Social connectors fulfill our lives.

• Position: Memories - Social interactions - Brief article

Our best and worst experiences in life are likely to involve not individual accomplishments, but interaction with other people and the fulfillment of an urge for social connection. These study findings run contrary to implications of previous research, point out principal author Lisa Jaremka, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Mauricio Cavallo, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

"Most of us spend much of our lime and effort focused on individual achievements such as work, hobbies, and schooling," they write. "However this research suggests that the events that end up being most important in our lives, the events that bring us the most happiness and also carry the potential for the most pain, are social events--moments of connecting to...