Social neuroscience

Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists. As such, Homo sapiens create emergent organizations beyond the individual—structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and cultures.

Overview

Social neuroscience investigates the biological mechanisms that underlie social processes and behavior, widely considered one of the major problem areas for the neurosciences in the 21st century, and applies concepts and methods from the neurosciences to develop theories of social processes and behavior in the social and behavioral sciences. Social neuroscience capitalizes on biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social behavior, and it uses social and behavioral constructs and data to advance theories of neural organization and function.

History

Throughout most of the 20th century, social and biological explanations were widely viewed as incompatible. But advances in recent years have led to the development of a new approach synthesized from the social and biological sciences. The new field of social neuroscience emphasizes the complementary relationship between the different levels of organization, spanning the social and biological domains (e.g., molecular, cellular, system, person, relational, collective), and the use of multi-level analyses to foster understanding of the mechanisms underlying the human mind and behavior.

Methods

A number of methods are used in social neuroscience to investigate the confluence of neural and social processes. These methods draw from behavioral techniques developed in social psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology, and are associated with a variety of neurobiological techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), positron emission tomography (PET), event-related potentials (ERP), electroencephalography (EEG), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and studies of patients with brain lesions.

See also

• Cognitive neuroscience
• Affective neuroscience
• Cultural neuroscience
• Evolutionary neuroscience
• Neuroanthropology
• Neuropsychology
• Neuroeconomics
• Neurophenomenology
• Neuropolitics
• Neuroethology
• Neurotheology

References

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External links

• Social Neuroscience online
• Society for Social Neuroscience