If you're reading this it's probably for one of two reasons: I threatened begged you, or you have at least a passing interested in brain science. Hopefully it's the latter. In this blog I hope to highlight some of the great research that is being done in the area Social Neuroscience, Social Psychology, and Social Cognition. I may include posts on other topics in psychology from time to time as well if I find them to be particularly interesting.
So many of you are wondering just what the heck is Social Neuroscience. In a nutshell, social neuroscience is basically a combination of social psychology (the study of how individuals and groups interact) and neuroscience (the scientific study of the nervous system). As social neuroscientists, we study how biological processes affect behavior and visa versa. Now I should be clear that I am merely a novice in this area. I'm doing research in this area while I pursue my bachelor's degree in psychology. I plan to study social neuroscience in grad school next fall, so don't be fooled. I am no expert! Therefore I will be referring to several experts in this field as we go on this neural journey. Some names that you'll see on this blog a lot are NYU professor David Amodio, Ph.D., and University of Chicago professor John Cacioppo, Ph.D. Both have published numerous studies in the area of race-based prejudice. Patricia Devine, Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin is another well-known social neuroscientist, along with Eddie-Harmon Jones, Ph.D., of Texas A&M. In my early posts you'll read a lot about Dr. James Sidanius. Sidanius is a social psychologist who, along with Dr. Felicia Pratto developed the concept of Social Dominance Orientation.
Social dominance is a measure of social attitudes, specifically egalitarian or anti-egalitarian beliefs. It proposes that certain individuals will tend to prefer hieracrchies because these individuals often benefit from that social order. Sidanius and Pratto (2001) offer many reasons for the existence of these hierarchies and how those at the top perpetuate anti-egalitarianism. I will discuss SDO in greater detail over the coming weeks.
While Sidanus and Pratto (2001) offter a more social view of discrimination, researchers at Harvard began to look at the nervous system and it's role in both passive and active prejudice. Social psychologist Anthony Greewnwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz developed the Implicit Associations Test to measure the unconscious processes that effect our behavior. Researchers developed this as a means to test implicit bias, since individuals are unlikely to explicitly state that they have bias against any particular group. The test measures response times to images of people from various social groups. I won't go into the dirty details of the study, I will, however encourage you to take the test. I think it's just one of those things you have to experience yourself.
I fall somewhere in between SDO and IAT. I believe that through evolutionary processes, we are hard-wired to adapt to certain things in the environment. We are programmed to seek out things perpetuate our existence (sex, food, sleep), and to avoid things that are bad for us, (poison, snakes, etc.). An aversion to poison seems to come naturally. Poison tastes bitter, so we avoid it. One can easily see how early humans developed taste receptors that could discriminate between poisonous plants and nutritious ones. Snakes are another example, but not quite as clear cut. Are we afraid of snakes because that fear is somehow innate, or are we socially conditioned to fear snakes? I think most people take the position that both explanations are true. So if that's the case, could we apply this conventional wisdom to our interactions with people? If so, what does that mean for human relations? Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb (1949) put forth a theory on synaptic plasticity: the idea that the more certain neural actions are preformed, the more they are reinforced. For example. Remember when you first started to drive? Your jerking and clumsy transitions from the break to gas pedals where probably enough to give your instructor the dry heaves. The movements involved in driving are very complicated. It's something our brain isn't used to preforming initially. From adjusting your mirror, to putting the car into drive and stepping on the gas pedals, it takes a while for this to become a seamless interaction of movements. But eventually it does, and you don't even have to think about what it took for you to go from leaving the driveway at your home to entering the office parking lot.
So what does this have to do with prejudice? We all know about the often negative portrayals of minority groups in the media. Having these images enter your brain on a regular basis is a way to socially condition an person to equate "black male," with "gun," or "woman" with "weak." If our brain can seamlessly associated "red light" with "stop," it makes sense that our brains can also make race or gender-prejudiced associations, and that these associations are not always conscious.
This is where my research interest lie. I want to look further into these associations, not because I want to prove that we're all hopeless bigots. To the contrary actually. If the brain can create these associations, we can also create new ones. That's the beauty of synaptic plasticity. But to do that we must know what's going on neuronally. Hopefully this blog will help -- just a little bit -- in that process.
So many of you are wondering just what the heck is Social Neuroscience. In a nutshell, social neuroscience is basically a combination of social psychology (the study of how individuals and groups interact) and neuroscience (the scientific study of the nervous system). As social neuroscientists, we study how biological processes affect behavior and visa versa. Now I should be clear that I am merely a novice in this area. I'm doing research in this area while I pursue my bachelor's degree in psychology. I plan to study social neuroscience in grad school next fall, so don't be fooled. I am no expert! Therefore I will be referring to several experts in this field as we go on this neural journey. Some names that you'll see on this blog a lot are NYU professor David Amodio, Ph.D., and University of Chicago professor John Cacioppo, Ph.D. Both have published numerous studies in the area of race-based prejudice. Patricia Devine, Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin is another well-known social neuroscientist, along with Eddie-Harmon Jones, Ph.D., of Texas A&M. In my early posts you'll read a lot about Dr. James Sidanius. Sidanius is a social psychologist who, along with Dr. Felicia Pratto developed the concept of Social Dominance Orientation.
Social dominance is a measure of social attitudes, specifically egalitarian or anti-egalitarian beliefs. It proposes that certain individuals will tend to prefer hieracrchies because these individuals often benefit from that social order. Sidanius and Pratto (2001) offer many reasons for the existence of these hierarchies and how those at the top perpetuate anti-egalitarianism. I will discuss SDO in greater detail over the coming weeks.
While Sidanus and Pratto (2001) offter a more social view of discrimination, researchers at Harvard began to look at the nervous system and it's role in both passive and active prejudice. Social psychologist Anthony Greewnwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz developed the Implicit Associations Test to measure the unconscious processes that effect our behavior. Researchers developed this as a means to test implicit bias, since individuals are unlikely to explicitly state that they have bias against any particular group. The test measures response times to images of people from various social groups. I won't go into the dirty details of the study, I will, however encourage you to take the test. I think it's just one of those things you have to experience yourself.
I fall somewhere in between SDO and IAT. I believe that through evolutionary processes, we are hard-wired to adapt to certain things in the environment. We are programmed to seek out things perpetuate our existence (sex, food, sleep), and to avoid things that are bad for us, (poison, snakes, etc.). An aversion to poison seems to come naturally. Poison tastes bitter, so we avoid it. One can easily see how early humans developed taste receptors that could discriminate between poisonous plants and nutritious ones. Snakes are another example, but not quite as clear cut. Are we afraid of snakes because that fear is somehow innate, or are we socially conditioned to fear snakes? I think most people take the position that both explanations are true. So if that's the case, could we apply this conventional wisdom to our interactions with people? If so, what does that mean for human relations? Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb (1949) put forth a theory on synaptic plasticity: the idea that the more certain neural actions are preformed, the more they are reinforced. For example. Remember when you first started to drive? Your jerking and clumsy transitions from the break to gas pedals where probably enough to give your instructor the dry heaves. The movements involved in driving are very complicated. It's something our brain isn't used to preforming initially. From adjusting your mirror, to putting the car into drive and stepping on the gas pedals, it takes a while for this to become a seamless interaction of movements. But eventually it does, and you don't even have to think about what it took for you to go from leaving the driveway at your home to entering the office parking lot.
So what does this have to do with prejudice? We all know about the often negative portrayals of minority groups in the media. Having these images enter your brain on a regular basis is a way to socially condition an person to equate "black male," with "gun," or "woman" with "weak." If our brain can seamlessly associated "red light" with "stop," it makes sense that our brains can also make race or gender-prejudiced associations, and that these associations are not always conscious.
This is where my research interest lie. I want to look further into these associations, not because I want to prove that we're all hopeless bigots. To the contrary actually. If the brain can create these associations, we can also create new ones. That's the beauty of synaptic plasticity. But to do that we must know what's going on neuronally. Hopefully this blog will help -- just a little bit -- in that process.
Holy cow, this is awesome! Now I understand what you feel like when I talk about cycling stuff. I think my brain exploded or did it? You're the brain expert, you tell me!
ReplyDeleteHaha! No it didn't explode. I'm pretty sure you'd have a hard time typing your comment if it did. You know, since you'd be dead. I think you make an interesting observation about learning though. Look up more on Donald Hebb and neuro/synaptic plasticity for more info. Learning new stuff is similar to getting fit, like preparing for a bike race. If you're new at it, you have to exercise those muscles to do what you want them to do. At first you're sore, tired, and not very good at it. But with more practice, your muscle fibers strengthen, and eventually "learn" to do what you want them to do.
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