The Neuroscience of Social Cognition

Social neuroscience is one of the newest and most rapidly expanding areas in the field of social cognition. In this chapter, the authors describe how the social neuroscience approach has been used to address classic and contemporary issues in this field. The chapter begins with a brief primer on cognitive neuroscience that highlights major brain regions currently studied by social cognition researchers and the techniques commonly used to measure brain activity. The authors then discuss the types of questions a social neuroscience approach can address, noting critical methodological issues to consider when bridging psychological and physiological levels of analysis. Next, key social neuroscience findings across major areas of social cognition research are described, with an emphasis on how the neuroscience approach has advanced theories about social cognitive mechanism. Finally, the authors discuss some challenges and limitations of social neuroscience research and comment on its future directions.