Clark-Polner Elizabeth, Clark Margaret S
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago Chicago, IL, USA.
Department of Psychology, Trumbull College, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2014 Mar 25;8:127. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00127. eCollection 2014.
Scientists have increasingly turned to the brain and to neuroscience more generally to further an understanding of social and emotional judgments and behavior. Yet, many neuroscientists (certainly not all) do not consider the role of relational context. Moreover, most have not examined the impact of relational context in a manner that takes advantage of conceptual and empirical advances in relationship science. Here we emphasize that: (1) all social behavior takes place, by definition, within the context of a relationship (even if that relationship is a new one with a stranger), and (2) relational context shapes not only social thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but also some seemingly non-social thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in profound ways. We define relational context and suggest that accounting for it in the design and interpretation of neuroscience research is essential to the development of a coherent, generalizable neuroscience of social behavior. We make our case in two ways: (a) we describe some existing neuroscience research in three substantive areas (perceiving and reacting to others' emotions, providing help, and receiving help) that already has documented the powerful impact of relational context. (b) We describe some other neuroscience research from these same areas that has not taken relational context into account. Then, using findings from social and personality psychology, we make a case that different results almost certainly would have been found had the research been conducted in a different relational context. We neither attempt to review all evidence that relational context shapes neuroscience findings nor to put forward a theoretical analysis of all the ways relational context ought to shape neuroscience findings. Our goal is simply to urge greater and more systematic consideration of relational context in neuroscientific research.
科学家们越来越多地转向大脑以及更广义的神经科学领域，以加深对社会和情感判断及行为的理解。然而，许多神经科学家（当然不是全部）并未考虑关系背景的作用。此外，大多数人并未以利用关系科学中概念和实证进展的方式来研究关系背景的影响。在此我们强调：（1）根据定义，所有社会行为都发生在一种关系的背景下（即使这种关系是与陌生人建立的新关系），并且（2）关系背景不仅深刻地塑造社会思想、情感和行为，还塑造一些看似非社会的思想、情感和行为。我们定义了关系背景，并指出在神经科学研究的设计和解释中考虑它对于发展连贯、可推广的社会行为神经科学至关重要。我们通过两种方式来阐述我们的观点：（a）我们描述了在三个实质性领域（感知他人情绪并做出反应、提供帮助和接受帮助）中一些现有的神经科学研究，这些研究已经证明了关系背景的强大影响。（b）我们描述了来自这些相同领域的其他一些未考虑关系背景的神经科学研究。然后，利用社会和人格心理学的研究结果，我们提出这样一个观点：如果研究是在不同的关系背景下进行的，几乎肯定会得到不同的结果。我们既不试图回顾关系背景塑造神经科学研究结果的所有证据，也不提出关于关系背景应该以何种方式塑造神经科学研究结果的理论分析。我们的目标仅仅是敦促在神经科学研究中更深入、更系统地考虑关系背景。
