The New body-mind connection

NKD: So it spans "cells and society." What logic ties the two together?

JTC: The human species is an incredibly social organism. As animals go, we're not especially strong or fast, so we survive by being Smart and forming groups. To understand the human brain, it helps to think about social contexts, behavior and implications--and vice versa.

NKD: How is this approach to neuroscience different from others?

JTC: Historically, neuroscience concerned anatomy and cellular processes, while interactions between individuals were the bailiwick of the social sciences. Social neuroscience cuts across these domains. Consider chemists. In the lab, they use the periodic table of elements. When they cook dinner, they use recipes. Their use of recipes doesn't deny that foods have a biochemical basis. It's just simpler to think of dinner in terms of temperatures and time in the oven. Similarly, to think in cultural, psychological or behavioral terms doesn't deny a biological basis to it all. It's sometimes more efficient to be able to work at several different levels of organization.

NKD: For example?

JTC: Take smoking. In 1999, the U.S. Justice Department pressured tobacco companies to change their advertising practices. That same year, a gene was linked to a predisposition toward smoking. In response to that finding, Newsweek magazine commented, "So maybe it's not those Joe Camel ads after all" reflecting a common tendency to treat social and genetic factors as rivals. Social neuroscience would put the two together. For example, whether a genetic predisposition actually leads to smoking may depend on peer influence and advertising. The social world modulates gene expression in almost everything we do, so we must consider both.

NKD: Can you describe research in which using this approach paid off?

JTC: Oh, sure. In a study with monkeys, amphetamines [which stimulate the nervous system] didn't seem to have an effect. Then the researchers looked at their social hierarchy and found that the drug increased the dominant behavior of the dominant animals and increased the submissive behavior of the submissive animals. This important drug effect would have been invisible without both the neuroscience and social perspectives.

NKD: Why is social neuroscience beginning to gain momentum now?

JTC: This is a unique time. Brain imaging technology and the declaration of the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain have contributed. Also, psychology has matured and is asking more complicated questions that require an integrative approach. Finally, unlike 100 years ago when acute infections were a leading cause of death, disease now is more chronic and related to behavioral and social processes. So learning how stress, dietary habits, socioeconomic status and other psychosocial factors affect the body and brain is moving up the health research agenda.

NKD: What can the public get out of social neuroscience?

JTC: People are inherently interested in human nature, in ourselves. "Why do we exist?" "Why does my teenager behave that way?" "Why did my marriage fail?" The public will be enriched by thinking about how the biological and cultural aspects of being human engage in an intricate dance that is continuously sculpted over time. More concretely, we need to be able to solve society's problems, and combining the social and biological is key. I would suggest that if someone says, 'I've got the key, and it is 'nature,'" or, "it is 'nurture...'"

NKD: Don't buy it.

JTC: Run.

NKD: But thinking on these levels simultaneously is a challenge.

JTC: True. But challenges are exciting, and you can feel particularly good if you succeed. In this case, I think scientists and the public alike are going to experience that success.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): John T. Cacioppo

Nancy K. Dess, is a professor of psychology at Occidental College and senior scientist at the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C.