Читать книгу Social Psychology - Daniel W. Barrett - Страница 68

The case of American Phineas Gage is one of the most famous in the history of psychology. In 1848, the 25-year-old construction worker was the victim of a most unfortunate accident that occurred during construction of a railroad in Vermont. On this fateful day, Gage dropped a 13 pound, three-foot iron tamping rod into a hole lined with blasting powder before the necessary preparation for a controlled blast was finished. The rod inadvertently triggered a spark that caused an explosion that launched the rod into Gage’s left cheek, through the frontal lobe, and out of the top of his head (Macmillan, 2008). Given the state of medical knowledge and care at that time, it is amazing that Gage not only survived this brain trauma but lived another 11 years with many of his psychological capacities intact. Contemporary observers noted that the incident transformed him from a competent, well-liked, rational man into an irresponsible, difficult, and impatient one (Macmillan, 2008). Since shortly after the accident, the precise location of the brain injury as well as his post-injury mental health have been controversial and oft debated (Macmillan & Lena, 2010). Over the last two decades a number of researchers, using modern brain imaging techniques, have attempted to specify which brain regions were damaged when the rod passed through Gage’s head (H. Damasio, Grabowski, Frank, Galaburda, & Damasio, 2005; Macmillan & Lena, 2010; van Horn et al., 2012). The exact nature of the trauma is not important for our purposes, but the case provides a nice backdrop for our discussion of the neurobiological substrate of social behavior.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief introduction to the social brain and social neuroscience. I am well aware that some psychology students (and faculty!) shy away from learning about the brain. However, social neuroscientific research is an emerging trend in the study of social behavior, and consequently students should be exposed to its core concepts. In this chapter I provide an overview of the topics, brain structures and physiology, and the methodologies most commonly used by social neuroscientists. Many of the later chapters include social neuroscientific research, and comprehension of those segments will be greatly strengthened by a careful reading of the current chapter.

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