The Laws of Connection

The Scientific Secrets of Building a Strong Social Network

By: David Robson

Narrated by: Jonathan Cowley

This groundbreaking study reveals how social connections are far more important than we thought, showing us the steps we can take to build better relationships and improve our lives.

Social connection is as essential for our health and happiness as a balanced diet and regular exercise. It reduces our risk of stroke, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. It enhances our creativity and adds years to our life span. Yet many of us struggle to form strong and meaningful bonds—and the problem lies not with our personalities but with a series of cognitive biases that stop us from fulfilling our social potential.

In The Laws of Connection, award-winning science writer David Robson describes the psychological barriers that lead us to keep others at a distance and offers evidence-based strategies to overcome them.

Drawing on philosophy, neuroscience, and cutting-edge psychology, Robson introduces listeners to new concepts such as the liking gap, the novelty penalty, the fast-friendship procedure, the beautiful mess effect, and the Japanese art of amae. Whether we are shy or confident, introvert or extrovert, we can all build deeper relationships. The Laws of Connection shows us how.

©2024 David Robson (P)2024 Tantor

Interesting, useful and down to earth

This is a solid book and I felt like I came away with lots to practice. the narrator has a fairly thick accent, but is enjoyable to listen to. highly recommend.

So many actual usable lessons in how to create more and better friendships

Exceeded my expectations and really used all the most trustworthy and science based information to support the argument that connection is all we need.

Technical

This was a great listen. Every chapter is loaded with clinical studies, summarized into each rule. The book almost felt like a technical read.

The reader...

The reader was hard to endure. He has a sort of tonal reading style, almost a chant, that returns to certain higher-pitched emphases (the same note every time) at regular intervals in every sentence. Sort of like juggling with words, throwing the words up the same height over and over in a regular (perpetual) pattern. The reader's emphases do not necessarily correspond with the flow or meaning of the text, and tend to obscure rather than enhance the meaning. You can hear all of this in the sample on Audible. What you hear in the sample is consistent throughout the book, so you can judge for yourself whether it bothers you. I found it substantially more tolerable when played at a faster speed, like 1.5.

The content and writing style were good. This is one of those books that develops a few new and very interesting and useful insights, and the rest is fine but not especially striking. Doubtless things that seemed ho-hum to me will be of interest to others and vice versa. Overall, I don't regret reading this and continue to think about and use some of the ideas.

Terrible narration.

The narration was so terrible that it made it impossible to listen to. It’s not the Boris Johnson accent, but the complete lack of cohesion - it’s as if there’s no punctuation whatsoever.