Social Connection and the Arts: Improving Well-Being and Public Health
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December 2022
HUMANITIES AND HUMAN FLOURISHING NEWSLETTER
Advancing the understanding, assessment, and cultivation of well-being by means of a deep and sustained collaboration between the arts, humanities, and the social sciences
Social Connection and the Arts: Improving Well-Being and Public Health
After his first tenure as the Surgeon General of the United States under President Obama, Dr. Vivek Murthy found that Americans are facing a significant public health issue: while he agreed that issues of mental health, drug addiction, and violence were all catastrophic epidemics plaguing his country and worthy of our concern, the through-line between these and many other health problems, he believed, was loneliness.
To remedy this, his book Together argues, we need to enhance, prioritize, and deepen our social connections to other human beings. (Since returning to the position of Surgeon General under President Joe Biden, Dr. Murthy's thesis has all the more urgency: rates of isolation and loneliness have surged since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Social connection, in the form of secure attachment to a partner, family, or friends and membership in a broader community, nurtures a sense of belonging. Our desire to belong is so strong that many researchers compare it to our need for food and water. A sense of belonging makes us feel good, brings more meaning to our lives, and impacts physical health, with loneliness detrimental to our emotional, cognitive, and physical health.
Recent research explores how engagement in the arts advances feelings of social connection by creating opportunities to meet people with common interests, learn from others, and share a collective experience. Think about the prospects of social connection the next time you attend a concert, the theater, or even the movies.
Beyond traditional forms of arts engagement, artists worldwide are creating interactive digital art to connect communities and bring awareness to community issues. For example, consider a community arts project in Montreal that bridges an intergenerational divide between youth and seniors through an engaging dance program. Or AYAH-Sign, a community-based, collaborative digital art piece, projected onto the Kensington leisure center one year after the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire. These projects represent just a sample of the breadth of opportunities for cohesion, collaboration, and connection that the arts and humanities present.
As we experience a time of year that can either remind us of the richness of life surrounded by family, friends, and community or accentuate feelings of isolation, it’s imperative to lean into the need to belong, embrace current relationships and cultivate new ones, and continue to engage in the arts and humanities as fundamental grounds for social connection. As world-renowned psychologist, Christopher Peterson, put it so poignantly: other people matter.
Consider a time that you connected with someone over the arts and culture. Perhaps you attended a concert or a play with friends, saw a movie with your partner, read a novel with a book club, or went to a local poetry reading. Maybe you performed as part of a dance troupe or a community theater production, did a historical reenactment, or sang in a choir. How was your experience enhanced by being in community, by connecting with others?
Social Connection in Research
A recent study conducted by Perkins and colleagues (2021) found that engaging with the arts, particularly attending live performances, was associated with greater feelings of social connectedness, including feeling increases in social opportunities, sharing, belonging, and collective understanding.
Social Connection in Practice
Project UnLonely from The Foundation for Art & Healing has crafted a series of creative activities and short films to help people feel more connected this holiday season.
HHF News
This month, the initial volumes of The Humanities and Human Flourishing series, edited by HHF Project Director James O. Pawelski, will be published by Oxford University Press, including:
Philosophy and Human Flourishing edited by John J. Stuhr
History and Human Flourishing edited by Darrin M. McMahon.
Look out for the remaining books in this nine-volume series over the course of the next year.
Upcoming Events
The HHF Colloquium Series will resume at the start of the Spring 2023 semester. Until then, check out recordings of some of our previous colloquia as well as interviews with editors of the newly published HHF Series.
This newsletter was created by Josey Murray, Katherine Cotter, Sarah Sidoti, and James Pawelski.
