Serotonin

Serotonin is the pleasure of social power. We don’t acknowledge this urge in ourselves, but we can easily see that others enjoy having social power. That’s because the mammal brain rewards you with the good feeling of serotonin when you find an opportunity to be in the position of strength. It’s not aggression, but the nice calm feeling that you have the strength necessary to meet your needs in a world of rivals. Brains that rewarded self-assertion made more copies of their genes, so we have all inherited a brain that rewards self-assertion.

Serotonin is soon metabolized and the good feeling is gone until you see yourself in the positions of strength again. Neurons connect when serotonin flows, which wires you to expect more from similar situations. When you see yourself in a position of weakness, cortisol is released and it feels like a survival threat. That wires you to make careful decisions about when you assert yourself. Animals carefully avoid conflicts they would lose. Each mammal brain is constantly trying to navigate toward serotonin without triggering cortisol. No wonder there’s so much drama!

This is not what you’ve heard about serotonin, or about animals. We are taught a romanticized view of nature, and we’re taught to blame “our society” for human conflict. But mammal groups have always had a lot of conflict because the brain rewards you with serotonin when you assert and prevail. In the past, people lived near wild animals and could see the conflict for themselves. In the 20th-century,  the social rivalry in nature was documented by researchers in ethology. The serotonin link to social dominance behavior was studied by the US National Institute of Mental Health, as reported in the New York Times. I explain these facts in my books: Why You’re Unhappy: Biology vs Politics,  Status Games: Why We Play and How to Stop and I, Mammal: How to Make Peace With the Animal Urge for Social Power. For a list of studies on this, see my  empirical research page. For books on the topic, see my reading list. To see the animal quest for social dominance for yourself, watch this fun monkey video, and this amazing video of kangaroo conflict. Here’s another on social hierarchy in monkeys. And another. See my blog posts and on the subject below, plus a 1-minute excerpt from my series, Love Chemicals.

Why Winning Feels Good

Serotonin and Conflict

The Curse of Social Comparison

Animals Compete and It’s Not Always Pretty

Self-interest Drives Animals to Dominate or Submit

Animal Anger (as opposed to competition)

Serotonin and Romantic Love – in 1 minute. Credit: Convicts

The Serotonin Facts of Life

I am not saying we should seek social dominance. I am saying we do, and we can manage this impulse if we are honest about it. We have inherited a brain that compares itself to others to promote its survival. It creates has a sense of urgency about how it measures up. If you don’t know you are creating this feeling yourself, you think the world is doing it to you. You feel bitter, resentful, and victimized. Instead, you can accept that the people around you are mammals, and you are a mammal too.

Mammals live in groups for protection from predators, but group life is frustrating. Every time a mammal sees a resource, a group mate sees it too. A little monkey gets bitten if it reaches for a fruit near a bigger monkey. Cortisol wires it Natural selection built a brain that constantly compares itself to others. It withdraws to avoid conflict when it sees itself in the weaker position and asserts to meet its needs when it sees itself in the position of strength. These behaviors are motivated by a momentary release of cortisol or serotonin. 

We humans have many words for the serotonin feeling because it is so important to us. We call it pride, ego, confidence, assertiveness, competitiveness, arrogance, one-upping, status, power, importance, prestige, dominance, manipulativeness, being special, winning, feeling superior, dignity, saving face, and getting recognition, respect, approval, or attention. We favor the negative words when we see this urge in others, especially those we don’t like. When we seek social dominance ourselves, we justify it as a response to the dominance-seeking of others, we use positive language, or we simply refuse to acknowledge this impulse in ourselves.

Small-brained mammals have simple social rivalries. Large-brained primates often have complex social hierarchies. Animals like baboons and chimpanzees invest heavily in efforts to rise in their social hierarchy, and this helps to spread their genes. Our genes are inherited from individuals who asserted themselves successfully. We do it in individual ways, but we all crave social advancement because our brain makes it feel good.

Serotonin evolved to motive survival behavior, not to make you feel good all the time for no reason. There is no royal road to serotonin. The more social power a mammal has, the more it is challenged by rivals. Finding healthy ways to stimulate it is the challenge that comes with the gift of life.

The blog posts below give you a brief introduction to these facts about human nature. My 5-day Happy Chemical jumpstart has a simple introduction to each of the happy chemicals in one email each – sign up for it and my newsletter in the  footer below. Get the full story in my book Habits of a Happy Brain: Retrain your brain to boost your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and endorphin levels. All of my books help you notice your old serotonin pathways and then design and build a new pathway that leads to more happiness.