Noise-Killers

Today, my thoughtful co-worker Jerry brought to work the "noise killers" he was issued in the Navy, during his service in the seventies. I've seen similar "noise-cancelling" headphones at the big Box store, and thought of buying a (expensive) pair, so I was delighted to try Jerry's set out for free.

They work like a charm. It's really a bear to concentrate in a cubical when you're writing (even with an iPod on), what with all the wild inter-cube and office ruckus. With these heavy-duty plastic earmuffs on, you can barely hear a thing.

I have super-hearing -- perhaps a quasi-"proto-Aspie" trait of mine -- and I often find environmental noise quite irritating. Lately, I've even taken to wearing the foam earplugs I used to wear only while sleeping, to read in my apartment. Without the earplugs I can hear a TV set yammering three or four apartments away, or the constantly screaming kids in the pool. I really hate hearing moffled yet somehow still loud cheering and clapping during TV sports broadcasts.

I'd love to try these noise-killers out while sleeping. I already wear a mouth guard (thanks to grinding my teeth), foam earplugs, a CPAP mask, and an eyeshade. Perhaps I could combine most of this gear into a mask/helmet, and experience total sensory deprivation. How I miss the youthful days of simply lying down, closing my eyes, and going (and staying) asleep.

Memory contest experts rig up blacked-out glasses and earmuffs to enhance their powers of concentration. It really is impressive how much more you can focus at the office with these noise-killers on. Of course you also look like a dork, but what the hey.





David Rock: Managing with the Brain in Mind

Neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace.

by David Rock

 

Illustration by Leigh Wells

Naomi Eisenberger, a leading social neuroscience researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), wanted to understand what goes on in the brain when people feel rejected by others.

She designed an experiment in which volunteers played a computer game called Cyberball while having their brains scanned by a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

Cyberball hearkens back to the nastiness of the school playground. “People thought they were playing a ball-tossing game over the Internet with two other people,” Eisenberger explains. “They could see an avatar that represented themselves, and avatars [ostensibly] for two other people. Then, about halfway through this game of catch among the three of them, the subjects stopped receiving the ball and the two other supposed players threw the ball only to each other.”

Even after they learned that no other human players were involved, the game players spoke of feeling angry, snubbed, or judged, as if the other avatars excluded them because they didn’t like something about them.

This reaction could be traced directly to the brain’s responses. “When people felt excluded,” says Eisenberger, “we saw activity in the dorsal portion of the anterior cingulate cortex — the neural region involved in the distressing component of pain, or what is sometimes referred to as the ‘suffering’ component of pain. Those people who felt the most rejected had the highest levels of activity in this region.” In other words, the feeling of being excluded provoked the same sort of reaction in the brain that physical pain might cause. (See Exhibit 1.)

Eisenberger’s fellow researcher Matthew Lieberman, also of UCLA, hypothesizes that human beings evolved this link between social connection and physical discomfort within the brain “because, to a mammal, being socially connected to caregivers is necessary for survival.” This study and many others now emerging have made one thing clear: The human brain is a social organ. Its physiological and neurological reactions are directly and profoundly shaped by social interaction. Indeed, as Lieberman puts it, “Most processes operating in the background when your brain is at rest are involved in thinking about other people and yourself.”

This presents enormous challenges to managers. Although a job is often regarded as a purely economic transaction, in which people exchange their labor for financial compensation, the brain experiences the workplace first and foremost as a social system.

Like the experiment participants whose avatars were left out of the game, people who feel betrayed or unrecognized at work — for example, when they are reprimanded, given an assignment that seems unworthy, or told to take a pay cut — experience it as a neural impulse, as powerful and painful as a blow to the head. Most people who work in companies learn to rationalize or temper their reactions; they “suck it up,” as the common parlance puts it.

But they also limit their commitment and engagement. They become purely transactional employees, reluctant to give more of themselves to the company, because the social context stands in their way.

Leaders who understand this dynamic can more effectively engage their employees’ best talents, support collaborative teams, and create an environment that fosters productive change. Indeed, the ability to intentionally address the social brain in the service of optimal performance will be a distinguishing leadership capability in the years ahead.

Triggering the Threat Response

One critical thread of research on the social brain starts with the “threat and reward” response, a neurological mechanism that governs a great deal of human behavior.

When you encounter something unexpected — a shadow seen from the corner of your eye or a new colleague moving into the office next door — the limbic system (a relatively primitive part of the brain, common to many animals) is aroused.

 Neuroscientist Evian Gordon refers to this as the “minimize danger, maximize reward” response; he calls it “the fundamental organizing principle of the brain.”

Neurons are activated and hormones are released as you seek to learn whether this new entity represents a chance for reward or a potential danger. If the perception is danger, then the response becomes a pure threat response — also known as the fight or flight response, the avoid response, and, in its extreme form, the amygdala hijack, named for a part of the limbic system that can be aroused rapidly and in an emotionally overwhelming way.

For more, go to:

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/09306?gko=5df7f

How to get re-elected?

~ Obama on 'The View' where the most serious question asked was most likely the President's favorite cookie.  We are assuming at some point in the interview Hasselbeck broke down and cried.

The real title of this post is "How to get re-elected when doing little to nothing in the first term of office to deserve it?"   It just was a wee bit too long to fit up above..

It takes great skill to be an incumbent who has done very little to nothing to improve the US economy after four years and still be in a very good position to win re-election in November.   Of course running against a deeply out-of-touch candidate with no empathy or true understanding for the bottom 99% (Romney) helps considerably..

But let's go beyond that-- Our question isn't so much how the President will be able to hoodwink most people into believing that magically a 2nd term will make their lives dramatically better.  Rather, how he was able to successfully hold back the economic and military floodgates that would normally have doomed his re-election chances, until after November 6th?

Here's how:

~Yuk-yukking it up with the President; Letterman makes $26mil/yr.  To be fair, even if Letterman wasn't an Obama idolizer, he'd still be a piece of shit adulturer who enjoyed sex with one of his staffers who was half his age

1)  Push any debate/decision on raising the National Debt ceiling until after the election:  

On August 1, 2011, an agreement was met between the President and Congress to raise the National Debt by around $2.4 Trillion.  Prior to the agreement, it was quite a nasty debate full of political posturing.

In order for Obama to agree to any escalation, Congress would have to agree on a figure large enough that another debate and vote would be delayed until after the election so the President wouldn't have to deal with this hot-potato topic.

Because Congress is full of cowards who also have to run for re-election including 1/3 of the Senate and every member of the House of Representative, they readily agreed.

Prior to the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, the debt ceiling was last raised on February 12, 2010 to $14.294 trillion

The current National Debt is at $16.074 Trillion.  Federal Tax Revenue is at $2.3 Trillion, meaning if 100% of all taxes collected went solely to pay the US debt and not a penny going to any other Department or Government program, it would take about 5 full years to pay off the Debt.

~ The First Lady making a pitch for kids to eat healthy on Sesame Street.. 'Don't forget to eat your fruits and veggies kids.. and tell your parents to vote for my husband'

Because the current Debt ceiling is at $16.4T, that gives everyone running for relection the opportunity to wipe the topic under the rug (and distract the public from focusing upon it) until after November.

2)  Avert a market crisis by any hook, trick or scheme necessary:

A couple weeks ago, the Fed Chairman decided to play dispense with all illusions that his position is not political by stating the Fed was going to purchase $40bil/month in Mortgage backed securities until... well until forever.  This was known as QE3.

That's what happens when the Presidential challenger says if elected President he's going to get rid of you because you're terrible (which in the case of the bearded bastard, Bernanke is 100% true)   Wouldn't you do the same if you were a little power-hungry worm wanting to keep your title?

It was meant to spark the stock market to keep rising.  So far as predicted, it has succeeded, causing the market to rise over 2% in just a couple weeks. This makes the soulless money hungry Investors very happy and they tend to show their pleasure via political donations.

In addition, to the vast multitude of deeply ignorant Americans who know next to nothing about the economy or finance, they see a rising stock market and infer the economy 'must' be improving. Even those with no financial connection, their simple brains translate Dow UP to 'hope'..  Thus, 'let's' reward the incumbent with 'our' vote.

~ Leno, another Late Night brown-noser suck-up desperately trying to be funny. He used to make $30m/yr; Now 'only' $15m

In the case of Europe, former Goldman Sachs VP Mario Draghi, the one directly responsible to hiding Greek debts so the poor nation could fake its way into the Eurozone, decided a month ago to play 'Fed' and open the euro spigots with hundreds of billions in free money for Europe's markets..   just enough to calm it until...  yes... you got it..  November.

3)  Convey an improving economy without having to actually fix it:

How do you get just under 15% true unemployment to appear to look like 8.1%  Oh there's lots of ways-- First you change the parameters of who is counted unemployed.  This goes back to the Clinton years and still in effect today..  the 'U6' factors just don't matter in tabulating the joblessness figures.

Then when no one is hiring but you need to show steady decline in the unemployment rate, you just roll hundreds of thousands of people off the statistical rolls... they're no longer 'unemployed' even though they are... Ta Da!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics complies the data.. They are part of the Labor Department.  Each President has a Secretary of Labor who runs it...   Are you connecting the dots yet?   And how is the figures compiled?  The BLS samples 5% of the top fortune 500 companies and from those findings, represent the greater US jobs picture.

~ Dancin' with Ellen Degeneres--  Its very important for a President to be able to 'get Down & Boogie!'

A person out of work for years with no real reason to feel optimistic will see the unemployment figure drop, not have the slightest clue why, and feel... yes... Hopeful.  And guess who gets his/her vote?  Not the challenger...

Manipulative polling by the Consumer Confidence Board and other polling agencies help too.   The more people spend and get into debt, the "better" the consumer is supposedly feeling about the economy.  When people are increasing their card use, its not because they've run out of cash... no no..  its because they feel so confident, they are excited to shop... etc...etc..

And gas prices.. its still high... but always time to get them lower by November.  Just negotiate a backdoor deal with Saudi Arabia... or spread the threat of opening up US oil reserves to get the price of oil to temporary drop to the $80 range by election... After that, ehh~

4)  Convey that Administration is taking leading role in prosecuting Wall St ONLY when polls show a tightening race

President Obama's mortgage fraud task force, set up at the beginning of the year to snuff out illegal practices that occurred during the height of the U.S. financial crisis, finally brought its first big case Monday.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has been slapped with a $2 billion lawsuit, one that alleges fraud in the residential mortgage-backed securities operations at Bear Stearns, which at the time was an independent firm, during 2005 into 2007.

~ The First Lady on TV cooking with chef/TV personality Rachael Ray... With the staff of top-notch chefs working full time at the White House, we bet Mrs Obama hasn't personally cooked so much as an egg in the last 4 years, but the appearance serves its purpose

Prior to Monday, big banks have faced few civil cases and no criminal cases and this first case, prosecuted by the NY Atty General is after the government spent over $1Trillion of taxpayer money to save the rotten, shit banking system.  So technically, if the government wins its case, its simply recouping two-tenths of one percent of the funds it doled out.

More important to the Administration, its a way to say prior to the first Presidential Debate this coming Wed that Obama is tough on Wall Street.

Is it a political ploy?  Most likely..   Will it work?  Undoubtedly..  We can not emphasize enough how deeply uninformed most people are when it comes to both the US economy and the current economic crisis which has not been fixed in any way, shape or form..  only shoved into a figurative 'box' that says "Safe from exploding open until November 6th"

By the way, these political strategies of deception and bait/switch are not exclusive to the President nor to Democrats..  Lots and lots of rotten politicians who've done nothing and yet get re-elected on lies and charm..  Generations of them.

~ Obama on the Jimmy Fallon show; very few watch it (the show airs at 12:30a) but every vote counts, and Fallon's demographics show a strong drawing in of the lame and undateable

Its quite reminiscent of when gangsters and mobsters would get arrested for some financial crime or murder.   So the baddie would have his attorney successfully get the trial moved to a small town, then prior to trial, put on a PR campaign to sway the public and eventual jurors; walk around town holding a Bible or donate $$ to local churches and/or civic endeavors, or give out free turkeys for the holidays..

When you think about it, its really surprising the President didn't stall for another year or so, and capture and kill Osama Bin Laden now..  He'd win in a super-landslide..

5)  Prevent any international tensions from flaring up-- Stall.. Stall..

Israel knows Iran plans on building nuclear weapons and in all likelihood would use it to destroy the Jewish state at the first possible opportunity.  Everyone knows Iran hates Israel and says the most hate-filled vitriol to describe it.  And everyone knows Israel will not sit idly by why Iran builds a bomb--they will pre-emptive strike.

Problem for Obama is, that strike would look really bad and hurt re-election chances if done before election.  So what to do?

~ On 'The Daily Show' with Jon Stewart;  Stewart saves all his hard-nosed, journalistic questions for Republican guests.  Right now he's probably asking the President what his highest career bowling score is

The President tried to completely ignore Israel's Prime Minister by chatting with David Letterman and the bitches on 'The View' instead.   Obama also tried to seriously weaken Israel's ability to strike by taking weapon systems away and dramatically limiting the number of US soldiers who were scheduled to run military exercises in October.

But that Netanyahu-- he's one persistent puppy.  He was adamant that the President speak with him..  And so they did yesterday, and according to the USA Today, everyone got what they wanted...  Obama got a promise from Israel that they would not strike Iran before Nov 6th and Israel got... well.. they got more empty words that the US would not allow Iran to develop a bomb.

Wonder what happens on Nov 6th?  Hmm.. oh yes... US elections..

Wonder what arm twisting or threats or blackmail the President had to impose to get this Israeli retreat?

~ Photo is from the most recent National Press Correspondents' Dinner; to the right is late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.. 'Brothas gonna' work it out'

So that's how you put yourself in the best position to win re-election when you've truly done very little in your first term and do not deserve a second...

Its really amazing-- when you see how much has gotten 'done' by the President in the last few weeks, it makes one wish elections were twice a year..  Just imagine how much an incumbent could get done!

On the 'positive' though, every President's second term in the last 40 years has been Far Worse (and sometimes scandalous) than the first term... (Nixon: Watergate, Reagan: Iran Contra, Clinton (MonicaGate & Impeachment) and Bush 43: Iraq War & Lehman Bros collapse)

Also, no matter who wins in November, 2013 is going to be a genuinely difficult year for the President and the nation to experience, so that isn't going to be much fun for whoever is sitting in Office.

Icons From the Age of Anxiety: Pablo Picasso's Guernica

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, Oil on canvas, 349 cm × 776 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in), 1937

Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War.

Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. On completion Guernica was displayed around the world in a brief tour, becoming famous and widely acclaimed. This tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention.


This work is seen as an amalgmation of pastoral and epic styles. The discarding of color intensifis the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. This painting can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career."

Some critics warn against trusting the polital message in Guernica. For instance the rampaging bull, a major motif of destruction here, has previouse figured, whether as a bull or Minotaur, as Picasso' ego. However, in this instance the bull probably represents the onslaught of Fascism. Picasso said it meant brutality and darkness, presumably reminiscent of his prophetic. He also stated that the horse represented the people of Guernica.

Alfred Hitchcock: The Smirk of Suspense

Who to root for?

In every movie and television show worth watching and in every work of fiction or biography, there is one consistent -- with very rare exception, there is at least one character or group of people who the reader feels a connection to and "roots" for.

There's always someone who is "good"; who wears the symbolic 'white hat' and as you watch or read, you're connection to that person or group of individuals becomes stronger as they fight the baddies or struggle to overcome adversity.

So..  here we have this very unique narrative.  We could call it the ongoing recession or the Great Recession-Depression, or some other cutesy term...   And as we've tirelessly worked to strive to educate an American and global public that really deep down does not wish to be bothered, we've been startled by something...

There really is no one to 'root' for.

Really no good-guy (or gal); no innocent victims devoid of culpability for the ongoing mess which will only get worse after the election no matter which bastard wins in November.

Let's really break things down as we seek to find someone who is genuinely good and worth rooting for...

The Wealthy: Are you kidding me?!  They are the ones who get the most financial protections when things go bad.

For example, remember 9/11?  You do?  OK good, now remember that commission--  not the 'official' one to seek to provide historical account of what happened-- but the commission set up to pay out death benefits for next of kin of the victims?  It certainly wasn't set up to give ease and comfort to the spouses of those who mopped the floors and washed windows.

We learned during that farce that all men and women are Not created equal.  Rather than each next of kin receiving a set amount to symbolize the equal value of every life lost, the commission paid out based on prior salary and future lost wages.  So the wealthy wife of a dead Investor and the poor wife of the man who emptied the trash--  guess who received the greater death benefits?

Guess who's life held more 'value'; which mattered more?

Back to the present.. why did the government go so hard against Bernie Madoff in 2008 besides he was a jerk of a personality and an easy target?   How many people did Madoff fuck over who made $100k or less/year?  Try Zero.   He bilked the wealthy; the politically connected.  Good for him... but that was his downfall..  Madoff should have targeted the poor-- then he'd still be a free man.

The wealthy don't just keep all their money in bank accounts--   they invest it.  A lot of them are invested in the stock market.  And the more taxpayer money is used to artificially prop it up, the greater the wealthy's portfolios expand and life is even better now than before.

It is true to say that the wealthy are the only group of people that not only have experienced a recovery, but are 'recovered fully'..

It is really rotten that they have not suffered for their sins; their need to always make profit and feel superior based on something so meaningless as money.  In a perfect world, many wealthy individuals would have lost everything and suffered nervous breakdowns in the process.  They'd have their worlds turned upside down and not ever fully recover...

In a perfect world...

The Middle Class:  No, they aren't the 'good guys' either.  Hard to root for selfish cowards.  In the movies, we want our heroes to be John Wayne-- to stand up tall and proud and fight the baddies... through intimidation and physical brute force if necessary.    Somehow it gets lost in translation when the fight is reality-based.

The middle class will put up with anything, accept anything and ignore reality as long as humanly possible as long as it doesn't adversely affect them in any way.  Lower interest rates to about zero-percent for years upon years so savings will never keep up with inflation..  Add trillions in public debt via QE to give to Wall St and banks...   Sure.. Fine.. just let us watch our football and finish our laundry.

The middle class.. how pathetic:  rapidly losing everything they've acquired since to post-WWII boom and they barely make a peep.  The ability for 1 adult to support a household in a standard of comfort: Gone.  The ability for 2 adults to support a household:  Just about Gone.

And they openly (and stupidly) want the stock market to keep going up so their measly little nothing of a pension can grow by $100 here and $100 there while Investors make tens of millions of dollars.  But that's all part of the behavioral conditioning of workers, isn't it?  'Please allow my company to keep making billions and my boss to make millions so I can keep my job which pays in the thousands'

And as their savings rapidly depletes and pressures increase to find or maintain work that will pay a fair wage with benefits, they snicker and laugh at the Occupy movement for trying to take a stand as they lift up a collective haughty nose of superiority.

And how do the middle class believe they will ever get back their quality of life or protect what they have so their children and grandchildren may enjoy the same life they've built?  Oh.. well you know.. vote.  Yes.. elections.   We just will vote the baddies out and put some goodies in...   My God!  Do these people still believe in the tooth fairy too?!

The middle class knows things are bad with the economy and not getting better, but don't wish to get bothered or involved outside of that meaningless exercise of voting.  And as long as there's some savings to live off of or a credit card to cha-chingg with, people are not going to do anything to get them in trouble.

Sacrifice for others??   Fuck that!

The Poor:  While no one consciously seeks to be poor, the life of a poor person today isn't quite what it was in say 1789 France.  If it was, we would have a group of people storm the US version of the 'Bastille'    But hard to garner that much passion when the government takes care of them.

The food they put into their collective bellies--  Thanks government for those food stamps.    The money received to pay bills-- Thanks government for the welfare checks, SSI and/or social security.  And unless prices ever skyrocket to the point where what is received isn't enough to cover basic necessities, you will never see anyone bite the hand that feeds them (and keeps them pressed down against the ground)

In addition, most poor people would be poor even in a booming, super-strong economy.  Its just a fact.  There is no such thing as zero unemployment unless you want a society where 100 people are hired to trim grass that one lawn mower can easily do.

So, OK.. no economic class of people are worthy of wearing the 'white hat' in this tragedy. Certainly someone deserves it...

Republicans?   Democrats? We won't even take that one seriously...  Just keep having incest with each other Mr Elephant & Ms. Donkey while pretending post-coitus that you both don't 'receive' at Wall Street's pleasure...

Intellectuals?   Well since most people who fully understand how bad things are either don't wish to share their knowledge with the common rabble for snooty reasons or realize an educated public could be bad for their 401k, they aren't worthy of the white hat.

Of course we at A&G.. We DO tell you the truth, so our 'hats' are as pristine white as they come.  Those like us are the closest you will find to worth rooting and cheering for, mainly because we have no ulterior motive or agendas... we have nothing to sell you

And others are out there fighting the good fight.  But we'll never get the audience that main stream media acquires and they are all as evil as they come.

If you ever want the news media to accurately depict the state of the US economy without flinching, then hope for a Republican president.  Then you will see the tent cities, the stories of single mothers barely able to feed their families, people desperate and despondent as they can't find work and/or about to be evicted from their homes...

We love and respect our Democrat friends and they will tell us we're wrong, wrong... But no media outlet outside of FoxNews will ever show how bad everyday people are suffering as long as a Democrat is in office, especially this one.

We could go on and on, but we won't.   There are very few people worthy of rooting for in this travesty of a tale.  So few heroes and heroines; those trying to scream out that the 'Emperor' is naked..and ugly.. So few out there not willing to accept the optimism and hope; people who want Real change-- dramatic life-adjusting change that benefits more than 1%...

So few people out there willing to stick their neck on the chopping block or even spend a modicum of energy to fight the good fight...

Thank God it only takes one matchstick to start a flame...

On Social Neuroscience

I'm now reading Leonard Mlodinow's Subliminal How Your Unconcious Mind Rules Your Behavior (recommended). In it he mentions the relatively new field of Social Neuroscience.

From Wiki:

Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior.

Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists. As such, Homo sapiens create emergent organizations beyond the individual—structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and cultures.

These emergent structures evolved hand-in-hand with neural and hormonal mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped these organisms survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too survived to reproduce.

The term "social neuroscience" can be traced to a publication entitled "Social Neuroscience Bulletin" that was published quarterly between 1988 and 1994. The term was subsequently popularized in an article by John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson, published in the American Psychologist in 1992.

Cacioppo and Berntson are considered as the legitimate fathers of social neuroscience. Still a young field, social neuroscience is closely related to affective neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on how the brain mediates social interactions.

Traditional neuroscience has for many years considered the nervous system as an isolated entity and largely ignored influences of the social environments in which humans and many animal species live.

In fact, we now recognize the considerable impact of social structures on the operations of the brain and body. These social factors operate on the individual through a continuous interplay of neural, neuroendocrine, metabolic and immune factors on brain and body, in which the brain is the central regulatory organ, and also a malleable target of these factors.

Social neuroscience investigates the biological mechanisms that underlie social processes and behavior, widely considered one of the major problem areas for the neurosciences in the 21st century, and applies concepts and methods of biology to develop theories of social processes and behavior in the social and behavioral sciences.

Social neuroscience capitalizes on biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social behavior, and it uses social and behavioral constructs and data to advance theories of neural organization and function.

Throughout most of the 20th century, social and biological explanations were widely viewed as incompatible. But advances in recent years have led to the development of a new approach synthesized from the social and biological sciences.

The new field of social neuroscience emphasizes the complementary relationship between the different levels of organization, spanning the social and biological domains (e.g., molecular, cellular, system, person, relational, collective, societal) and the use of multi-level analyses to foster understanding of the mechanisms underlying the human mind and behavior.


YouTube video on the book:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-IfVHJH58