Facial Displays Are Tools for Social Influence

Based on modern theories of signal evolution and animal communication, the behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) reconceives our 'facial expressions of emotion' as social tools that serve as lead signs to contingent action in social negotiation. BECV offers an externalist, functionalist view of facial displays that is not bound to Western conceptions about either expressions or emotions. It easily accommodates recent findings of diversity in facial displays, their public context-dependency, and the curious but common occurrence of solitary facial behavior. Finally, BECV restores continuity of human facial behavior research with modern functional accounts of non-human communication, and provides a non-mentalistic account of facial displays well-suited to new developments in artificial intelligence and social robotics.

Cultural differences in the neural correlates of social-emotional feelings: an interdisciplinary, developmental perspective

Social neuroscience has documented cultural differences in emotional brain functioning. Most recently, these differences have been extended to include cultural effects on the real-time neural correlates of social-emotional feelings. Here we review these findings and use them to illustrate a biopsychosocial framework for studying acculturated social-affective functioning and development. We argue that understanding cultural differences in emotion neurobiology requires probing their social origins and connection with individuals' subjective, lived experiences. We suggest that an interdisciplinary, developmental perspective would advance scientific understanding by enabling the invention of protocols aligning neurobiological measures with techniques for documenting cultural contexts, social relationships and subjective experiences. Such work would also facilitate insights in applied fields struggling to accommodate cultural variation, such as psychiatry and education.

The Soul, as an Uninhibited Mental Activity, is Reduced into Consciousness by Rules of Quantum Physics

This paper is an effort to describe, in neuroscientific terms, one of the most ambiguous concepts of the universe-the soul. Previous efforts to understand what the soul is and where it may exist have accepted the soul as a subjective and individual entity. We will make two additions to this view: (1) The soul is a result of uninhibited mental activity and lacks spatial and temporal information; (2) The soul is an undivided whole and, to become divided, the soul has to be reduced into unconscious and conscious mental events. This reduction process parallels the maturation of the frontal cortex and GABA becoming the main inhibitory neurotransmitter. As examples of uninhibited mental activity, we will discuss the perceptual differences of a newborn, individuals undergoing dissociation, and individuals induced by psychedelic drugs. Then, we will explain the similarities between the structure of the universe and the structure of the brain, and we propose that consideration of the rules of quantum physics is necessary to understand how the soul is reduced into consciousness.

Diversity and representation: Key issues for psychophysiological science

This Special Issue is devoted to the illustration and discussion of three key demographic variables (sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status) that have been shown to moderate associations between psychophysiological processes and behavior. The introduction to the issue discusses the role of phenotypic plasticity in the emergence of different neural processes that achieve the same behavioral outcome, with emphasis on how these relatively stable developmental contexts affect brain/behavior associations without necessarily resulting in difference in behavior. These findings have profound significance for the implications of generalization and call into question the presumption that diverse samples produce an average result that is appropriately reflective of the individuals themselves. Increasing diversity within psychophysiological research is critical in elucidating mechanisms by which the human brain can accomplish cognitive and affective behaviors. This article further examines the logistical and ethical challenges faced in achieving this goal.

Cultural shaping of neural responses: Feedback-related potentials vary with self-construal and face priming

Previous work shows that when an image of a face is presented immediately prior to each trial of a speeded cognitive task (face-priming), the error-related negativity (ERN) is upregulated for Asians, but it is downregulated for Caucasians. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that images of "generalized other" vary cross-culturally such that they evoke anxiety for Asians, whereas they serve as safety cues for Caucasians. Here, we tested whether the cross-cultural variation in the face-priming effect would be observed in a gambling paradigm. Caucasian Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian sojourners were exposed to a brief flash of a schematic face during a gamble. For Asian Americans, face-priming resulted in significant increases of both negative-going deflection of ERP upon negative feedback (feedback-related negativity [FRN]) and positive-going deflection of ERP upon positive feedback (feedback-related positivity [FRP]). For Caucasian Americans, face-priming showed a significant reversal, decreasing both FRN and FRP. The cultural difference in the face-priming effect in FRN and FRP was partially mediated by interdependent self-construal. Curiously, Asian sojourners showed a pattern similar to the one for Caucasian Americans. Our findings suggest that culture shapes neural pathways in both systematic and highly dynamic fashion.

Cognition and Culture in Evolutionary Context

In humans and other animals, the individuals' ability to adapt efficiently and effectively to the niches they have actively contributed to construct relies heavily on an evolved psychology which has been shaped by biological, social, and cultural processes over evolutionary time. As expected, although many of the behavioral and cognitive components of this evolved psychology are widely shared across species, many others are species-unique. Although many animal species are known to acquire group-specific traditions (or cultures) via social learning, human culture is unique in terms of its contents and characteristics (observable and unobservable products, cumulative effects, norm conformity, and norm enforcement) and of its cognitive underpinnings (imitation, instructed teaching, and language). Here we provide a brief overview of some of the issues that are currently tackled in the field. We also highlight some of the strengths of a biological, comparative, non-anthropocentric and evolutionarily grounded approach to the study of culture. The main contributions of this approach to the science of culture are its emphasis (a) on the integration of information on mechanisms, function, and evolution, and on mechanistic factors located at different levels of the biological hierarchy, and (b) on the search for general principles that account for commonalities and differences between species, both in the cultural products and in the processes of innovation, dissemination, and accumulation involved that operate during developmental and evolutionary timespans.

Nature, Nurture, and Their Interplay

Cultural neuroscience research examines how psychological processes are affected by the interplay between culture and biological factors, including genetic influences, patterns of neural activation, and physiological processes. In this review, we present foundational and current empirical research in this area, and we also discuss theories that aim to explain how various aspects of the social environment are interpreted as meaningful in different cultures and interact with a cascade of biological processes to ultimately influence thoughts and behaviors. This review highlights theoretical and methodological issues, potential solutions, and future implications for a field that aspires to integrate the complexities of human biology with the richness of culture.

Cultural neuroscience and global mental health: addressing grand challenges

Mental, neurological and substance-use (MNS) disorders comprise approximately 13% of the global burden of disease. The Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health Initiative has recently identified research priorities for the next decade to address prevention and treatment of MNS disorders. One main research priority is to identify the root causes, risks and protective factors associated with global mental health. Recent advances in cultural neuroscience have identified theoretical, methodological, and empirical methods of identifying biomarkers associated with mental health disorders across nations. Here we review empirical research in cultural neuroscience that address meeting the grand challenges in global mental health.

Integration of Basic Controversies in Cross-cultural Psychology

This article discusses controversies in the field of cross-cultural psychology, including cultural psychology, with a view to possible integration.1 It briefly describes the indigenisation movement as a reaction against Western scientific ethnocentrism and mentions two methodological topics, that is, lack of equivalence of cross-cultural data and issues with culture-comparative studies designed as experiments. Later in the article, major conceptual contrast in cross-cultural psychology such as the dichotomy of universalism and cultural relativism are addressed. The article also addresses the major empirical dichotomy of individualism and collectivism and its extension in cultural neuroscience research. Some examples of applied cross-cultural psychology are given that show how interventions can be adapted for other societies as where they were developed even when dichotomies prevalent in academic research have not been resolved.

Culture: by the brain and in the brain?

Since the 1990s, several disciplines have emerged at the interface between neuroscience and the social and human sciences. For the most part, they aim at capturing the commonalities that underlay the heterogeneity of human behaviors and experiences. Neuroanthropology and cultural neuroscience, or the "neurodisciplines of culture," appear different, since their goal is to understand specificity rather than commonality and to address how cultural differences are inscribed in the brain. After offering an overview of these disciplines, and of their relation to endeavors such as cultural psychology and social neuroscience, this article discusses some of the most representative studies in the area in order to explore in which ways they are relevant for an understanding of culture.

Religion priming and an oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphism interact to affect self-control in a social context

Using a genetic moderation approach, this study examines how an experimental prime of religion impacts self-control in a social context, and whether this effect differs depending on the genotype of an oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) polymorphism (rs53576). People with different genotypes of OXTR seem to have different genetic orientations toward sociality, which may have consequences for the way they respond to religious cues in the environment. In order to determine whether the influence of religion priming on self-control is socially motivated, we examine whether this effect is stronger for people who have OXTR genotypes that should be linked to greater rather than less social sensitivity (i.e., GG vs. AA/AG genotypes). The results showed that experimentally priming religion increased self-control behaviors for people with GG genotypes more so than people with AA/AG genotypes. Furthermore, this Gene × Religion interaction emerged in a social context, when people were interacting face to face with another person. This research integrates genetic moderation and social psychological approaches to address a novel question about religion's influence on self-control behavior, which has implications for coping with distress and psychopathology. These findings also highlight the importance of the social context for understanding genetic moderation of psychological effects.

[Neuroscience and collective memory: memory schemas linking brain, societies and cultures]

During the last two decades, the effect of intersubjective relationships on cognition has been an emerging topic in cognitive neurosciences leading through a so-called "social turn" to the formation of new domains integrating society and cultures to this research area. Such inquiry has been recently extended to collective memory studies. Collective memory refers to shared representations that are constitutive of the identity of a group and distributed among all its members connected by a common history. After briefly describing those evolutions in the study of human brain and behaviors, we review recent researches that have brought together cognitive psychology, neuroscience and social sciences into collective memory studies. Using the reemerging concept of memory schema, we propose a theoretical framework allowing to account for collective memories formation with a specific focus on the encoding process of historical events. We suggest that (1) if the concept of schema has been mainly used to describe rather passive framework of knowledge, such structure may also be implied in more active fashions in the understanding of significant collective events. And, (2) if some schema researches have restricted themselves to the individual level of inquiry, we describe a strong coherence between memory and cultural frameworks. Integrating the neural basis and properties of memory schema to collective memory studies may pave the way toward a better understanding of the reciprocal interaction between individual memories and cultural resources such as media or education.

How Do People Become W.E.I.R.D.? Migration Reveals the Cultural Transmission Mechanisms Underlying Variation in Psychological Processes

Cultural psychologists have shown that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) countries often exhibit different psychological processing to people from less-WEIRD countries. The former exhibit more individualistic and less collectivistic social orientation, and more analytic and less holistic cognition, than non-Westerners. Yet the mechanisms responsible for maintaining this cultural variation are unclear. Immigration is an ideal 'natural experiment' for uncovering such mechanisms. We used a battery of psychological measures previously shown to vary cross-culturally to compare the social orientation and cognitive style of 286 residents of East London from three cultural backgrounds: (i) 1st-generation British Bangladeshi immigrants; (ii) 2nd-generation British Bangladeshis raised in the UK to Bangladeshi-raised parents; and (iii) non-migrants whose parents were born and raised in the UK. Model comparison revealed that individualism and dispositional attribution, typical of Western societies, are driven primarily by horizontal cultural transmission (e.g. via mass media), with parents and other family members having little or no effect, while collectivism, social closeness and situational attribution were driven by a mix of vertical/oblique cultural transmission (e.g. via family contact) and horizontal cultural transmission. These individual-level transmission dynamics can explain hitherto puzzling population-level phenomena, such as the partial acculturation of 2nd-generation immigrants on measures such as collectivism (due to the mix of vertical and horizontal cultural transmission), or the observation in several countries of increasing individualism (which is transmitted horizontally and therefore rapidly) despite little corresponding change in collectivism (which is transmitted partly vertically and therefore more slowly). Further consideration of cultural transmission mechanisms, in conjunction with the study of migrant communities and model comparison statistics, can shed light on the persistence of, and changes in, culturally-variable psychological processes.

Dopamine-System Genes and Cultural Acquisition: The Norm Sensitivity Hypothesis

Previous research in cultural psychology shows that cultures vary in the social orientation of independence and interdependence. To date, however, little is known about how people may acquire such global patterns of cultural behavior or cultural norms. Nor is it clear what genetic mechanisms may underlie the acquisition of cultural norms. Here, we draw on recent evidence for certain genetic variability in the susceptibility to environmental influences and propose a norm sensitivity hypothesis, which holds that people acquire culture, and rules of cultural behaviors, through reinforcement-mediated social learning processes. One corollary of the hypothesis is that the degree of cultural acquisition should be influenced by polymorphic variants of genes involved in dopaminergic neural pathways, which have been widely implicated in reinforcement learning. We reviewed initial evidence for this prediction and discussed challenges and directions for future research.

The Stigma Complex

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, research on stigma has continued. Building on conceptual and empirical work, the recent period clarifies new types of stigmas, expansion of measures, identification of new directions, and increasingly complex levels. Standard beliefs have been challenged, the relationship between stigma research and public debates reconsidered, and new scientific foundations for policy and programs suggested. We begin with a summary of the most recent Annual Review articles on stigma, which reminded sociologists of conceptual tools, informed them of developments from academic neighbors, and claimed findings from the early period of "resurgence." Continued (even accelerated) progress has also revealed a central problem. Terms and measures are often used interchangeably, leading to confusion and decreasing accumulated knowledge. Drawing from this work but focusing on the past 14 years of stigma research (including mental illness, sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS, and race/ethnicity), we provide a theoretical architecture of concepts (e.g., prejudice, experienced/received discrimination), drawn together through a stigma process (i.e., stigmatization), based on four theoretical premises. Many characteristics of the mark (e.g., discredited, concealable) and variants (i.e., stigma types and targets) become the focus of increasingly specific and multidimensional definitions. Drawing from complex and systems science, we propose a stigma complex, a system of interrelated, heterogeneous parts bringing together insights across disciplines to provide a more realistic and complicated sense of the challenge facing research and change efforts. The Framework Integrating Normative Influences on Stigma (FINIS) offers a multilevel approach that can be tailored to stigmatized statuses. Finally, we outline challenges for the next phase of stigma research, with the goal of continuing scientific activity that enhances our understanding of stigma and builds the scientific foundation for efforts to reduce intolerance.

Interaction between oxytocin receptor polymorphism and interdependent culture values on human empathy

Recent evidence suggests that the association between oxytocin receptor polymorphism (OXTR rs53576) and emotion-related behavioral/psychological tendencies differs between individuals from East Asian and Western cultures. What remains unresolved is which specific dimension of cultural orientations interacts with OXTR rs53576 to shape these tendencies and whether such gene × culture interactions occurs at both behavioral and neural level. This study investigated whether and how OXTR rs53576 interacts with interdependence-a key dimension of cultural orientations that distinguish between East Asian and Western cultures-to affect human empathy that underlies altruistic motivation and prosocial behavior. Experiment 1 measured interdependence, empathy trait and OXTR rs53576 genotypes of 1536 Chinese participants. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a stronger association between interdependence and empathy trait in G allele carriers compared with A/A homozygotes of OXTR rs53576. Experiment 2 measured neural responses to others' suffering by scanning A/A and G/G homozygous of OXTR rs53576 using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed stronger associations between interdependence and empathic neural responses in the insula, amygdala and superior temporal gyrus in G/G compared with A/A carriers. Our results provide the first evidence for gene × culture interactions on empathy at both behavioral tendency and underlying brain activity.

Cognitive enhancement kept within contexts: neuroethics and informed public policy

Neurothics has far greater responsibilities than merely noting potential human enhancements arriving from novel brain-centered biotechnologies and tracking their implications for ethics and civic life. Neuroethics must utilize the best cognitive and neuroscientific knowledge to shape incisive discussions about what could possibly count as enhancement in the first place, and what should count as genuinely "cognitive" enhancement. Where cognitive processing and the mental life is concerned, the lived context of psychological performance is paramount. Starting with an enhancement to the mental abilities of an individual, only performances on real-world exercises can determine what has actually been cognitively improved. And what can concretely counts as some specific sort of cognitive improvement is largely determined by the classificatory frameworks of cultures, not brain scans or laboratory experiments. Additionally, where the public must ultimately evaluate and judge the worthiness of individual performance enhancements, we mustn't presume that public approval towards enhancers will somehow automatically arrive without due regard to civic ideals such as the common good or social justice. In the absence of any nuanced appreciation for the control which performance contexts and public contexts exert over what "cognitive" enhancements could actually be, enthusiastic promoters of cognitive enhancement can all too easily depict safe and effective brain modifications as surely good for us and for society. These enthusiasts are not unaware of oft-heard observations about serious hurdles for reliable enhancement from neurophysiological modifications. Yet those observations are far more common than penetrating investigations into the implications to those hurdles for a sound public understanding of cognitive enhancement, and a wise policy review over cognitive enhancement. We offer some crucial recommendations for undertaking such investigations, so that cognitive enhancers that truly deserve public approval can be better identified.

What kind of science for psychiatry?

Psychiatry has invested its hopes in neuroscience as a path to understanding mental disorders and developing more effective treatments and ultimately cures. Recently, the U.S. NIMH has elaborated this vision through a new framework for mental health research, the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). This framework aims to orient mental health research toward the discovery of underlying neurobiological and biobehavioral mechanisms of mental disorders that will eventually lead to definitive treatments. In this article we consider the rationale of the RDoC and what it reveals about implicit models of mental disorders. As an overall framework for understanding mental disorders, RDoC is impoverished and conceptually flawed. These limitations are not accidental but stem from disciplinary commitments and interests that are at odds with the larger concerns of psychiatry. A multilevel, ecosocial approach to biobehavioral systems is needed both to guide relevant neuroscience research and insure the inclusion of social processes that may be fundamental contributors to psychopathology and recovery.

Toward a Better Understanding of Self-Construal Theory: An Agency View of the Processes of Self-Construal

This article offers a novel perspective on self-construal theory. Self-construal concerns how individuals understand who they are in relation to the broad set of cultural influences in which they live. We look at the nature and antecedents of self-construal, and characterize it as a self-process, rather than self-knowledge. Integrating work from the literature on social and evolutionary psychology, and philosophy, we suggest that the differences between independent and interdependent self-construal are best understood from a self-agency perspective. This concerns how people assess whether they are the causes of an action and, if so, whether their causal role depends on other people. We introduce and discuss the roles of 3 different modalities of agency involved in self-agency assessment: implicit (sensorimotor), intermediate (self-related affordances), and explicit (reflective) self-agency. We offer a conceptual model on how self-agency relates to power, evolutionary motivations and to social and cultural affordances, in the formation of, and interaction with, different types of dominant independent and interdependent self-construals.

Cultural differences in human brain activity: a quantitative meta-analysis

Psychologists have been trying to understand differences in cognition and behavior between East Asian and Western cultures within a single cognitive framework such as holistic versus analytic or interdependent versus independent processes. However, it remains unclear whether cultural differences in multiple psychological processes correspond to the same or different neural networks. We conducted a quantitative meta-analysis of 35 functional MRI studies to examine cultural differences in brain activity engaged in social and non-social processes. We showed that social cognitive processes are characterized by stronger activity in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, lateral frontal cortex and temporoparietal junction in East Asians but stronger activity in the anterior cingulate, ventral medial prefrontal cortex and bilateral insula in Westerners. Social affective processes are associated with stronger activity in the right dorsal lateral frontal cortex in East Asians but greater activity in the left insula and right temporal pole in Westerners. Non-social processes induce stronger activity in the left inferior parietal cortex, left middle occipital and left superior parietal cortex in East Asians but greater activations in the right lingual gyrus, right inferior parietal cortex and precuneus in Westerners. The results suggest that cultural differences in social and non-social processes are mediated by distinct neural networks. Moreover, East Asian cultures are associated with increased neural activity in the brain regions related to inference of others' mind and emotion regulation whereas Western cultures are associated with enhanced neural activity in the brain areas related to self-relevance encoding and emotional responses during social cognitive/affective processes.