Social Cognitive Neuroscience: a Review of Core Systems

C HAPTER 2 2 SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: A REVIEW OF CORE SYSTEMS Bruce P. Doré, Noam Zerubavel, and Kevin N. Ochsner Descartes famously argued that the mind is both SOCIAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE everlasting and indivisible (Descartes, 1988). If he APPROACH was right about the first part, he is probably pretty In the past decade, the field of social cognitive neuro- impressed with the advance of human knowledge science (SCN) has attempted to fill this gap, integrat- on the second. Although Descartes’ position on ing the theories and methods of two parent the indivisibility of the mind has been echoed at disciplines: social psychology and cognitive neurosci- times in the history of psychology and neuroscience. Stressing the interdependence of brain, mind, ence (Flourens & Meigs, 1846; Lashley, 1929; and social context, SCN seeks to explain psychological Uttal, 2003), the modern field has made steady phenomena at three levels of analysis: the neural level progress in demonstrating that subjective mental of brain systems, the cognitive level of information life can be understood as the product of distinct processing mechanisms, and the social level of the functional systems. Today, largely because of the experiences and actions of social agents (Ochsner & success of cognitive neuroscience models, Lieberman, 2001). In contrast to scientific approaches researchers understand that people’s intellectual that grant near exclusive focus to a single level of anal- faculties emerge from the operation of core ysis (e.g., behaviorism, artificial intelligence, elimina- systems that are instantiated by particular brain tive materialism), SCN researchers develop theories networks (Gazzaniga, 2009; Shallice, 1988). From that leverage data from each of these three levels, this perspective, the brain consists of a set of regarding them as complementary sources of informa- distinct but interacting information processing tion that enrich and mutually constrain the under- systems that carry out cognitive functions of per- standing of mental function (Cacioppo & Berntson, ception, attention, decision making, memory, 1992; Ochsner, 2007). Accordingly, SCN experiments executive control, and so forth. Without a doubt, typically involve manipulating and measuring vari- the breadth of these models is impressive, but ables at the social and neural levels and attempting to until relatively recently they have been incom- draw inferences about intervening psychological pro- plete in an important way. Namely, researchers in cesses. In service of this goal, SCN research makes use this tradition had placed scant emphasis on the of a wide array of tools, including complex social para- social and emotional abilities that account digms meant to model aspects of everyday social phe- for much of what makes human experience such nomena, tightly controlled cognitive tasks, and a complex and fascinating target of scientific neuroimaging as well as other biological measures. explanation. Bruce P. Doré and Noam Zerubavel contributed equally to this chapter. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14341-022 APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology: Vol. 1. Attitudes and Social Cognition, M. Mikulincer and P. R. Shaver (Editors-in-Chief) 693 Copyright © 2015 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Doré, Zerubavel, and Ochsner Integrating and categorizing data collected across understood as emerging from interactions of these these levels of analysis is inherently challenging, core systems. Finally, we consider the near future of especially when the theories and methods tradition- SCN in general and our processing stream model in ally applied to different levels have tended to particular, with an eye toward identifying exciting develop in relative isolation. Although it is clear that new questions about the basic nature and transla- different regions of the brain are associated with tional potential of these core systems. different psychological functions, finding psycho- Across topic areas and processing systems, we logical categories that “carve nature at its joints” is illustrate two types of goals that motivate SCN difficult because the natural ways of segmenting research (Ochsner, 2007). The first goal is exempli- concepts in psychology (or, for that matter, in fied in experiments designed to ask the question human language) may not map cleanly onto the “Where is psychological process X located in the brain (Barrett, 2009). Consequently, early attempters brain?” By carefully manipulating the psychological of this kind of categorization are like vegetarians state of research participants and observing resulting supplied with a turkey and an electric carving knife activity in particular brain regions or networks of in that their naiveté ran them the risk of misspecify- regions, such research allows for functional ing the boundaries of the natural world and passing inferences about what particular parts of the brain on a legacy of dyspepsia rather than enlightenment. do (this process is sometimes referred to as forward That said, without clear guiding principles it can be inference, or a brain mapping approach). Although difficult to figure out how the myriad and diverse clearly illuminating to a brain researcher, knowing pieces of data collected under the SCN umbrella fit the location of processes in the brain may not seem together, or how to prevent Thanksgiving from particularly informative to a social psychological devolving into a slapdash free-for-all. Some happy theorist. Critical consumers of this literature some- medium must be reached in which the processing times ask whether there are instances in which language researchers use to make sense of brain social psychological theories developed from behav- systems is useful both for that purpose and for ioral observation have needed to be updated in light connecting to higher level descriptions of behavior of SCN data (Kihlstrom, 2010). As it turns out, there and experience. are already several such instances (which we outline Keeping these precautions in mind, our over- here), and, moreover, there is reason to be optimistic arching goal in this chapter is to illustrate the SCN that they will occur with greater frequency and have approach at work in the context of key topics in more profound impact in the not-too-distant future. social psychology and social cognition research. As our repository of functional inference findings Rather than simply cataloguing the manifold brain grows, so too does researchers’ ability to use the regions implicated in social processing, we distill tools of neuroscience to ask social psychological findings from the SCN literature into a set of basic questions. The results of repeated imaging investiga- functional brain systems that together support a tions of a given task or psychological process give wide range of social cognitive abilities. Toward researchers an idea of how reliably a given psycho- these ends, this chapter has three parts. The first logical function is associated with activity in a cer- proposes a social cognitive processing stream con- tain brain region. With quantitative or qualitative sisting of six basic systems—three of which perform review of the broader imaging literature, researchers evaluative, regulatory, and self-representational can also make an estimate of the specificity with functions we have cast as intrapersonal and three of which activity in the region corresponds to that which perform perceptual and cognitive functions function (Poldrack, 2006; Yarkoni, Poldrack, Van that support the ability to understand other people, Essen, & Wager, 2010). Together, this information cast here as interpersonal. In the second part of this can be used to estimate the validity of a particular chapter, we attempt to explain how high-level social brain region as a marker of a specific psychological psychological phenomena—from morality and process, thereby laying the groundwork for the altruism to persuasion and romantic love—can be second goal of SCN research: using observed brain 694 Social Cognitive Neuroscience activity to draw psychological inferences (sometimes thing with interoceptive information from the body called reverse inferences) about the processes under- (Schachter & Singer, 1962), with resulting evalua- lying a given behavior or experience. Although functions playing central roles in approach and avoid- tional inferences are more prevalent in the literature ance behavior (Chen & Bargh, 1999), emotional and necessarily come first, every SCN experiment in experience (Russell, 2003), attitude formation a sense serves both functional and psychological (Eagly & Chaiken, 2007), decision making inferential goals by (1) providing additional infor- (Montague & Berns, 2002), and many other mation about brain regions activated by particular phenomena in psychology. It is hardly surprising psychological manipulations and (2) requiring that then that the evaluation system has long been of these results be placed in the context of previous interest in social psychology (Hovland, Janis, & research to draw inferences about the psychological Kelley, 1953; Thurstone, 1928). However, many processes that observed activations represent questions about the nature of evaluation and the ( Ochsner, 2007). In sum, by approaching neuroim- mechanisms underlying it have been difficult to aging with these two inferential goals in mind, SCN address through behavioral studies alone, prompting researchers can observe multiple psychological much recent

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