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We experience social baseline theory as a way of understanding that human beings are biologically designed to regulate, conserve energy, and face reality together — not alone.

From a social baseline perspective, relationship isn’t an added benefit or emotional preference. It’s the default condition in which human nervous systems evolved to function efficiently.

In The Experience of We, social baseline theory helps explain why separation is metabolically costly — and why connection, when safe and reliable, feels relieving rather than challenging.

What social baseline theory actually says

Social baseline theory proposes that the human nervous system evolved to reflexively assume the presence of supportive others as the norm.

This means that:

• Threat is expected to be faced collectively

• Emotional load is expected to be shared

• Decision-making is expected to be distributed

• Regulation is expected to occur through proximity and relationship

When these expectations are met, the nervous system conserves energy. When they’re violated, the system compensates by increasing vigilance, effort, and self-reliance.

Why being alone is more expensive than it seems

When we’re isolated — even subtly, even invisibly — our nervous system has to do more work.

Without reliable relational support, we may notice:

• Increased stress and cognitive load

• Heightened threat perception

• Reduced capacity for curiosity or creativity

• Faster exhaustion and burnout

From a social baseline perspective, this isn’t weakness. It’s our nervous system compensating for the absence of expected resources.

Self-regulation is possible — but it is energetically costly compared to shared regulation.

Social baseline theory and relationship

Social baseline theory reframes relationship itself.

Rather than seeing connection as something we seek after we’re stable, it suggests:

• Stability often emerges through connection

• Regulation is easier when someone we trust is near

• Safety is more efficiently maintained together

• Meaning-making is metabolically lighter when we share it

This helps explain why even capable, resilient people struggle when our relational support erodes — and why repair and reconnection can feel immediately relieving in our bodies.

Social baseline theory in modern conditions

Many modern environments violate the assumptions of the social baseline.

We are often expected to:

• Regulate intense stress alone

• Make complex decisions in isolation

• Carry emotional and existential load privately

• Appear independent regardless of cost

Over time, this creates chronic overexertion of individual nervous systems — a key feature of Evolutionary Mismatch.

Social baseline theory and The Experience of We

We center social baseline theory because it provides a biological foundation for We.

It clarifies that:

• Co-regulation isn’t indulgent or regressive

• Dependence and agency are not opposites

• Relational support increases resilience rather than diminishing it

• Shared reality reduces metabolic cost

The Experience of We isn’t about avoiding responsibility. It’s about distributing it the way humans evolved to.

Scientific grounding

Social baseline theory is a framework developed in social neuroscience to describe how the human brain minimizes effort and threat by assuming access to social resources.

Research in this area shows that trusted social presence reduces perceived threat, neural activation, and energetic expenditure — even when no explicit help is given.

In other words, we regulate better simply by not being alone.

Our one-sentence synthesis

We experience social baseline theory as the recognition that human nervous systems evolved to conserve energy and maintain regulation through reliable social connection — making separation metabolically costly and connection inherently stabilizing.