Social Neuroscience ─ People Thinking About Thinking People

Social neuroscience uses the methodologies and tools developed to measure mental andbrain function to study social cognition, emotion, and behavior. In this collection John Cacioppo,Penny Visser, and Cynthia Pickett have brought together contributions from psychologists,neurobiologists, psychiatrists, radiologists, and neurologists that focus on the neurobiologicalunderpinnings of social information processing, particularly the mechanisms underlying "peoplethinking about thinking people." In these studies such methods as functional brain imaging,studies of brain lesion patients, comparative analyses, and developmental data are brought to bearon social thinking and feeling systems--the ways in which human beings influence and are influencedby other humans. The broad range of disciplines represented by the contributors confirms that amongthe strengths of social neuroscience are its interdisciplinary approach and the use of multiplemethods that bridge disciplines and levels of analysis.

Penny S. Visser is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and editor of a special issue of Political Psychology on social neuroscience.