On Bridging the Gap Between Social-Personality Psychology and Neuropsychology

Although cognitive psychology has learned much from the study of patients with neuropsychological impairments, social and personality psychologists have been slow to do the same. In this article we argue that the domain of clinical neuropsychology holds considerable untapped potential for formulating and testing models within social and personality psychology and describe some of the ways in which questions of interest to social and personality psychologists can be addressed with neuropsychological data. Examples are drawn from a variety of neuropsychological syndromes, including amnesia, autism, anosognosia, commissurotomy, frontal lobe damage, and prosopagnosia. We conclude that consideration of the personal and social lives of patients with neuropsychological impairments ultimately will lead to a richer understanding of the person, one that bridges the gap between social and cognitive levels of analysis.