How to Make Social Neuroscience Social

Social neuroscience has had a boost over the last two decades. There have been a number of dominant themes in the course of this research, two of which are (a) the identification of systems involved in attributing beliefs, true or false, to others (e.g., Amodio & Frith, 2006; Ochsner et al., 2004; Saxe, Carey, & Kanwisher, 2004) and (b) the discovery that brain regions involved in our own actions, emotions, and sensations are recruited while we witness those of others (e.g., Iacoboni, 2009; Keysers & Gazzola, 2006; Keysers & Gazzola, 2009; Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). As Zaki and Ochsner (this issue) correctly conclude, the lion’s share of this research has focused on characterizing the cognitive and neural processes perceivers engage when encountering other minds. This approach has two conceptual limitations. First, it typically ignores whether the engagement of these processes leads to accurate inferences about those minds. Second, it is not social in the strong sense, as experiments typically only measured the brain activity and social perception of one isolated individual (the observer) while ignoring the relationship between that individual’s brain activity and perception and those of the target or other individuals. In their target article, Zaki and Ochsner (this issue) advocate a refreshingly new perspective. They argue that the goal of mind perception is (a) to accurately perceive what goes on in others and (b) to ultimately help us interact better with others and be happier. Accordingly, one should ask not only what brain regions are recruited during mind perception, but also which of them lead to an accurate perception of what is on the mind of others and, to a lesser extent, which of them promote social functioning and happiness. Surprisingly, except for Zaki and Ochsner’s own work, there is indeed very little empirical work addressing these utilitarian questions. In the field of social neuroscience, it is rare to find publications that propose profoundly novel approaches to the study of the social brain. We think that this is one of those rare articles that inspire us to look at the entire enterprise of social neuroscience from a novel angle. In what follows, we discuss four issues inspired by the target article that we hope extend and refine the ideas that Zaki and Ochsner have seeded. First, we argue that systematically inaccurate mind perception can be highly instructive about how people understand the minds of others. Second, we offer some examples where experience sharing is perhaps a more useful resource than Zaki and Ochsner presume. Third, we look at some limitations of measuring accuracy based on the reports of targets and observers, paying particular attention to “insight.” Finally, and most important, we look at three alternative approaches that are conceptually different but related to the accuracy research of Zaki and Ochsner. All of these issues help to make social neuroscience social again, by directly studying the relationship between multiple individuals—be it by comparing the brain activity of multiple individuals or by comparing brain activity with the quality of the individuals’ social relationships.