An Interdisciplinary Foundation for Understanding Human Sociality: Biological and Social Factors in Mental Illness

• In Event: 110 - Regular Session. Biosociology/Biosocial Interaction

Abstract

Modern neuroscientific research into the biological bases of human sociality requires reexamination of sociological theorizing from the period of the discipline’s founding until the present. We review the problems with the early efforts of Spencer and Sumner to establish a disciplinary connection with evolutionary biology as well as the rejection of a connection to biology by Durkheim and Weber. We then discuss the history of neuroscientific research and the discoveries that have led to recognition of the neural foundation of human sociality and the resulting changes in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. Findings in four areas—the social brain, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, and evolutionary biology—have transformed the potential for enriching sociological analysis with consideration of biological influences. Research on serious mental illness is used to identify the value of this interdisciplinary perspective and theories in social psychology are reviewed that provide particularly fruitful points of interdisciplinary connection.

Authors

• Russell K. Schutt, University of Massachusetts-Boston

• Larry J. Seidman, Harvard University

• Matcheri S. Keshavan, Harvard University