How hard sciences are “interpenetrating” the social sciences
In his op-ed column, The Young and the Neuro, David Brooks writes that the attendees at last week’s Social and Affective Neuroscience Society conference were “young, hip and attractive.” These 30-something scholars from fields of psychology, economics, political science and beyond all have in common the hope that by looking into the brain they can help settle some old arguments about how people interact.
These folks are essentially trying to understand how social behavior changes biology as a complementary process to the way biology (genetics) directly influences behavior.
Brooks shares some great examples of research going on in this burgeoning field. These include perceptual studies of Arabs and Jews (how each perceive images of pain), Yankee and Red Sox fans watching baseball highlights (a look at how we process tribal dominance), and Americans and Japanese (reward structures of dominant versus subordinate behavior).
He concludes that “hard sciences are interpenetrating the social sciences.” This, he says, shines a bright light on “the things poets have traditionally cared about: the power of human attachments.”
