| | Michael,
There are some basic philosophical problems with those studies. Whether intentional or not, they presume a reductionism where all mental life, including choices, are reducible to a specific physical/chemical activity and that the relation is such that they can reverse the chain of events to say that neuroactivity X means mental activity Y. They don't mention choice - which assumes a hard determinism. For the reductionist in psychology the holy grail is evidence that they have established that this or that specific activity IS a particular mental activity. This study makes that kind of claim where they state, "These findings provide the first biological evidence for the involvement of perceptual and emotional processes during social conformity. " Translated: We have specific biological evidence of specific mental conclusions. They want to show that instead of a real choice, there is a pleasure/pain mechanism that weighs in on the side of compromise. I assume you read the Introduction section of the paper where the gushed on about the value of political compromise.
Let me give you an example. Say there are two people who are being scanned in an MRI chamber while resisting the opinions of a group. One of them is comfortable doing so because he has grown up making his own judgments. The other is under a rather mixed motivation - he believes that the researchers are hoping he will exhibit independence, yet his normal mode is to go along with the group. He chooses to please the researchers. Both individuals will answer questions as if they were independent but they will exhibit very different patterns of emotion versus cognition. Without recognition of choice and the fact that their crude physiological measurements cannot be expanded as explanations of choice or of mental content, the researchers remain blind to what is really happening and jump to false conclusions. I could make up many more examples that are based upon different beliefs, values, and choices such that it would confound the MRI measurements when interpreted the way they are.
The other assumption that needs to be rejected is that they are measuring an immutible aspect of human nature as opposed to the average emotional issues of their sample within that subculture. You said, "...it does suggest that when 'enough' people claim that something is true everyone else will change their perceptions and go along." Some subcultures exhibit greater degrees of conformity than others. That doesn't say anything about what, given the capacity proscribed by human nature, is the healthiest approach.
This study appears to arise from Social Psychology - a theory formed back in the fifties in opposition to Psychoanalytic theory on one hand, and Behaviorism on the other. Those two were in some ways polar opposites but they both did claim to be explaining the aspects of human nature, in univeral terms, that should be psychology. The Social Psychologists like the empirical nature of behaviorism, but objected that it was restricted to behaviors and never addressed mental phenomena. They rejected the instinctual basis of deep psychology as promoted by Freudians, and wanted something that addressed the individual and society as opposed to the individual and parents. They wanted a psychology that was more like sociology. They wanted it so cover mental phenomena yet still have the scientific patina of empirical studies.
Because psychology, like medicine, must distinguish between healthy and unhealthy modes or states, it must form a standard by which to differentiate... and that standard must arise from human nature - that must be the foundation of a psychology. Freud had a foundation like this, however bad much of it was. The behaviorists, on the other hand, weren't explicit in this area and were looking for the ways to condition behavior, but didn't say much about how they would choose the goals to condition humans to follow. Psychoanalitic theory had a standard that related to psychic energy balances (e.g., repressed material created a psychic imbalance which would become expressed through symptoms, including defensive activity, and that talk therapy could release). Social psychology appears to be focused on being a bridge between psychology and sociology but has no foundation in human nature, no standard of mental health, is relative to the culture, and is often used to make statements about human nature - and it doesn't have the foundation needed to do that.
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