When it comes to understanding ourselves, we tend to be splitters: mind and body, nature and nurture, or genes and environment. We take such a split for granted when we ask how the social becomes biological, but sometimes it’s not so useful to dichotomize the world into society and biology. Instead of looking for distinct social and biological influences (and believing that we can change one but not the other), we should recognize that the factors that drive our social behavior can, like a Zen koan, be two things at once.
Take the case of teen alcohol abuse. In a study published last week, an international team of researchers reported the “neuropsychosocial” factors that identify teens who are likely to abuse alcohol. The word “neuropsychosocial” does away with the common nature/nurture divide, and so did the researchers. Rather than asking whether teens abuse alcohol because of social influences or innate biology, the scientists looked at those variables that could be measured, regardless of whether the variables were social, biological, or a mix of both.
[For more of this story, written by Michael White, go to http://www.psmag.com/navigatio...doesnt-matter-89083/]
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