C H A P T E R
20
Science in Society: Neuroscience and Lay
Understandings of Self and Identity
Cliodhna O’Connor
Department of Psychology, Maynooth University, Maynooth Co Kildare, Ireland
O U T L I N E
1. Introduction
2. The Neurologization of Folk Psychology:
Why Does It Matter?
3. Neuroscience in the Media
4. Neuroscience in Personal Lives
5. A New Source of Evidence: Interviews with
the British Public
5.1 Was the Brain Seen as Determining Behavior?
1. INTRODUCTION
The dying days of the twentieth century were witness
to an invigoration of the brain sciences, as governments
worldwide declared that the 1990s would go down in
official history as the “decade of the brain.” The sym­
bolic and material investments that accompanied such
pronouncements propelled a dramatic expansion of
both the volume of neuroscientific research produced
and of the range of phenomena to which neuroscientific
explanations were applied. In this period of disciplinary
growth, the subfield of social neuroscience, which strives
to elucidate the biological underpinnings of social cogni­
tion and behavior, gained particular momentum.1,2 This
reflects the growing ambition of neuroscientific research
agendas, whose gaze increasingly extends beyond basic
neurocognitive processes to the complex dynamics of
personal, social, and cultural worlds. Topics previously
the preserve of the humanities and social sciences, such
as religion, love, art, crime, and politics, are now stan­
dard targets of neuroscientific investigation.3
Neuroimaging Personality, Social Cognition, and Character
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800935-2.00020-8 Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
371 5.2 Did People Use Neuroscientific Ideas to
Understand Themselves? 377
5.3 Did People Use Neuroscientific Ideas to
372
Understand Others? 378
373 5.4 Summary of Interview Findings 379
374 6. How Should Neuroscientists Respond? 380
7. Conclusion 381
375
References381
375
Due to the increasingly direct social relevance of
neuroscientific data, much rhetoric about the rise of neu­
roscience has framed it not merely as a matter of scientific
progress, but as a development with profound cultural
significance. In particular, many have conjectured that
day-to-day representations of the human self, spirit,
or soul are being progressively reconfigured in neuro­
chemical terms. Such claims frequently emanate from
within the neuroscientific community itself; for instance,
when the European Union’s (EU) Human Brain Project
was launched, its promotional materials asserted that
its scientific endeavors would “undoubtedly…have a
deep impact on our deepest felt convictions—in particu­
lar our concepts of personhood, free will and personal
responsibility, the way we see ourselves as persons, per­
sonally responsible for our actions.”4 Moreover, many
sociologists, ethicists, and philosophers have trained
their lens on neuroscience’s position in contemporary
society, to conclude that subjective experience is increas­
ingly filtered through such constructs as “neurochemical
selves,”5 “cerebral subjects,”6 and “brainhood.”7 Until
371
372 20.  SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
recently, however, such debates were limited to largely
speculative analyses, due to a paucity of empirical
research documenting how neuroscientific concepts are
resonating with the lay public.8
Fortunately, a growing body of social scientific
research has taken up the challenge of tracking what
“happens” to neuroscience knowledge as it travels
through the public sphere and what marks it leaves on
the individuals and communities it meets along the way.
This chapter reviews the existing literature on how neu­
roscience has influenced everyday understandings of self
and identity. It also presents original data from an inter­
view study exploring how members of the public engage
with contemporary brain research. Such research affords
valuable insight into how neuroscience assimilates into
subjective experience, how it intermingles with exist­
ing values and beliefs, and the shifts in ­self-conceptions
and social relations that may ensue as a result.
2.  THE NEUROLOGIZATION OF FOLK
PSYCHOLOGY: WHY DOES IT MATTER?
If neuroscience is affecting common-sense under­
standings of human activity and identity, why might
this matter? First, people’s “folk psychology,” or implicit
understanding of how minds work, guides how they
interpret and respond to behavior. As such, if neurosci­
ence changes folk psychologies, it might prompt a corre­
sponding shift in social interactions. For example, some
have speculated that the increasing prominence afforded
to neuroscientific explanations of behavior will gradu­
ally erode people’s belief in free will.9–11 If this prospect
materializes, it could have profound social implications.
Correlational and experimental research has linked dis­
belief in free will to an increased proclivity for aggres­
sion,12 a reduced inclination toward helpfulness,12 and
dishonest behavior.13 A heightened belief in free will, on
the other hand, supports empathy toward the disadvan­
taged people and increased commitment to equality and
social mobility.14 Another example of potential neurosci­
entific influence on folk psychology relates to attributions
of responsibility: conceivably, materialistic accounts of
behavior could make individuals seem less personally
culpable for their harmful actions and less commendable
for their acts of virtue. Thus, via their influence on folk
psychology, neuroscientific concepts may have tangible
effects on the common-sense understandings on which
social institutions and interactions are based.
Second, neuroscience’s resonance with folk concepts
of personhood matters because it fuels the appropriation
of neuroscience to serve a diverse range of professional,
pragmatic, and ideological interests. Large portions of the
political classes have recently developed a conviction in
the relevance of neuroscientific findings for public policy,
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
in areas as diverse as education, pornography, national
security, unemployment, and financial behavior.8,15–17 The
enthusiasm with which political actors have embraced
neuroscientific justifications has led many to question
whether neuroscience’s newfound political utility owes
more to its rhetorical power than its evidential value.18,19
This worry is also elicited by uses of neuroscience in
the commercial sphere, where a belief that neuroscience
reveals something important about people’s “true” selves
has ignited an explosion of interest in applications of neu­
roscientific technology to such services as “neuromarket­
ing,” “brain-training,” and “lie detection.”20,21
A further field in which neuroscientific concepts are
applied to practical purposes is the law, whose practi­
tioners have devoted considerable resources to exam­
ining the implications of neuroscientific findings for
legal principles of responsibility and intentionality.22–24
Speculation on a criminal biological “type” is not new,
extending back to Cesare Lombroso’s nineteenth century
search for the anatomical characteristics of the “born
criminal.”5 Such thinking subsided in the later decades
of the twentieth century due to unease with the eugenics
ideas it had subsumed. With the rise of the neurosciences,
however, speculation about the biological basis of anti­
social behavior has enjoyed a resurgence. Neuroimag­
ing technologies are increasingly finding their way into
courtrooms to support arguments that accused criminals
could not control their antisocial impulses.25–27 Neuro­
imaging technologies have also been utilized in personal
injury cases to “prove” the presence of debilitating pain28
and, despite scientific misgivings, have been held up as
a means of detecting deception. For example, in 2008, an
Indian court found a woman guilty of murder largely on
the basis of an electroencephalogram (EEG) “lie detec­
tor” test that most experts would deem invalid.29
Thus, the ways neuroscience resonates with common-
sense understandings of personhood can spark both
micro and macro social effects, modulating day-to-day
thought and behavior, as well as large-scale legal, politi­
cal, and economic dynamics. This means that neuro­
science research is not merely describing processes of
emotion or social cognition; in its circulation through
the public sphere, it may be actively shaping the very
processes it seeks to explain. This process is captured
by the philosopher Ian Hacking’s concept of a “looping
effect,” which posits a constant circle of mutual influ­
ence between the understandings of science, individu­
als, and society.30 The social or pragmatic concerns of a
particular society establish certain questions as interest­
ing or important (e.g., why are certain children disrup­
tive in classrooms?): scientific research pursues these
questions and offers some conclusion (e.g., they possess
a particular constellation of neuropsychological charac­
teristics, captured under the diagnostic category of atten­
tion-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)); individual
 3.  Neuroscience in the Media
behavior, emotion, and identity shifts in line with this
new knowledge (e.g., as a child is ascribed a diagnostic
label and associated medical, psychotherapeutic, or edu­
cational intervention); and the collective understandings
of society evolve and posit new questions for science to
address (e.g., how can children with ADHD be best sup­
ported in achieving effective learning?).
A socially responsible science should be cognizant
of these feedback loops and engage in critical scrutiny
of the ways in which it influences and is influenced by
the cultural, political, and ideological environments of
which it is part. As such, it is apposite for neuroscien­
tists to reflect on the wider cultural processes that their
research outputs may be setting in motion. Social scien­
tific research is an invaluable resource in this enterprise,
helping to ensure that debates about neuroscience’s
sociocultural implications are realistic and evidence-
based rather than anecdotal. What follows surveys the
social scientific research that has tracked whether and
how neuroscientific concepts are propelling shifts in
common-sense understandings of self and others.
3.  NEUROSCIENCE IN THE MEDIA
The popular media are the vehicle by which neuro­
scientific findings reach the general public, and as such,
it is useful to look at how press coverage construes neu­
roscience’s implications for understandings of human
personhood. A study of the British press conducted by
O’Connor, Rees and Joffe found that neuroscience cover­
age increased dramatically between 2000 and 2010.31 This
large dataset of media articles revealed numerous ways
in which neuroscience was drawn into articulations of
self and identity. Most notably, the brain was universally
lauded as the wellspring of human potential and cast as
a valuable resource that required careful nurturing from
its owner. This laid the foundations for a constant appeal
for “brain optimization,” whereby the media transfig­
ured neuroscientific findings into a regime of lifestyle
choices that individuals should undertake in order to
enhance their neurocognitive capacity. According to
this media theme, a responsible citizen should carefully
modulate their (or their child’s) nutritional, cognitive,
and behavioral activity in accordance with the advice
of neuro-experts, in order to maximize their neurocog­
nitive productivity. This trend closely resonates with
deeply entrenched ideologies in Western culture, which
valorize individual self-reliance, self-improvement, and
self-discipline.32–34 The displacement of these values
onto the site of the brain suggests that neuroscientific
concepts are interpreted through and harnessed to rein­
force prevailing cultural ideals of individualism.
The media’s absorption of neuroscientific concepts
into abiding cultures of identity was further evident in
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
373
another key trend detected by this analysis: the use of
neuroscience to underline differences between catego­
ries of people. The media were exceedingly enthusiastic
about the prospect that the many intergroup divisions
that exist in our societies—relating to such variables as
gender, sexuality, morality, psychopathology, person­
ality, and political attitudes—can ultimately be traced
to different social categories’ possession of distinct
“types” of brains. Much of this material revolved cen­
trally around explaining patterns of behavior deemed
pathological or abnormal; attributing phenomena such
as criminality, homosexuality, or addiction to disordered
brains served to symbolically distance these popula­
tions from the “normal” majority. This media content
was often deterministic in tone, reproducing long-estab­
lished stereotypes, reinforcing sharp divisions between
social categories, and constituting social groups as
wholly internally homogeneous. For example, the media
often deploy neuroscientific research on sex differences
to legitimize traditional gender stereotypes and role
divisions.35
The results of the O’Connor et al. analysis chime with
another media analysis by Racine, Waldman, Rosenberg,
and Illes.36 This analysis found that a key facet of popu­
lar coverage of functional Magnetic Resonance Imag­
ing (fMRI) research was a trend the researchers termed
neuroessentialism, in which the brain is construed as
synonymous with the more global concepts of per­
son, self, or soul. In their data, the brain often stood as
the grammatical subject of a sentence, with the causal
power of self-propelling neurochemical processes effac­
ing conventional notions of individual agency. These
reductionist media tendencies were rarely tempered by
critical reflection on the conceptual or methodological
robustness of the research in question. The researchers
concluded that in the popular press, neuroscience is
afforded a level of authority in determining “who we
are” that is not merited by the current sophistication of
neuroscientific theories and techniques.
However, an article by Whiteley proposes that Racine
et al.’s study was insufficiently attuned to the rhetorical
contexts of media articles.37 Whiteley suggests that the
identified instances of neuroessentialism do not neces­
sarily indicate a serious neuroscientific colonization of
ordinary concepts of personhood but rather may reflect
instances of irony, humor, or metaphor. She also ques­
tions the proposition that critique of neuroscience is rare
in popular contexts, noting that critique can be expressed
through many discursive forms beyond explicit, rea­
soned argument. In an analysis aimed at documenting
the nature of critical engagements with neuroimaging,
Whiteley applied principles of discourse analysis to 249
newspaper, magazine, and online articles that suggested
that neuroimaging research could enlighten human
nature. This analysis revealed ample occasions where
374 20.  SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
neuroimaging evidence was questioned or rejected, par­
ticularly when the research topic was one on which the
writer claimed personal familiarity (e.g., gender relations
or adolescence). This resistance was selective, however:
when the writer agreed with the purported implications
of neuroimaging research, its authority tended to be
endorsed.
Whiteley’s analysis highlights the limitations of eval­
uating neuroscience’s social implications solely in terms
of its literal depiction in the media. Textual information
can convey rhetorical meaning that extends beyond its
literal content, and audiences’ readings of that informa­
tion can be diverse and unpredictable. With this in mind,
it is important to look beyond media analyses to also
examine how neuroscientific ideas resonate in everyday
social and personal realities.
4.  NEUROSCIENCE IN PERSONAL LIVES
Most research exploring how neuroscience assimilates
into personal and social identities has focused on popu­
lations affected by a psychological or neurological dis­
order, for whom neuroscientific information is assumed
to be particularly directly relevant. This research has
detected numerous examples of communities for whom
neuroscientific ideas are profoundly important for self-
conception and social presentation. One such case is the
burgeoning “neurodiversity movement,” which deliber­
ately harnesses neuroscientific frameworks to cultivate
positive social identities. This campaign, spearheaded
by the autism community, propagates an interpreta­
tion of developmental disorders (e.g., autism spectrum
disorders) as simply alternative ways of being that are
equally legitimate as “neurotypicality.”7,38 Similar logic
has been detected in the self-concepts of individuals
with developmental disorders, who can adopt neuro­
scientific language to represent themselves as subject
to unique, “hard-wired” challenges and abilities.38–41
Singh observes that children with ADHD conceptual­
ize the self-brain relationship as mutable and context-
dependent, with the brain most causally implicated in
the context of misbehavior.42 This indicates that while
neurobiology does not form an immutable, hegemonic
framework of self-understanding, brain attributions can
be deployed instrumentally within specific psychosocial
contexts. Thus, for groups diagnosed with particular
psychiatric conditions, neurobiological explanations of
their thoughts and feelings are sometimes psychologi­
cally and socially functional, with their endorsement
serving identity-protective ends.
Research has also explored the reception of neuro­
scientific information by the families of those diagnosed
with psychiatric or psychological disorders. Feinstein
suggests that a child’s diagnosis with autism stimulates
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
a progressive, dynamic engagement with neuroscience
in which scientific knowledge is mingled with ordinary,
everyday meanings.43 Much of the discourse celebrating
the prospect of neurogenetic explanations of disorders,
such as autism and ADHD, has focused on their potential
to obviate the parental blame that these conditions have
traditionally invited, exemplified in the ­mid-twentieth
century “refrigerator mother” theory of autism and
schizophrenia. Singh’s interviews with mothers of boys
with ADHD found them to endorse the notion that bio­
logical explanations refuted parental culpability: in the
mothers’ narratives, the time of diagnosis marked the
point at which they were absolved of blame for their
child’s disruptive behavior.44 However, Singh’s analy­
sis ultimately concludes that despite mothers’ explicit
renunciation of culpability, clinical diagnosis had recon­
stituted rather than expunged mother-blame. For exam­
ple, mothers’ knowledge that their son’s bad behavior
was biologically caused provoked shame when they
felt anger or frustration toward him. Similar findings
are reported in an analysis of interviews with relatives
of individuals with schizophrenia.45 Relatives repeat­
edly invoked biogenetic causation to repulse blame that
might otherwise be directed toward them or other family
members, with siblings particularly motivated to protect
their mothers from blame. However, they continued to
search for things that family members could have done
that “triggered” the emergence of the disorder.
Thus, research indicates that for many people affected
by psychological disorders, neuroscience forms an
emotionally meaningful and pragmatically useful
resource for identity construction. However, much less
is known about how neuroscience has resonated in the
­self-concepts of those who have not been alerted to neu­
roscientific information via clinical diagnosis. Pickers­
gill, Cunningham–Burley, and Martin incorporated both
clinical and nonclinical populations (e.g., teachers, cler­
ics, and neuroscientists themselves) into a focus group
study examining how neuroscience relates to ordinary
subjective experience.46 Their analysis suggested that for
these participants, the brain is characterized by “mun­
dane significance”: people appreciated its importance
when speaking in the abstract, but brain information
rarely struck them as relevant to their day-to-day lives.
Similarly, Choudhury, McKinney, and Merten’s investi­
gation of how adolescents engage with concepts of the
“teenage brain” found that while teenagers stated that
this field of science was objectively important, they also
saw it as boring and personally irrelevant.47 In neither
of these studies was biology foremost in people’s under­
standings of self or others: behavior was primarily seen
as resulting from interactions between material circum­
stances, previous experiences, and social relationships.
Although the Pickersgill et al. and Choudhury
et al. studies provide valuable insight into the uneven
 5. A New Source of Evidence: Interviews with the British Public
take-up of neuroscience beyond clinical populations,
their designs have a number of restrictions. In particular,
neither provides a clear test of whether neuroscience has
registered with members of the lay public who do not
have some preexisting investment in neuroscience. Pick­
ersgill et al.’s sample was composed of neuroscientists,
patients, or members of professions that the researchers
saw as relevant to brain research, while Choudhury et al.
concentrated exclusively on adolescents’ responses to the
idea of a “teen brain.” There remains a marked absence
of research on how members of the public at large, rather
than people for whom neuroscience has been designated
specifically relevant, engage with ideas about the brain.
5.  A NEW SOURCE OF EVIDENCE:
INTERVIEWS WITH THE BRITISH
PUBLIC
To address this empirical void, researchers in Univer­
sity College London recently initiated a study to explore
how lay publics, who maintain no specific investment
in the neuroscience field, engage with neuroscientific
information within their day-to-day lives. Interviews
were conducted with 48 London residents, who were
purposively selected to ensure an equal distribution of
age, gender, and tabloid/broadsheet newspaper read­
ership (which in the British context operates as a proxy
for socioeconomic status, since broadsheets are typically
associated with a middle-class and tabloids with a work­
ing-class readership). Ethical approval was obtained
from University College London and interviews took
place between May and October 2012. Participants
were not told the topic of the research in advance of the
interview.
In accordance with the Grid Elaboration Method,48
an interview technique for eliciting people’s naturalis­
tic, subjectively valid patterns of understanding, respon­
dents were first presented with a grid of four empty
boxes and asked to write or draw the first four ideas that
came to mind on hearing the phrase “brain research.”
Figure 1 displays an example of a completed grid. The
resulting set of free associations functioned as a stimu­
lus for the subsequent verbal interview, which encour­
aged people to expand on their subjective responses to
the topic of brain research. This nondirective approach,
which involved minimal intercession by the interviewer,
facilitated a naturalistic glimpse into the chains of asso­
ciation people spontaneously mobilized in conceptual­
izing the topic.
All interviews (average duration 34  min) were
recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the ATLAS.
ti qualitative analysis software. A procedure of the­
matic analysis was deployed, which involved system­
atically coding all text using a coding frame that was
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
375
validated through interrater reliability testing. ATLAS.
ti’s functions for detecting co-occurrence and sequenc­
ing patterns were then utilized to explore the relation­
ships between codes and identify the key themes that
traversed the data.
A detailed account of the full results of this analysis
has been presented elsewhere.49,50 Briefly, the analysis
found that this lay sample was far less aware of con­
temporary neuroscience than much social commentary
on neuroscience has assumed. Most individuals who
were interviewed struggled to recall any prior encounter
with neuroscientific information, and those associations
that were summoned related primarily to the medical
domain. Despite the documented preponderance of neu­
roscientific concepts and imagery in the popular press,
for these interviewees the scalpel of the brain surgeon
remained a more salient symbol than the vividly-colored
fMRI scan. However, the analysis did reveal a number
of specific contexts where neuroscientific concepts had
more deeply penetrated common-sense understanding,
most notably in the very consensual representation of
mental illness as a brain disease and in the notion that
brain function can be improved by adapting one’s life­
style choices. This suggests that neuroscience can indeed
influence lay people’s everyday understanding, but in
selective, partial, and contingent ways.
With this in mind, the remainder of this paper con­
siders the light this interview data throws on the debate
about whether and how neuroscience is influencing
“folk psychology.” Do people spontaneously use neu­
roscientific concepts to understand themselves, and do
they use them to understand others? Do people ascribe
causal significance to the brain in explaining individual
characteristics, abilities, and life outcomes? What fol­
lows mobilizes the British interview data to shed light
on these questions.
5.1 Was the Brain Seen as Determining
Behavior?
In the interviews, neural processes were frequently
ascribed a causal role in conceptualizing human behav­
ior. Observed differences in surface traits, such as per­
sonality and intelligence, were explicitly attributed to
differences in people’s brains.
You know, people say you’re brainy because people are more
intelligent than others and some people are just naturally intel­
ligent. So obviously their brain must work in a different way.
Female, tabloid-reader, aged 38–57
  
I’m sure somebody who has a, let’s say an overly happy excit­
able person, their brain may look very similar to a depressed
person’s brain in terms of the structure, but the way it’s, the
way people are using the structure I guess could be different.
Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
376 20.  SCIENCE IN SOCIETY

FIGURE 1  Example of a completed free association grid, produced by a 58-year-old female broadsheet reader. This participant first drew
an image of a brain, which she linked with arrows to the second box to convey the idea that in the brain, abstract phenomena such as “mind”
and “spirit” are “constrained by atoms.” She went on to draw a picture of a “cross teacher,” which captured her sense that scientific knowledge is
controlled and disseminated in authoritarian ways. In her final box, she turned to thinking about the importance of the brain in human life, sug­
gesting that its implications are as vast as the “universe.”

With brains no two people are the same. And so therefore it
is the brain that creates who you are and makes you different
and makes you respond in a different way and react in a differ­
ent way. Female, broadsheet-reader, aged 38–57
However, these neurobiological attributions did not
preclude the acknowledgment of additional causal
forces. Reference to environmental factors in individual
development also occurred frequently in the data, with
the family constituting a particularly salient locus of
environmental influence. Most people did not see neuro­
biological and environmental causality as contradictory,
instead endorsing a biology–environment interaction.
Although very few made specific reference to the scien­
tific concept of neuroplasticity, many intuitively grasped
the principle that experience modulates brain structure
and function.
So obviously we’re predisposed to, you know, emotions, the
way we think, the way we feel. There must be a certain pattern
that’s sort of imprinted in there to start off with and the way
you learn and the way you take stuff in as you grow. You grow
one way, you grow another way, it must, it must all be like that.
There must be a starting point of like being hard-wired in the
brain. But then as you learn, whether you’re learning at school,
whether you’re learning through life. It must take you in differ­
ent directions. Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 38–57

  
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
 5. A New Source of Evidence: Interviews with the British Public
Additionally, assertions of neurological deter­
mination of behavior were often intermingled with
endorsements of individual agency. For example, one-
quarter of interviewees introduced a metaphor that
compared the brain to aspects of electrical or mechani­
cal systems. The brain was variously described as a
“hub,” “control room,” “engine room,” “battery,” “IT
center,” “motor,” “mighty powerhouse,” “centrifugal
force,” “starter motor,” “great electrical center,” and
“central processor.” On the surface, these metaphors,
which condensed the source of human vitality into
the single site of the brain, could be interpreted as
reflecting a deterministic conception of the brain as an
all-controlling power. However, many of the mecha­
nisms to which the brain was compared, such as com­
puters or batteries, were not framed as self-sufficient
automatons but rather objects of instrumental value,
which are used by individuals to achieve intended
outcomes.
And it is up to you but you have got to, you have got to tell
the brain and you’ve got to find the brain, the part of the brain
that’s going to react. That’s how I see it. It’s all a bit like a com­
puter. I see it like a computer, that you’re the one that’s operat­
ing it so if you make a mistake, it’s not the computer’s fault, it’s
you. Female, broadsheet-reader, aged 58–77
  
Such metaphors therefore constituted the brain as a
tool that individuals could willfully exploit to achieve
desired ends. The brain coordinated human activity,
but the biochemical directions that it issued were sub­
ject to intentional control. Thus, literal descriptions
of the brain as all-commanding did not necessar­
ily bypass notions of conscious control or individual
autonomy.
Brain is not really in control of it. We ask him to control. It’s
resting there. He works hard. And your eyes or your hands or
whatever, you know, they send signal to the brain. But at the
moment brain is not doing anything, brain automatically don’t
do it, you’ve got to think with your eyes and go to brain, then
it reacts. Brain is not reacting on its own. Although it’s sitting
there, but just like electricity, there is electricity there, if you
need it you just plug it and then it comes, things start working.
Male, tabloid-reader, aged 58–77
  
Well it’s there for us, isn’t it, to be, to be used. Our brain
is everything about us. We need our brain. If we haven’t got a
brain then we can’t do anything. Our brain tells us what to do.
Female, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
  
In sum, drafting the brain into conceptualizations of
human behavior did not impose complete materialism
or determinism. Rather, lay thinking was characterized
by holistic, multidimensional explanations of behavior,
in which attributions to the brain directly intermeshed
with endorsements of environmental influence and indi­
vidual agency.
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
377
5.2 Did People Use Neuroscientific Ideas to 
Understand Themselves?
Just over one-third of participants spontaneously
related the brain to their own traits or characteristic
thought patterns. In imprinting their individuality on
their brain, these people revealed a sense of ownership
or identification with “the way my brain works.” Here, the
phrase “my brain” operated as shorthand for the cogni­
tive attributes that the participant saw as uniquely self-
characteristic. This trend represented one of the rare
points in the data at which participants directly incorpo­
rated the physical brain into self-conception.
The way my brain works, literally my train of thought is
always speeding forwards. Sometimes I’ve got to try and slow
myself down or write things down. I’ll think of an idea and all
of a sudden, thump, I’ve worked it through twenty stages in a
few seconds! Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 38–57
  
I think there’s different types of intelligence and I think that’s
okay. Like I’m not really an academic person and I don’t think
my brain works like that and I don’t think it will ever work like
that. Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
  
Fifteen interviewees volunteered statements resem­
bling “neuroessentialism,” which condensed the entirety
of personhood into the brain. These overtly philosophi­
cal musings directly equated concepts like “spirit,”
“soul,” and “essence” with the material brain.
I think the brain defines who you are. So that any research
or any meddling or… is really unwrapping and unfolding and
revealing something about the personality and the person and
the character of that person and the very nature of that person
and the very, the very essence of that person. […] Well it’s, it’s
you. It’s not your body, it’s you, it’s your personality, it’s who
you are, your spirit, your character. Female, broadsheet-reader,
aged 38–57
  
Yeah, well the brain is what makes a person, gives them their
essence I suppose. Female, tabloid-reader, aged 38–57
  
However, commitment to such sentiments often
faltered under further reflection. Several participants
expressed discomfort with the idea of an entirely mate­
rial self, and in contemplating, it became mired in a form
of existential anxiety. Some disclosed that they purposely
avoided thinking about the topic for this reason.
No, ‘cause then you’ve got the thing of is the brain the soul,
do you believe in the soul, is the soul winging away as the
brain… That’s a difficult one. I’m not too sure about that kind of
thing at the minute. Really not too sure. That’s something that I
think we all choose not to think about too much as well. Female,
broadsheet-reader, aged 58–77
  
You can, it’s very reductive, isn’t it. So it’s reducing yourself
to just a series of impulses and electrical, you know electrical
impulses and you’re one big, you know, biological circuit board.
378 20.  SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
Or the brain is connected to sort of muscles which are just again
sort of series of, you know, contracting fibres and… So that’s
all quite, so I suppose it’s sort of where does it end, you know.
‘Cause we like to think of ourselves as being quite important
and special. Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
One participant, who worked in environmental sci­
ence, offered a particularly lucid articulation of the
inconsistency between abstract belief in material person­
hood and immediate self-understanding. This individual
identified as scientifically-minded and on a conscious
level fully endorsed a materialistic view of the mind.
However, he made an explicit separation between his
“theoretical” beliefs and his day-to-day thinking, assert­
ing that it is existentially impossible to maintain a purely
materialistic view in ordinary life. This conviction was
premised on his positioning of materialism and personal
autonomy as mutually exclusive principles. He rejected
materialistic thinking in his day-to-day life because he
believed that to accept it would necessitate sacrificing
his sense of personal control and attendant feelings of
achievement, which he imagined would be “doing your-
self a disservice.” He framed this in explicitly emotional
terms, characterizing materialistic views of oneself as
“sad,” “nihilistic,” “isolating,” and “cold.” This participant
painted the retention of what he ultimately saw as the
fiction of his free will as an emotional imperative, neces­
sary to sustain his ability to function normally in soci­
ety. This example illustrates how people’s willingness to
endorse materialism on an abstract level teetered when it
breached their concrete, immediate self-understanding.
You can think about it like that, you know, when I’m
speaking about it consciously, but in your day-to-day making
decisions, that kind of thing, you have to forget about that, oth­
erwise it would be a bit nihilistic and sad. […] at the end, it was
always going to happen through this weird cascade of chemical
activity – I don’t like that very much. I don’t know, I kind of
do like it but I don’t like it, if that makes sense. I like it theo­
retically but, you know, when you’re in that moment looking at
the things you’ve achieved I think it’s hard to separate the two.
Male, tabloid-reader, aged 18–37
  
Thus, although numerous participants drew a connec­
tion between the material brain and more ephemeral ideas
of selfhood when speaking in the abstract, there was little
indication that this understanding pervaded their day-to-
day experience. Very few recounted specific examples of
previously encountering neuroscientific information that
had affected their self-conception. Further, it is worth not­
ing that while some participants nominally linked indi­
viduality to the organ of the brain, they did not allude to
particular neurological processes, structures, or chemicals.
The role of the “neuro” in self-understanding was con­
fined to a basic understanding that cognition “happens”
in the brain, rather than any specific knowledge of con­
temporary neuroscientific concepts.
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
5.3 Did People Use Neuroscientific Ideas to 
Understand Others?
Though participants intermittently invoked the notion
of brain difference to explain interindividual variation
in personality or intellectual ability, the neurobiological
domain was not a key reference point for understand­
ing one’s immediate social circle or “people like me.”
However, the data revealed that a particular point at
which respondents turned to the brain for explanation
was when confronted with individuals who seemed
unusual or strange. Unusual behavior was experienced
as intuitively incomprehensible, and the mystification
this produced was resolved by enlisting a brain explana­
tion. For example, one woman expressed bewilderment
at an acquaintance’s perpetually benevolent disposition,
which she saw as so extraordinary that the only possi­
ble explanation was an atypical brain. Another person
described encountering a man acting bizarrely on the
street and drawing the conclusion that his brain must
function irregularly.
Like it was very strange. Like just shouting at people and to
himself and talking to himself non-stop. It was just, it was very,
it was very very strange the way he behaved and you wouldn’t
do that unless, I’m sure there was something wrong with his
brain. I’m definitely sure. Because you wouldn’t speak like that.
Female, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
  
The invocation of the brain to understand abnormal
“others” was exemplified in discussion of violent crimi­
nality, which occurred in one-third of the interviews.
This usually centered upon the extreme offences of mass
murder, terrorism, or pedophilia and was often personi­
fied by individuals notorious for their evil acts, such as
Adolf Hitler or Anders Behring Breivik (whose trial for
the murder of 77 people in Norway was ongoing at the
time of interviews). In contemplating instances of crimi­
nal atrocity, participants produced a stream of “why”
questions, conveying a sense of complete bewilderment.
I mean, you know, look at people like Adolf Hitler. Why
did he think the way he did? Why did he do what he did? You
know. So I’m fascinated by that. You know, these people are, cre­
ated so many – they were powerful but they were very cruel and
evil. Why is one person more evil than the next? You know, why
do some people commit murder and others that are just normal?
[…] I’m just trying to think as an intelligent person, you know,
‘cause I’m, I’m baffled by it all. You know, sometimes I think,
why do they do that? You know, why did they, why create that?
Why did they, what are they up to? You know, why do they do
these things? Male, broadsheet-reader, aged 38–57
  
This gulf in understanding was strongly emotionally
tinged. The confusion provoked by confrontation with
alien mentalities was evidently experienced by some as
distressing.
 5. A New Source of Evidence: Interviews with the British Public
So you know, just the thought of entertaining ideas about,
reading up about killing somebody, for me is just terrifying.
You know what I mean, like. I’d be like, oh my God. But people
must, I mean, I don’t know, they must do that, right, they must
be like – I just don’t know how their brain would work, you
know? Female, broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
To abate this discomfort, participants attempted to
articulate some explanation of why people commit such
acts. Scanning their conceptual registers for a viable
cause of such unfathomable attributes, participants ulti­
mately alighted on the concept of “dysfunctional brain.”
Respondents did not articulate any explicit, logical ratio­
nale for this explanation; rather, the attribution seemed
to flow from an intuitive sense that this deviance must be
reflected biologically.
You know, people who do like terrible things. You must
think, well there must be something in, there must be some­
thing to do with their brain that’s made them do that because
a normal person wouldn’t be able to do, you know, really kind
of horrible things. So it must be to do with something, some­
thing to do with the brain that makes them like that. Female,
broadsheet-reader, aged 18–37
Well I’d say that, you know like you’ve had these terror­
ists and all that. You know, some of them believe that if they
go onto a bus and kill themself and a thousand, or how many
hundred people with them, that they’re going to go to some
lovely place somewhere. Now to me nobody with a normal
brain would speak like that or would think like that. Female,
tabloid-reader, aged 58–77
  
Attribution to the brain seemed to satisfy respondents’
need to explain such behavior. They did not feel obliged to
probe deeper into precisely how neurobiological processes
could produce such behavior; the concept of “different
brain” was sufficient to resolve the psychological tension
elicited by encountering incomprehensible behavior.
Say you had a mad axeman, right. Here’s the normal brain.
Here’s the mad axeman’s brain. Now see this bit, it is more,
more active. And that is the reason, they’re saying that this is
the reason why he is like he is. Male, tabloid-reader, aged 58–77
  
As well as abating psychic discomfort, attribution
of antisocial behavior to the brain had the additional
consequence of reinforcing intergroup divides. It often
involved a level of essentialism, with those who commit­
ted such acts constituted as intrinsically and irrevocably
evil. This instituted firm boundaries between social cat­
egories: people were either normal or wholly evil, with no
acknowledgment of potential areas of ambiguity between
these poles. Certain people were simply born to be “bad.”
I think there’s got to be something in you to do that. An evil­
ness or sadness or something. I believe that that person is born
with that bad seed. I genuinely believe that. Male, broadsheet-
reader, aged 38–57
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
379
Like people who go around killing people. That’s right to
them, they think that’s fine. So there’s something in the brain
that’s clicked and gone this is, this is okay to be like this. I think
it’s, you can’t change. It just runs. You can’t sort of go, ‘I don’t
want to think like that anymore.’ Male, tabloid-reader, aged
18–37
Such quotes articulate an understanding that biogene­
tic fate impels antisocial behavior. Interestingly, however,
only one participant implied that this deterministic bio­
logical causality would diminish legal or moral respon­
sibility for destructive behavior. All other respondents
who touched on the issue held fast to the principle of
personal responsibility, which for them remained com­
mensurate with biological causation.
But seeing a human being as a, as a body with a brain, you
can’t say that, it’s like nature versus nurture and why is some­
body a criminal, you can’t take somebody’s fault away because
they’ve killed someone ‘cause the brain told you to. ‘Cause I
think that’s stupid. I think that’s when it starts crossing the line
of, oh it’s not my fault, it’s my brain’s fault. So [laughs] yes,
that could cross the line of what we call insanity but I person­
ally think that you are in control of your, your actions. Female,
broadsheet-reader, aged 58–77
  
In summary, the data suggested that invoking the
notion of “different brain” functioned to resolve the
discomfort elicited by encountering radically abnormal
behavior. In the process, it naturalized the social and
symbolic divides separating “bad people” from the nor­
mal majority. This did not, however, compel society to
relinquish the prerogative to hold depraved individuals
morally accountable for their wrongdoing.
5.4 Summary of Interview Findings
This interview data confirms that when pressed to
speculate about the brain, people spontaneously relate
it to concepts of personhood, self, and identity. Respon­
dents directly attributed their own and others’ behav­
ior to biology. Discussion often evolved to incorporate
wider, explicitly philosophical concerns: participants
instinctively felt that brain research would have rel­
evance for notions of self, spirit, and soul. However,
when the surrounding context of such statements was
scrutinized, it was clear that they did not reflect a com­
prehensive materialization of ordinary understandings
of personhood. Some participants actively resisted neu­
roessentialist ideas, unnerved or unconvinced by these
scientific conceptualizations. Further, even those who
were comfortable accepting biological determination
of personal traits refrained from positioning the brain
as paramount. When given space to elaborate on their
understandings, respondents revealed complex explan­
atory networks in which neurobiological causation,
environmental influence, and individual intentionality
380 20.  SCIENCE IN SOCIETY
occupied equally valid, interlocking positions. For exam­
ple, participants would attribute an individual’s level of
intelligence directly to their brain characteristics, but on
reflecting further would attribute these neural resources
to the personal effort they expended in education, which
was in turn attributed to the person’s upbringing and
cultural values and expectations. Thus, while the brain
was positioned as the proximal source of intelligent cog­
nition, it was ultimately a medium for the more funda­
mental causes of culture and individual will.
These dynamics shifted somewhat as conversation
moved beyond the parameters of “normal” interindivid­
ual variation to mentalities imbued with a sense of abnor­
mality and “otherness.” Here, attention to environmental
or other nonbiological causality dramatically subsided:
participants were strongly invested in attributing devi­
ance to an essential biological aberrancy. Many commen­
tators on contemporary neuroscience have speculated that
knowledge about the biological roots of antisocial behav­
ior will have profound implications for the criminal justice
system, undermining the principle of legal responsibility.
In this data, however, respondents rejected outright the
suggestion that biological causality of criminal behavior
was incompatible with the ascription of moral responsi­
bility. Indeed, it is possible that attributing criminality
to brain difference may foster more punitive attitudes,
because the construction of criminals as an irredeemably
bad “other species” may attenuate empathy or identifica­
tion with criminal populations.
This interview data bolsters the emerging empirical
consensus that when neuroscientific concepts breach reg­
isters of common sense, they do not drive out prevailing
modes of understanding personhood.16,42,51,52 Overtly
contradictory ideas can coexist independently, prefer­
entially evoked in different discursive contexts, or can
indeed directly interact to form complex, multifaceted
explanatory networks. An important contribution of this
research is therefore to highlight that, due to the multi­
valent nature of common-sense knowledge, neuroscience
does not assimilate into society in linear, predictable ways.
The extensive public attention to neuroscience means that
neuroscientists may indeed be contributing toward cul­
tural shifts in how people conceive of themselves and
others. However, the direction of these shifts can only
be discerned through empirically-informed analysis that
remains fully alive to the complexities of both common-
sense cognition and real-world social environments.
6.  HOW SHOULD NEUROSCIENTISTS
RESPOND?
It is clear that in contemporary society, neurosci­
ence is interpreted and applied in many diverse ways.
These appropriations of neuroscientific knowledge are
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
sometimes driven by neuroscientists themselves, who
are working within an academic environment that
increasingly prizes research impact. The desire to catch
media attention and emphasize the real-world relevance
of their research may encourage scientists to make
unwarranted leaps between data and interpretation.
For instance, an analysis of media coverage of a high-
profile study of sex differences found that some of the
most egregious features of media coverage, which pre­
sented the research as a validation of traditional gender
stereotypes, were supported by quotes that the research­
ers themselves provided in their informal communica­
tions with journalists.35 This highlights the importance
of remaining alert to the cultural biases and ideologies
with which a particular piece of research might resonate.
If there is a possibility that scientific findings could be
illegitimately recruited to serve a particular sociopo­
litical agenda, scientists must take care to avoid fueling
this and could indeed take preemptive steps to disclaim
certain interpretations of the research. In devising their
research programs, scientists should devote careful
consideration to the sociocultural processes that their
research might set in motion and develop a dissemina­
tion plan that is sensitive to those.
It would be wise not to leave these measures solely to
the responsibility of individual researchers, whose abil­
ity to recognize and address problems may be limited
by resource constraints and their closeness to their own
research. If the neuroscience community is genuinely
committed to scrutinizing the social repercussions of
its research, structures that facilitate this must be estab­
lished at the institutional level. Ethics committees and
institutional review boards should broaden their pur­
view beyond a prospective study’s immediate influence
on its participants, to the more profound and long-term
ripple effects that may occur as science interacts with
sociocultural contexts. The social scientific literature on
neuroscience in society offers a rich and evidence-based
source of insight into the potential promises and perils
of a particular piece of research. While these need not
necessarily be the ultimate arbiter of whether ethical
approval is granted or refused, mandating attention to
these issues would cultivate a more holistic view among
scientists and ensure they are alerted to controversies
that might arise as their research program develops.
Establishing systems that make active consideration of a
study’s social implications a routine part of project plan­
ning would therefore benefit both science and society.
It is important to note, however, that the social evo­
lution of scientific ideas is not a process that can or
should be controlled solely by scientists themselves,
no matter how considered their public engagement
strategy. Often these developments are not insti­
gated by scientific experts, but reflect more bottom-
up transformations, whereby social actors read into
 References
neuroscientific concepts a certain significance for their
own personal, social, or professional interests. Upon
leaving the laboratory, neuroscientific concepts can
take on a “life of their own” and develop implications
that were not foreseen by their creators.
This sparks unease among many in the scientific
community, who have taken to newspapers and blogs
to protest at what they see as a booming industry in
“neuro-nonsense,” “neuro-bollocks,” or “neuro-trash.”
However, the susceptibility of neuroscience research
to reinterpretation in wider society is not necessarily a
wholly negative attribute. Rather, it is a testament to
the societal pertinence of neuroscientific research pro­
grams, which are clearly tapping culturally important
questions. This represents an opportunity rather than
a threat for neuroscientists, whose invitation into these
dynamic social debates promises valuable returns in
intellectual energy and public support. Undoubtedly,
some appropriations of neuroscientific information
might occur that aggrieve the scientific community;
and if scientists deem a certain interpretation wrong
or damaging, they should not shy away from attempts
to convince the wider public of its relative demerits.
However, it should be remembered that while scientific
experts often have privileged insight into the factual
correctness of scientific claims, they have no exclusive
authority to arbitrate their cultural meaning. It is inevi­
table that in a pluralistic society, the same information
will connote different things to different people. The
scientific community should be prepared to engage
with these differences of perspective fully and respect­
fully, appreciating that lay populations can have legiti­
mate and valuable reservoirs of local expertise they can
bring to bear on scientific debates.53,54
7. CONCLUSION
A socially responsible science requires sensitivity
to the social contexts in which it is mobilized and the
social effects it incites therein. Increasingly, neurosci­
ence’s influences on wider society are mediated by
how neuroscientific concepts interact with cultural
understandings of personhood. To ensure its research
is conducted and communicated in a socially respon­
sible manner, the neuroscience community must cul­
tivate awareness of these processes. Neuroscientists
should be prepared to engage with the perspectives of
lay communities, both through direct public outreach
activities and through acquaintance with the social sci­
ence literature that tracks neuroscience’s route through
particular social contexts. Doing so will ensure that the
continued development of neuroscience’s scientific and
public profile will be informed by a sound understand­
ing of the role it occupies in modern society.
VI.  BRAIN IMAGING AND SOCIETY
381
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