Franks Neurosociology

The Nexus Between Neuroscience and Social Psychology
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4419-5531-9
Verlag: Springer US
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 225 Seiten, eBook

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.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Franks, David D.

Franks, David

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The Evolution of the Human Brain.- What Is Social About the Human Brain?.- The New Unconscious: Agency and Awareness.- Mirror Neurons: A Return to Pragmatism and Implications for an Embodied Intersubjectivity.- The Neuroscience of Emotion and Its Relation to Cognition.- The Self in Neuroscience and Social Psychology.- Consciousness, Quale, and Subjective Experience.- The Place of Imitation in Social Life and Its Anatomical Brain Supports.- Determinism and Free Will.- Conclusion.

Leseproben

"Chapter 6 The Neuroscience of Emotion and Its Relation to Cognition (p. 105-106)

Thought by itself moves nothing (Socrates as quoted by Irwin 2007:161)

In recent years an appreciation for the emotional dimension of life has asserted itself in all of the major disciplines of the liberal arts. There is a good reason for this. While the dangers of passion are well known to all, this chapter will demonstrate neuroscience’s contributions toward making the case for the necessity of emotion for effective cognition.

As Socrates implies above, cognition alone and by itself lacks the capacity to move us to action or to grant a critical component to understandings and “realizations” that only experience can give. While an emotionally distanced attitude may be essential to science, as Scheffler (1982) observed, even the notion of the un-emotional scientist is incomplete. One can be passionately devoted to objectivity. If the “unexamined life is not worth living” certainly experience without emotion is pathologically empty.

One of the mnoost important contributions of neuroscience established in this chapter is that the brain can know the emotional quality of an object or an event before cognition and consciousness enter the scene. I will present the neurological pathways which contribute to this because the finding is so counterintuitive. Although this emotional appraisal may be outside of our awareness and lived experience, it has an enormous impact on the cognitive course of that experience.

We shall see that perspectives as different as philosophy, and artificial intelligence and neuroscience converge in recognizing the necessity of emotion for rational decision-making, bringing together two processes once viewed as diametrically opposed. This is only one of the fascinating examples of the capacity of neuroscience to penetrate the boundaries of academic divisions. This chapter will also address one of the most contentious problems in neuroscience – that of clearly articulating the senses in which cognition and emotion emerge from separate pathways of the brain and the senses in which they are intertwined and inseparable.

Evaluating this issue is still a challenge to the field of neuroscience and it is especially difficult for sociologists who are looking from the outside in. It is important nonetheless, for sociologists to become acquainted with the complexities of the issue and its various positions. There are many examples which suggest the ways in which the varied fields can be compatible. For example, many involved in genetics have come to appreciate the importance of the environment even as sociologists have recognized the importance of genes, although their effect on social activity is highly qualified. Neuroscientists have recognized the importance of self and the social nature of the brain, while sociologists have become interested inmirror neurons and their place in the development of language.

The Distinction between Unconscious Emotion and Conscious Feeling. In neuroscience this is evident in the reversal of the common sense notion of emotion. The traditional view put forward independently by William James and Carl Lange starts with something happening to trigger emotion. For example, losing someone we love or being insulted produces emotions like sorrow or simple anger, respectively, and these emotions lead us to weep or take steps to avenge the insult."