Neurology and interpersonal behavior

the basic challenge for neurosociology

Jonathan H. Turner

pp. 119-137

in: David D. Franks, Jonathan H. Turner (eds), Handbook of neurosociology, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

The theory of mind, as presently constituted, needs to be recast in a more sociological and evolutionary light. The process of intersubjectivity revolves around a series of interpersonal processes that can, I believe, be better conceptualized by extending G. H. Mead's notion of role-taking. In this chapter, I emphasize that intersubjectivity is achieved through simultaneous and complex processes revolving around the interpersonal capacities of humans for (1) role-taking and role-making, (2) status-taking and status-making, (3) culture-taking and culture-making, (4) motive-taking and motive-making, (5) emotion-taking and emotion-making, and (6) attribution-taking and attribution-making. Some of these behavioral capacities are evident in extant primates, but during the course of hominin evolution, the neurology of the hominin brain was rewired to increase dramatically the ability to engage these six interpersonal processes. Sociality and group formation are not natural to an evolved ape; they are the outcomes of rewiring the neurology of hominin brains over the last eight million years. This rewiring makes humans more social than the great apes, but it is a sociality that is precarious because of the lack of bio-programmers (in the brain) for strong social ties and cohesive group structures. Strong ties and stable group structures for humans are mediated by these six evolved interpersonal capacities, and at best, they only assure that rates of sociality and group formation will be higher among humans than great apes. But, as is all too evident, social relations and groups are precarious constructions that are often breached and that equally often break apart—thus illustrating that social structures among humans are not held together by powerful bio-programmers, as is the case with most other mammals.