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This series aims to illustrate how social organization and private,
emotional experience are different phases of the social process. It
shows the steps by which emotional experience is shaped by social
structural process and how these processes are changed by
individuals' emotional experience.
As a career sociologist I ?rst became interested in neurosociology
around 1987 when a graduate student lent me Michael Gazzaniga's The
Social Brain. Ifthe biological human brain was really social, I
thought sociologists and their students should be the ?rst, not the
last, to know. As I read on I found little of the clumsy
reductionism of the earlier biosociologists whom I had learned to
see as the arch- emy of our ?eld. Clearly, reductionism does exist
among many neuroscientists. But I also found some things that were
very social and quite relevant for sociology. After reading
Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio, I learned how some types of
emotion were necessary for rational thought - a very radical
innovation for the long-honored "objective rationalist. " I started
inserting some things about split-brain research into my classes,
mispronouncing terms like amygdala and being corrected by my s-
dents. That instruction helped me realize how much we professors
needed to catch up with our students. I also wrote a review of
Leslie Brothers' Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human
Mind. I thought if she could write so well about social processes
maybe I could attempt to do something similar in connection with my
?eld. For several years I found her an e-mail partner with a
wonderful sense of humor. She even retrieved copies of her book for
the use of my graduate students when I had assigned it for a
seminar.
Until recently, a handbook on neurosociology would have been viewed
with skepticism by sociologists, who have long been protective of
their disciplinary domain against perceived encroachment by
biology. But a number of developments in the last decade or so have
made sociologists more receptive to biological factors in sociology
and social psychology. Much of this has been encouraged by the
coeditors of this volume, David Franks and Jonathan Turner. This
new interest has been increased by the explosion of research in
neuroscience on brain functioning and brain-environment interaction
(via new MRI technologies), with implications for social and
psychological functioning. This handbook emphasizes the integration
of perspectives within sociology as well as between fields in
social neuroscience. For example, Franks represents a social
constructionist position following from G.H. Mead's voluntaristic
theory of the act while Turner is more social structural and
positivistic. Furthermore, this handbook not only contains
contributions from sociologists, but leading figures from the
psychological perspective of social neuroscience.
This series aims to illustrate how social organization and private,
emotional experience are different phases of the social process. It
shows the steps by which emotional experience is shaped by social
structural process and how these processes are changed by
individuals' emotional experience.
As a career sociologist I ?rst became interested in neurosociology
around 1987 when a graduate student lent me Michael Gazzaniga's The
Social Brain. Ifthe biological human brain was really social, I
thought sociologists and their students should be the ?rst, not the
last, to know. As I read on I found little of the clumsy
reductionism of the earlier biosociologists whom I had learned to
see as the arch- emy of our ?eld. Clearly, reductionism does exist
among many neuroscientists. But I also found some things that were
very social and quite relevant for sociology. After reading
Descarte's Error by Antonio Damasio, I learned how some types of
emotion were necessary for rational thought - a very radical
innovation for the long-honored "objective rationalist. " I started
inserting some things about split-brain research into my classes,
mispronouncing terms like amygdala and being corrected by my s-
dents. That instruction helped me realize how much we professors
needed to catch up with our students. I also wrote a review of
Leslie Brothers' Fridays Footprint: How Society Shapes the Human
Mind. I thought if she could write so well about social processes
maybe I could attempt to do something similar in connection with my
?eld. For several years I found her an e-mail partner with a
wonderful sense of humor. She even retrieved copies of her book for
the use of my graduate students when I had assigned it for a
seminar.
This book offers an introduction to the fundamentals of
neurosociology and presents the newest issues and findings in the
field. It describes the evolution of the brain and its social
nature. It examines the concept of knowing and what can be known,
as well as the subjective sensations we experience. Next, it
explores the ubiquitousness of New Unconsciousness and the latest
conclusions about mirror neurons. Additional themes and concepts
described are sex differences in the brain, imitation, determinism
and agency. The book brings together neuroscience and sociology,
two fields that are very different in terms of method, theory,
tradition and practice. It does so building on the following
premise: If our brains have been forged evolutionarily over the
many centuries for social life, sociologists should have the
opportunity, if not the duty, to know about it whatever the
reservations of some who think that any approach that includes
biology must be reductionistic.
Until recently, a handbook on neurosociology would have been viewed
with skepticism by sociologists, who have long been protective of
their disciplinary domain against perceived encroachment by
biology. But a number of developments in the last decade or so have
made sociologists more receptive to biological factors in sociology
and social psychology. Much of this has been encouraged by the
coeditors of this volume, David Franks and Jonathan Turner. This
new interest has been increased by the explosion of research in
neuroscience on brain functioning and brain-environment interaction
(via new MRI technologies), with implications for social and
psychological functioning. This handbook emphasizes the integration
of perspectives within sociology as well as between fields in
social neuroscience. For example, Franks represents a social
constructionist position following from G.H. Mead's voluntaristic
theory of the act while Turner is more social structural and
positivistic. Furthermore, this handbook not only contains
contributions from sociologists, but leading figures from the
psychological perspective of social neuroscience.
This volume focuses on theory and research which lends insight into
how emotions are distributed, experienced and structured within
five broadly conceived institutional areas. These are: medical and
health care; family; work and leisure; education; and
clinical/counselling. The text seeks to offer the student of social
psychology, developmental psychology, cross-cultural psychology,
and cognitive anthropology insight into the role that emotional
experience plays in understanding society and culture at the close
of the 20th century. The volumes in this series illustrate how
social organization and private, emotional experience are different
phases of the social process. They show the steps by which
emotional experience is shaped by social structural, macro-level
processes.
This series aims to illustrate how social organization and private,
emotional experience are different phases of the social process. It
shows the steps by which emotional experience is shaped by social
structural process and how these processes are changed by
individuals' emotional experience.
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