Learning To Live Together: Promoting Social Harmony by J. A. Scott Kelso

Author:J. A. Scott Kelso
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Conclusions

Brain research has during the past 20 years made tremendous progress in understanding the basis of social interaction and cooperation. I have shown only a few key experiments chosen because they are supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation for which I speak here as a representative, but the experimental effort in this domain has grown exponentially. Brain research has discovered a whole neuronal system in the brain dedicated to human social behavior.

This system comprises phylogenetically ancient areas in the midbrain concerned with reward predictions, striatal areas providing reward for punishing those who do not behave, those who are selfish and not concerned with public goods, up to phylogenetically new areas in the ventromedial and dorsolateral area of the frontal brain which weighs the advantages of behaving in favor of society or of the self. However, our knowledge of the wiring, the computational algorithms and the biochemistry of this “social brain” are still very incomplete and immature and far from providing “practicable” therapeutic options to improve “social harmony”.

I have been asked to provide some ideas about “actions to take”. To take actions on the basis of incomplete knowledge is one of the common pitfalls in therapeutic medicine. Not completely understood pathophysiological mechanisms of disease has, in the past, led to disastrous treatment attempts. On the basis of the above mentioned experiments it would seem, that enhancing, via teaching and publicity, the acceptance of “altruistic punishment”, could be a practical and physiological approach to enhancing human social cooperation. But is our knowledge about these implemented brain mechanisms complete enough to avoid negative drawbacks?

One action to take is certainly to support brain resear.ch in this domain to complete our knowledge about the “social brain”.

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