Abstract
In Chap. 3, David Franks demonstrates why neurosociology and social neuroscience can be seen as complimentary to each other. Once again, neurosociology diverges from time-honored academic traditions, in this case shedding what T. D. Kemper referred to as our fortress mentality. Ironically to some, this complimentarity can only be achieved efficiently by being very clear about the units of analysis that distinguish the disciplines. This would be an interactional unit of analysis in sociology and an individual one in psychology. G. H. Mead’s role-taking and his four-staged theory of the act exemplifies the more voluntaristic sociological unit of analysis while learning theory, applicable to all mammals, distinguishes the psychological one. Suggestions are made to what kind of cross-disciplinary research could be conducted that would contribute to both fields.
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Notes
- 1.
Valerie Stone (2006:106) is more specific: ToMs require “metarepresentations.” Some inferred mental states involve metarepresentational abilities and some do not. According to her, for example, inferring another’s emotional state does not have to involve representing a person’s mental state as a ToM. Insofar as mirror neurons simulate emotions unconsciously, this may well be correct.
- 2.
Read Montague, a social neuroscientist, is no stranger to voluntaristic frameworks as indicated by his work on social trust. In this context, he uses more of a rational choice psychology than learning theory. Talcott Parson’s theory of social action is also voluntaristic but Parsons is working on a structural level rather than a Meadian social psychological one.
- 3.
In the first chapter of Cacioppo et al. (Social Neuroscience 2006), Berntson is more cautious than the quotes above and than other authors in the book. He warns that it is too early to tell whether social processes reflect special brain processes. “We do not know enough about either social psychological process or brain mechanisms to answer this question at the present time. Brain localization can inform neuropsychological theories, but meaningful neurological theories will not be about places nor will…they be couched in the language of space. Rather they will have to incorporate fundamental underlying processes that subserve social processes.” Charles Kaplan in a personal communication suggests replacing “areas” with “circuitry.”
- 4.
Charles Kaplan tells me in a personal communication that he is experimenting with virtual reality solutions to this problem and that Read Montague is aware of this.
- 5.
But see Philip Gerrands in John Cacioppo and Berntson, Handbook of Social Neuroscience (2009). He is not so sure of this evidence but he does not go in depth into his reasons in this particular source.
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Franks, D.D. (2013). Why We Need Neurosociology as Well as Social Neuroscience: Or—Why Role-Taking and Theory of Mind Are Different Concepts. In: Franks, D.D., Turner, J.H. (eds) Handbook of Neurosociology. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4473-8_3
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