Sunday, March 18, 2007

For Your Reading Pleasure


Despite its original intent, this blog hasn't had much to say about social neuroscience (SN) lately. Perhaps it's because I have been a little preoccupied with plans to move to the other side of the planet?! Anyway, three SN-relevant books have recently found their way to my home, and I hope to write complete reviews of them in the next six months (what a weak promise!).

The first is co-edited by the granddaddy of SN himself, John Cacioppo, as well as Penny Visser and Cindy Pickett : Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People, published by MIT Press. Despite the corny title, this one contains original chapters by many of the leaders of contemporary social neuroscience.

The second represents a more "junior" group of social neuroscientists: Social Neuroscience: Integrating Biological and Psychological Explanations of Social Behavior, edited by Eddie Harmon-Jones and Piotr Winkielman. There is quite a bit of overlap in the list of authors and chapters between this book and the Cacioppo, Visser, and Pickett one. I am more excited about this one, however, as it has a broader coverage of topics and includes some people who appear to have been overlooked by Cacioppo et al.

The third book every budding social neuroscientist should own is the third edition of the classic Handbook of Psychophysiology, edited by Cacioppo, Tassinary, and Berntson. My complimentary copy arrived just this week (check out the chapter on facial EMG--I'm a co-author!). My first impressions are that this one is going to be much easier to carry around, as opposed to that 12-pound monolith that was the second edition...

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