Source: Barry Blitt, The New Yorker (July 2, 2007).
Reductivism: Idea that we need only study the brain to fully understand the causes of social behavior
Independence
As of this writing, social neuroscience has not really focused on the physiological bases of independent versus conformist or obedient behavior (but see Berns et al., 2005). As more research is conducted and we learn about the direct effects that outside pressures (e.g., from peers or authorities) can have on our biological states, our understanding of independent versus conformist responding will surely deepen.
Rationality
The explosion of social neuroscience has provided ample empirical evidence of the ways that emotion and motivation impact so-called rational thinking. We will devote more time to the emotion-reason connection in Chapter 3 on social cognition.
Self
Social neuroscientific research, by demonstrating patterns of brain activation when we think about the self or engage in behaviors that are closely tied to our sense of self, can lead to improved understanding. Moreover, such research shows the fallacy of Cartesian dualism—thinking that the mind is separate from the body. However, a critical aspect of the self is our experience of the self, and it seems to me that, as I suggested with regard to the experience of free will, social neuroscience will likely have less to say about this.
Sociality
The human need for sociality is fundamental to our emotional and physical health and, of course, essential for the propagation of our species. Social neuroscience has already provided substantial research supporting the biological underpinnings of our mental health, and it is worth noting that one of our most prominent social neuroscientists, John Cacioppo, is also one of our leading researchers in the psychology of affiliation and loneliness (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). Among the many insights that this body of research has provided is the way in which brain activation associated with the pain of social rejection resembles that related to physical pain (see Chapter 9).
Morality
One of the core components of moral behavior is the extent to which we help or harm others. Empathic feelings play a key role in decisions to help others. As mentioned earlier, social neuroscience has shown how the mirror neuron system is central to empathy and has opened up an entirely new way of thinking about altruistic behavior (Decety & Ickes, 2009). The neural basis for empathy and altruism will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 8.
Think Again!
1 What is reductivism?
2 How might social neuroscience illuminate the free will debate?
Final Thoughts: Evolution, Brain Plasticity, and Culture
One of the threads woven throughout this text is the evolutionary basis of social behavior. According to evolutionary theory, universal social behavior either is or must have been adaptive; otherwise, it would likely have been dropped from our behavioral repertoire by virtue of selection pressures on the gene pool. Social neuroscience—based in biology—falls under the evolutionary approach. Yet, as discussed in Chapter 1, social behavior is influenced by a number of other factors, such as culture, individual learning, and how people construe their world. Researchers used to think that the brain stopped developing relatively early in life and that the organization of neurons and the brain regions involved in specific activities were largely fixed. However, we know now that many neurons can regenerate and reorganize throughout the life cycle. Moreover, some changes in the brain (and even the genes) occur as a result of a person’s experience (Francis, 2011). That is, the brain exhibits plasticity or flexibility, which means that it is sensitive to external social, cultural, and environmental influences (Duffy & Kitayama, 2010). Evidence has been accumulating with regard to the coevolution of genes and culture, demonstrating that culture and genes have affected each other over the course of human evolution (Chiao, 2011; Donald, 2000; Richerson & Boyd, 2005). These and related findings bring home the lesson that a comprehensive understanding of social behavior requires examining it from multiple levels of explanation, including but not limited to social neuroscience.
Core Concepts
Dualism is the perspective that the mind operates independently of the body and is not constrained by it. Understanding the exact nature of the relationship between the two is called the mind/body problem.
Contemporary social psychologists view the mind as embodied or inextricably bound up with the body; the social brain is now seen as the default state of mind and mental processing.
The tripartite brain is composed of the reptilian, mammalian, and higher brains. The social brain hypothesis holds that increasingly large social networks produced pressures that selected for more sophisticated thinking and larger brains. The ecological hypotheses explain the larger brains as caused by nonsocial factors, but they have less empirical support than does the social brain hypothesis.
Neurons are the basic units of the brain and nervous system and have three major sections: soma, dendrites, and axons. Neurons communicate via neurotransmitter messages that are released across the synaptic gap, from the axon from one neuron to the dendrites of others.
The roles of five key neurotransmitters are discussed in the chapter: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, GABA, and acetylcholine.
Structures of the brain that are key to understanding social behavior include the prefrontal cortex, limbic system, thalamus and hypothalamus, and insula.
Social neuroscience is the interdisciplinary field devoted to the study of neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms and to the study of the associations and influences between social and biological levels of organization.
Social neuroscience uses a variety of methods to investigate the neurobiology of social behavior, and since each has its strengths and weaknesses, multiple methods are often used.
fMRI has been proposed as a method for detecting deception, but research has not supported its use.
The brain is clearly hardwired as a result of evolutionary processes; nevertheless, it is also surprisingly flexible or plastic, as it is capable of being rewired throughout the life cycle.
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Key Terms
Alleles, 59
Dualism, 45
Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), 63
