental need to belong within the entertainment industry. By making it an integral component of success within the game, Survivor quite literally places the need to belong with other fundamental needs of food, water, and shelter. The examples don’t stop here; from The Kardashians to The Bachelor (but more on where romance fits into all of this next week), we are drawn to the experience of friendships through reality TV’s storytelling mechanism. Although it may not directly fulfill our need to belong, it is clear that reality TV provides practice in friendships that is both applicable to real life and fun to watch.

– Tess + Kara

Works Cited:

Baumeister, Roy F.,Leary, Mark R. The Need to Belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 117(3), May 1995, 497-529. https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/1995-29052-001

Back MD, Schmukle SC, Egloff B. Becoming friends by chance. Psychol Sci. 2008 May;19(5):439-40. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02106.x. PMID: 18466403.

CBS 2019-20 Season Ratings. TV Series Finale. October 29, 2020. https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/cbs-2019-20-season-ratings/ 

Epley, N., & Schroeder, J. (2014). Mistakenly seeking solitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(5), 1980–1999. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037323

Lount, R. B., Jr. (2010). The impact of positive mood on trust in interpersonal and intergroup interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3), 420–433. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017344

Qu, C., Météreau, E., Butera, L., Villeval, M. C., & Dreher, J. C. (2019). Neurocomputational Mechanisms at Play when Weighing Concerns for Extrinsic Rewards, Moral Values, and Social Image. PLOS Biology, 17(6), [e3000283]. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000283

Ryan-Christensen, Aoife (January 2020). What’s the psychology behind our obsession with reality TV? RTÉ. 

Sandstrom, G. M., & Dunn, E. W. (2014). Social interactions and well-being: The surprising power of weak ties. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(7), 910-922.
Volpe, A. (May 2019). Why you need a network of low-stakes casual friendships. New York Times