Of the world’s 43,000 known varieties of spiders, an overwhelming majority are peevish loners: spinning webs, slinging lassos, liquefying prey and attacking trespassers, each spider unto its own.

But about 25 arachnid species have swapped the hermit’s hair shirt for a more sociable and cooperative strategy, in which dozens or hundreds of spiders pool their powers to exploit resources that would elude a solo player.

And believe it or not, O ye of rolled-up newspaper about to dispatch the poor little Charlotte dangling from your curtain rod for no better reason than your purported “primal fear,” these oddball spider socialites may offer fresh insight into an array of human mysteries: where our personalities come from, why some people can’t open their mouths at a party while others can’t keep theirs shut and, why, no matter our age, we can’t seem to leave high school behind.

“It’s very satisfying to me that the most maligned of organisms may have something to tell us about who we are,” said Jonathan N. Pruitt, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies social spiders.