
Neurosociology
The Nexus Between Neuroscience and Social Psychology
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The goal of this ground-breaking volume is to present how neuroscience research is relevant to sociologists and social psychologists as well as examining those areas of neuroscience that can refine and broaden sociological theory.
The study of the brain and its effect on behavior grew to prominence in the mid-20th century. Neuroscientists and psychologists worked together in this area in the behavioral sciences but neuroscience has not had a big impact in sociology and the social sciences.
Recently, neuroscientists have presented new research which has a direct impact on many areas of sociology. These include the human "self", the social nature of mind, socialization and language acquisition, role-taking and role-making, consciousness, intersubjectivity, a balanced social constructionism, human agency and the necessity of emotion for rational decision making. These are only some of the areas of sociology which and to which they have contributed important refinements.
The study of the brain and its effect on behavior grew to prominence in the mid-20th century. Neuroscientists and psychologists worked together in this area in the behavioral sciences but neuroscience has not had a big impact in sociology and the social sciences.
Recently, neuroscientists have presented new research which has a direct impact on many areas of sociology. These include the human "self", the social nature of mind, socialization and language acquisition, role-taking and role-making, consciousness, intersubjectivity, a balanced social constructionism, human agency and the necessity of emotion for rational decision making. These are only some of the areas of sociology which and to which they have contributed important refinements.
As a career sociologist I ?rst became interested in neurosociology around 1987 when a graduate student lent me Michael Gazzaniga's The Social Brain. Ifthe biological human brain was really social, I thought sociologists and their students should be the ?rst, not the last, to know. As I read on I found little of the clumsy reductionism of the earlier biosociologists whom I had learned to see as the arch- emy of our ?eld. Clearly, reductionism does exist among many neuroscientists. But I also found some things that were very social and quite relevant for sociology. After reading Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio, I learned how some types of emotion were necessary for rational thought - a very radical innovation for the long-honored "objective rationalist. " I started inserting some things about split-brain research into my classes, mispronouncing terms like amygdala and being corrected by my s- dents. That instruction helped me realize how much we professors needed to catch up with our students. I also wrote a review of Leslie Brothers' Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human Mind. I thought if she could write so well about social processes maybe I could attempt to do something similar in connection with my ?eld. For several years I found her an e-mail partner with a wonderful sense of humor. She even retrieved copies of her book for the use of my graduate students when I had assigned it for a seminar.