Hyperstructures and the Biology of Interpersonal Dependence: Rethinking Reciprocity and Altruism

Abstract

Fluctuations in endogenous opioid activity in the brain, controlled under ordinary conditions by attachment, are capable of producing patterns of dependence in social behavior resembling those appearing in substance abusers. Withdrawal symptoms arising in relation to these fluctuations, short of producing dependence, ordinarily fuel everyday social interaction, and interaction then serves to modulate opioid activity within a range associated with comfort. Comfort-constraints in this sense operate in all settings of social interaction, part of an innate caregiving mechanism conserved by evolution in human behavior. In this paper we present a formal model of the neurosociological mechanism embodying these comfort constraints. Conceptualized as a hyperstructure, the mechanism grounds thinking about social interaction in recent biological discoveries about the brain, and enables sociologists to study how activity in core brain systems constrains deep patterns in social life, including the human tendencies to altruism and reciprocity. Using computational methods, we undertake simulations to study the mechanism, deriving implications about moral behavior. The theory of the hyperstructure leads to new conclusions about reciprocity and altruism, and bears upon sociological understanding of related subjects such as justice and social comparison.

Complejidad, instituciones y antropología. Reflexiones sobre los límites del conocimiento antropológico en la "sociedad del conocimiento"

“…Incluyen "identidad" en el nivel grupal (Hogg, 2006) e individual (Stets, 2006. Otros asuntos son los estudios de interacción con computadoras (Suchman, 2006) o los temas sociológicos sobre adicción química (Smith y Stevens, 2002). La teoría de los polisistemas, formulada hace unos quince años por un investigador de literaturas nacionales, propone estudiar el sistema semió-tico de la cultura (Even-Zohar, 2005).…”

The Habitus Process: A Biopsychosocial Conception

“…The study of brain processes involved in habituation in other primate species may have implications for the habitus process (Diamond 1992). Smith and Stevens (2002), for example, attempt to map the neurosociological mechanisms of how activity in core brain systems constrains deep patterns in social life, such as altruism and reciprocity. Having surveyed what habiti are and where they are situated, we turn now to some of their major effects.…”

Formalism, Behavioral Realism and the Interdisciplinary Challenge in Sociological Theory

“…This path involves relinquishing the very idea of sociology as an autonomous conceptual edifice composed of abstract models of exclusively social processes. Here concepts and mechanisms derived from biology (Ellis 1996; Smith and Stevens 2002; Udry 1995) or psychology and cognitive science and psychology (Carley 1989; Dimaggio 1997, 2002; Thoits 1995), are considered to be equally important.…”

“…From this perspective sociology is still seen as the central integrative intellectual hub where all of these strands meet (Gove 1995). However, basic themes that have been historically central in social theory such as the dynamics of micro‐interaction (Kemper and Collins 1990; Turner 1988, 2000b, 2002), emotions (Kemper 1981; Turner 1999, 2000a) or the general motivational factors that govern social behavior (Gove 1994; Turner 1987) are considered impossible to explain without recourse to the theoretical and empirical storehouse of neurophysiology (Hammond 2003; Lizardo 2007; Smith and Stevens 1996, 2002; Turner 2000a), cognitive psychology and linguistics (Bergesen 2004a, 2004b), and evolutionary psychology, neuroendocrinology, and behavioral genetics (Ellis 1996; Gove 1994; Smith and Stevens 1996, 2002; Udry 2000). 2 All sciences traditionally thought of as exclusively dealing with non‐social or infraindividual processes.…”