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Exploring the Borderlands of Neuroscience and Social Science

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Neuroscience and Social Science

Abstract

The field of social cognitive affective neuroscience seems to overcome long-standing problems undermining old-fashioned cognitive neuroscience, such as its reductionist approach; its exclusion of affect, body, and culture in the comprehension of mental phenomena; and its propensity toward isolationist models over integrative or multilevel theories. Moreover, in this developing field, centuries-old arguments of incommensurability between natural and human sciences can be reframed as little more than pseudoproblems. The apparent paradigm shift inherent in social cognitive neuroscience entails new conceptual, methodological, metatheoretical, and aesthetic questions. Also, it gives rise to novel problems as it taxes the boundaries with other disciplines. Many of these dynamical tensions among related fields of knowledge, which are often left implicit, continue to change across domains and periods. Here we chart such new borderlands and summarize the contributions comprised in the present book. Neuroscience and Social Science: The Missing Link engages empirical researchers and theorists around the world in an attempt to integrate perspectives from many relevant disciplines, separating real from spurious divides between them and delineating new challenges for future investigation. The volume is organized in four sections. Section A is devoted to neuroscientific research on specific domains of social cognition, ranging from social emotions, negotiation, cooperation, and interpersonal coordination to empathy and morality. Section B focuses on the impact of social neuroscience in specific social spheres, namely, the clinical field, psychotherapeutic settings, and the mass media. Section C encompasses works on the integration of social and neuroscientific insights to approach matters as pressing as poverty, socioeconomic inequality, health, and well-being. Finally, Section D offers philosophical contributions on theoretical, methodological, and even ethical questions arising from such promising interdisciplinary encounter. Through this wide-ranging proposal, the volume promotes novel reflections on a much-needed marriage while opening opportunities for social neuroscience to plunge from the laboratory into the core of social life.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by CONICET, CONICYT/FONDECYT (Regular 1170010), FONCyT-PICT (2012-0412 and 2012-1309), FONDAP (15150012), and the INECO Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT), INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Agustín Ibáñez, Lucas Sedeño & Adolfo M. García

  2. National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Agustín Ibáñez, Lucas Sedeño & Adolfo M. García

  3. Universidad Autónoma del Caribe, Barranquilla, Colombia

    Agustín Ibáñez

  4. Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile

    Agustín Ibáñez

  5. Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Australian Research Council (ACR), Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Agustín Ibáñez

  6. Faculty of Education, National University of Cuyo (UNCuyo), Mendoza, Argentina

    Adolfo M. García

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  1. Agustín Ibáñez
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  3. Adolfo M. García
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Correspondence to Agustín Ibáñez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT) INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Agustín Ibáñez

  2. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT) INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Lucas Sedeño

  3. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience (LPEN), Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience (INCYT) INECO Foundation, Favaloro University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Adolfo M. García

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Ibáñez, A., Sedeño, L., García, A.M. (2017). Exploring the Borderlands of Neuroscience and Social Science. In: Ibáñez, A., Sedeño, L., García, A. (eds) Neuroscience and Social Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68421-5_1

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