Social Neuroscience: The Brain As An Icon Of Our Culture

Neuroscience is revealing countless secrets about the brain. So much so that to limit ourselves to only the biological vision of the brain would limit a large part of its essence and lose its other great value: its cultural value. Hence, areas such as social neuroscience focus their interest on these other “synapses”, those between mental processes and our social practices.

One thing that many neuropsychologists advocate is the need to articulate the science of brain studies with other areas of knowledge that comprise our current world in the same theoretical framework. It is increasingly common to hear terms such as “neuroeconomics,” “ neuroeducation,” “neuromarketing,” or “neurolinguistics,” etc.

Addressing challenges that would initially be the responsibility of a single specialty from a multidisciplinary perspective would allow us to increase our knowledge exponentially. Thus, areas such as social neuroscience itself are currently emerging as a necessary resource for understanding processes as relevant as our social behavior, aggression, violence, stress, and empathy.

The goal, therefore, could not be more ambitious. The aim is to incorporate into social, cultural, economic, and educational theory all the research related to the theory of the mind, the brain, genes, etc. In this way, we can analyze much better how all the social processes that make up a given society are created and developed.

Social neuroscience: the need to understand the relationship between mind and culture

We have all heard of mirror neurons. It was in 1996 when the team of Giacomo Rizzolatti, a well-known neurologist from the University of Parma (Italy), discovered a curious group of neurons that were activated only when people (and also animals) observed the behavior or emotional expressions of their peers.

This was a breakthrough in the field of behavioral sciences and biology, and it also had a major impact on social neuroscience. Mirror neurons represent the organic foundations that make it easier for us to understand the behavior of others, allowing us to imitate certain actions to learn, and also helping us in social interaction. They are, so to speak, the building blocks of our culture.

This fact is just one example. An example of how our neuronal, hormonal, and cellular mechanisms have built what we understand as culture and society. Perhaps for this reason, those who were first interested in this field of study were the anthropologists of the early twentieth century.

Thus, names such as Robert Hertz, a disciple of Émile Durkheim, laid the foundations of this discipline with essays such as those relating to the ambidextrous faculties of the Maori and their brain development about their culture.

The need to create an interdisciplinary science

Following the early work of anthropologists and sociologists trying to understand the link between the psyche and the development of cultures, psychologists Cacioppo and Berston wanted to go further and create the    Society for Social Neuroscience.  This decision was a challenge to psychologists and neurologists of the time because many of them could not conceive of delving into something that extended beyond the very limits of the human skull.

However, pressure from numerous scientists, sociologists, and biologists ended up shaping this area of ​​knowledge, responding to a need as basic as it was pressing. Culture and all social processes cannot be understood if we do not first understand the mental dynamics that promote all those dynamics that make up our sociological fabric.

The opposite is also true. Our culture and all its products, patterns, and schemes determine who we are, how we process information, and even what we feel.

It is a direct and powerful bidirectional influence. Thus, social neuroscience is a branch of cognitive neuroscience that allows us to understand social behavior and, in turn, understand those mechanisms with which we generate new values, and shape new behaviors and needs in a world that never stops changing and advancing.

Fields of study in social neuroscience

Every cultural and social expression is a product of our brain. Let’s think, for example, of a song by the Beatles. Any of them represents the essence of a historical moment as well as an example of our musical culture.

Now, if we go further, we can also study how and in what way they were created, what neural mechanisms shape inventiveness and creativity, and how, in turn, music and those lyrics can move us today.

On the other hand, an essential aspect that should be understood about social neuroscience is the one related to its fields of study. We are referring to those areas where the neurobiological interrelates with the social. They are the following:

• Theory of mind.  This concept refers to our cognitive ability to understand and predict the behavior of others. Likewise, humans are also capable of predicting “mental states” in those around us to use that information to our advantage.
• Empathy and emotions.  The study of emotions is a fundamental pillar for understanding our social cognitions and behaviors.
• Self-awareness.  Self-awareness could not occur and develop in each of us if we did not interact with others. Our interactions and the judgments we make about them build our sense of self, as explained in a study conducted at the Department of Psychology at the University of California.
• Attitudes and prejudices:  These dimensions have an essential relevance in our social lives and identities.
• Social relations and the social world. In this field of study, we undoubtedly need the collaboration of all those areas that define any society: education, economics, politics, medicine, advertising… They are all pieces of a complex puzzle that build everything we are and what we do.

As we can see, few disciplines can shed such a revealing light on all those micro-sociological aspects that shape the shape of a country, a community, a particular social group, and an entire nation. Hence, an interdisciplinary approach is needed where every contribution is not only positive but necessary. Social neuroscience can give us great answers to the simplest questions we may have ever asked ourselves.