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Public Engagement with Neuroscience The Brain in Society: Public Engagement with Neuroscience Cliodhna O’Connor Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University College London September 2013 DECLARATION I, Cliodhna O’Connor, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. ____________________________________________ Cliodhna O’Connor 1 DEDICATION To Mom and Dad, with love and thanks 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first thanks go to my supervisor, Hélène Joffe, who has guided and encouraged me tirelessly over the last three years. I will always be grateful for the time and energy that she has devoted to my work. The research would not have been possible without the financial support that I received from several sources: the EPSRC; the Faraday Institute for Science & Religion at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge; the Easter Week 1916 commemoration scholarship scheme; the UCL Graduate School Research Projects Fund; and the UCL Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology. I very much appreciate all of these contributions. The work presented in this thesis owes much to countless conversations I have had with colleagues, both within and outside UCL. The comments of the editors and anonymous reviewers of the journals to which I submitted articles over the course of my PhD were extremely helpful in refining my ideas, as were the audiences at the various conferences and workshops at which I presented my research. I would also like to thank Caroline Bradley for her help in the analysis stages. Finally, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my family, friends and boyfriend for their constant support throughout the last three years. 3 ABSTRACT The early years of the 21st century were marked by the increasing prominence of neuroscientific ideas in wider society. The proliferation of neuroscience has been accompanied by lively debate, alternately excited and apprehensive, about its societal significance. However, consideration of neuroscience’s cultural implications has largely remained speculative due to a paucity of research that directly examines how publics engage with neuroscientific ideas. Drawing on Social Representations Theory and the principles of embodied phenomenology, this thesis aims to map the contours of the neuroscientific knowledge that surfaces in ordinary, everyday life in contemporary Britain. Its investigation focuses upon two empirical contexts, cataloguing the representations of brain research that materialise in (i) the mainstream print media, and (ii) the common-sense understanding revealed by a series of semi-structured interviews with London residents. A content analysis of 3,630 newspaper articles confirms that the period 2000-2012 saw a steady expansion of neuroscience’s prominence in public dialogue, primarily within appeals to readers to optimise their brain function by moderating their mental activity, nutritional intake and lifestyle choices. Thematic analysis of 48 interviews, however, suggests that laypeople have remained largely unaware of the media attention afforded to neuroscience, with the brain occupying a negligible space in people’s day-to-day thought and conversation. Interview respondents situated brain research within the socially distant ‘other worlds’ of science and medicine, characterising direct experience of brain-related pathology as the only context that would motivate them to engage with neuroscientific knowledge. However, more latent meanings attached to the brain surfaced as the interviews progressed: the brain was also constituted as a tool over which individuals can exert control, and as a source of human variation, invoked to articulate and explain social differences. Through rigorous analysis of original empirical data, this thesis traces the paths by which neuroscientific ideas travel through the public sphere, distinguishes how they are elaborated and re-constituted en route, and explores the implications this may have for social life. 4 PUBLICATIONS The work reported in this thesis has thus far given rise to the following publications: O’Connor, C., & Joffe, H. (2013). How has neuroscience affected lay understandings of personhood? A review of the evidence. Public Understanding of Science, 22, 254- 268. O’Connor, C., & Joffe, H. (2013). Media representations of early human development: Protecting, feeding and loving the developing brain. Social Science & Medicine, 97, 297-306. O’Connor, C., Rees, G., & Joffe, H. (2012). Neuroscience in the public sphere. Neuron, 74, 220-226. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ................................................................................................................... 1 DEDICATION ...................................................................................................................... 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... 3 ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... 4 PUBLICATIONS ................................................................................................................... 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................ 6 TABLE OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... 11 TABLE OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... 12 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 13 1.1 Setting the Scene: The Rise of Neuroscience ................................................... 15 1.2 Public Engagement with Science ...................................................................... 18 1.2.1 The position of science in contemporary society ....................................... 18 1.2.2 Researching public engagement with science ........................................... 20 1.3 The Story So Far: Neuroethics and Critical Neuroscience ............................... 22 1.4 The Scope of the Thesis: Some Caveats and Definitions ................................. 26 1.5 Thesis Outline ................................................................................................... 27 2 NEUROSCIENCE IN SOCIETY: THE EVIDENCE TO DATE ......................................... 29 2.1 Neuroscience in the Media................................................................................ 29 2.2 Neuroscientific Imagery ................................................................................... 33 2.3 Public Awareness of Neuroscience ................................................................... 35 2.4 Neuroscience and Common-Sense Understandings ......................................... 39 2.4.1 Does neuroscience foster a biological conception of the self? ................. 39 2.4.2 Does neuroscience portray individual fate as pre-determined? ............... 43 2.4.3 Do neuroscientific explanations reduce stigma?....................................... 47 2.5 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................. 51 3 A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WITH NEUROSCIENCE: SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS THEORY AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EMBODIMENT .................................................................................................................. 52 3.1 Social Representations Theory ......................................................................... 53 3.1.1 A tale of two universes: Science and common-sense ................................. 54 3.1.2 The process of social representation: Anchoring and objectification ....... 57 3.1.3 Affect and identity ...................................................................................... 60 3.1.4 The individual and society ......................................................................... 64 3.1.5 The role of the mass media in social representation ................................. 66 3.2 Embodiment and the Construction of Social Knowledge ................................. 69 6 3.2.1 The position of the body in existing SRT literature ................................... 69 3.2.2 Embodied cognition ................................................................................... 73 3.2.3 How might embodiment influence engagement with neuroscience? ......... 76 3.3 Chapter Summary ............................................................................................. 80 4 MEDIA STUDY: DESIGN & METHODOLOGY ........................................................... 81 4.1 Rationale for Media Analysis ........................................................................... 81 4.2 Content analysis: An Introduction .................................................................... 82 4.2.1 Sample construction .................................................................................. 83 4.2.2 Inductive and deductive code development ............................................... 85 4.2.3 Unit of analysis .......................................................................................... 86 4.2.4 The quantitative-qualitative balance ......................................................... 86 4.2.5 Reliability of analysis ...............................................................................
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