SGER: New Methods for Studying Social Behavior in Political Science

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Biological, genetic, evolutionary and neural models are sweeping through the behavioral and social sciences. Neural cognition has gained an upper hand in most psychology departments. The discussion of hormones and their impact on individual mood and emotion is commonplace. Evolutionary models are providing useful heuristics for generating new hypotheses for the transmission of culture in anthropology and concepts of domain specific mental modules in numerous disciplines. New techniques developed in the cognitive neurosciences are being applied in several different disciplines. The use of PET, fMRI and EEG techniques is becoming commonplace in many psychology departments and even the occasional economics department. Economics now has a NeuroEconomics Society. What are the implications of these approaches forunderstanding complex political behavior? This SGER is to bring together a set of political scientists, neuroscientists and behavioral scientists to discuss the possibility of adapting these approaches to questions in political science. Such a gathering will provide an opportunity for a diverse set of political scientists to come together to discuss the possibilities for future research directions. Among the questions for the participants: What political questions can best be addressed with biological, genetic, evolutionary and neural approaches? What are the current constraints on tools developed for these approaches (e.g., fMRI studies)? What political science research directions are most amenable to techniques developed in the neurosciences? What hurdles will there be for adopting these approaches? What kinds of research support ought to be sought and provided? There are several nascent groups emerging in political science that have an interest in these ideas and concepts. A Neuropolitics listserve (run by Darren Schreiber at the University of Pennsylvania) is very active in promoting discussion on topics of theory, modeling, methodology, measurement, interpretation, and future directions. This year at the AAAS meetings in Washington, DC two panels were organized to elaborate the possibilities of this kind of work for political scientists. This is a perfect subject for a SGER from the Political Science Program. Although participants and the work that is being covered are well outside the mainstream of Political Science, it is important to have political scientists addressing the feasibility of biological and neural methods for complex political behavior. Currently the integration of the biological and neural sciences with other fields has resulted in considerable progress in their own disciplines. Unfortunately this has led to claims about what this means for politics, although with little recognition of issues that are important to and well described by political scientists. Because of the speed of developments in these different areas, it is critical to bring political scientists together to address these issues.