From the Brain to the Field: The Applications of Social Neuroscience to Economics, Health and Law
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Department of Psychology, University of Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria
2
Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London WC1H 0AP, UK
3
Unit Social and Organizational Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, 2311 EZ Leiden, The Netherlands
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Stephanie Cacioppo
Brain Sci. 2017, 7(8), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci7080094
Received: 1 February 2017 / Revised: 14 July 2017 / Accepted: 25 July 2017 / Published: 28 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Best Practices in Social Neuroscience)
Social neuroscience aims to understand the biological systems that underlie people’s thoughts, feelings and actions in light of the social context in which they operate. Over the past few decades, social neuroscience has captured the interest of scholars, practitioners, and experts in other disciplines, as well as the general public who more and more draw upon the insights and methods of social neuroscience to explain, predict and change behavior. With the popularity of the field growing, it has become increasingly important to consider the validity of social neuroscience findings as well as what questions it can and cannot address. In the present review article, we examine the contribution of social neuroscience to economics, health, and law, three domains with clear societal relevance. We address the concerns that the extrapolation of neuroscientific results to applied social issues raises within each of these domains, and we suggest guidelines and good practices to circumvent these concerns.
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Keywords:
social neuroscience; applications; health; law; neuroeconomics; reverse inference; reward; social exclusion; morality
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Kedia, G.; Harris, L.; Lelieveld, G.-J.; Van Dillen, L. From the Brain to the Field: The Applications of Social Neuroscience to Economics, Health and Law. Brain Sci. 2017, 7, 94.
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