John Cacioppo
Encyclopedia
John T. Cacioppo is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago
. He founded and is Director of the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and the Director of the Arete Initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research and National Laboratories at the University of Chicago. He is a member of the Department of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, and the College and one of the founders of the field of social neuroscience
.
(Ph.D.) from The Ohio State University in 1977. He has served as the President of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for Consumer Psychology, and the Society for Psychophysiological Research and is currently the Chair-Elect of the Psychology Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been elected as a Fellow in various societies including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, the Society of Experimental Psychologists
, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, The Royal Society of Arts, and a Distinguished Member of Psi Chi
. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science
, and member of the American Psychological Association
, American Association for the Advancement of Science
, the American Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, World Innovation Foundation, International Organization of Psychophysiology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine.
He has received the Troland Research Award
from the National Academy of Sciences
, the Distinguished Scientific Award for an early career Contribution to Psychophysiology
, an honorary Doctor of Science
degree
from Bard College
, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychophysiology from the Society for Psychophysiological Research, the Donald Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Patricia Barchas
Award from the American Psychosomatic Society, the Award for Distinguished Service on Behalf of Personality and Social Psychology from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, the Order of the Sons of Italy Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Ohio State University Department of Psychology, and the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. He has been the keynote speaker at various meetings including the Festival della Scienza in Genoa, Italy and the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. He also serves on various Boards.
In the late 1970s, Cacioppo collaborated with Richard Petty to develop the elaboration likelihood model of attitudes
and persuasion
and began investigations of individual differences in cognitive motivation. They also examined the social and biological influences on mind and behavior. A decade later, Cacioppo began working with Gary Berntson
to pioneer a new field they called Social neuroscience
. This led to an expansion of Cacioppo’s research examining how personal relationships get under the skin to affect Social cognition
and emotions, personality
processes, biology
, and health
. By employing brain scans, monitoring of autonomic and neuroendocrine processes, and assays of immune function, he found the overpowering influence of social context — a factor so strong that it can alter genetic expression in white blood cells. The work further showed how the subjective sense of social isolation (loneliness) uniquely disrupts our perceptions, behavior, and physiology, becoming a trap that not only reinforces isolation, but can lead to early death. In 2004, he and William Patrick began a collaboration that led to their book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, which makes the case that social cooperation is, in fact, humanity’s defining characteristic. Cacioppo, together with Louise Hawkley, Jean Decety
, Howard Nusbaum
, and Gary Berntson
, continue to investigate the biological mechanisms involved in social perception, interpersonal processes, cognition, emotion, and behavior.
is the new discipline that examines the associations between social and neural levels of organizations and the biological mechanisms underlying these associations. Neuroscientists have tended to focus on single organisms, organs, cells, or intracellular processes. Social species create emergent organizations beyond the individual, however, and these emergent structures evolved hand in hand with neural and hormonal mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped animals survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too reproduced. Social neuroscience, therefore, is concerned with how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, capitalizing on concepts and methods from the neuroscience
to inform and refine theories of social psychological processes, and using social and behavioral concepts and data to inform and refine theories of neural organization and function
John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson
are the founding fathers of social neuroscience.
More than 20 years ago, John began working with Gary Berntson of The Ohio State University to pioneer a new field they called “social neuroscience.” This is an interdisciplinary attempt to trace how social forces “get under the skin” to affect physiology, as well as how physiology influences social interactions. John’s recent research on loneliness, conducted in collaboration with Louise Hawkley, Ron Thisted, and Linda Waite, has raised questions about one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology—the focus on the individual as the broadest appropriate unit of inquiry.
By employing brain scans, monitoring of autonomic and neuroendocrine processes, and assays of immune function, John and his colleagues have found that the influence of social context is so strong that it can alter genetic expression in white blood cells. This research also showed how the subjective sense of social isolation (“loneliness”) uniquely disrupts our perceptions, behavior, and physiology, becoming a trap that not only reinforces isolation, but can lead to early death.
John Cacioppo and Jean Decety
played an instrumental role in the creation of the Society for Social Neuroscience
in 2010.
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. He founded and is Director of the University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and the Director of the Arete Initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research and National Laboratories at the University of Chicago. He is a member of the Department of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, and the College and one of the founders of the field of social neuroscience
Social neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
.
Background
Cacioppo obtained a Doctor of PhilosophyDoctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
(Ph.D.) from The Ohio State University in 1977. He has served as the President of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for Consumer Psychology, and the Society for Psychophysiological Research and is currently the Chair-Elect of the Psychology Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been elected as a Fellow in various societies including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, the Society of Experimental Psychologists
Society of Experimental Psychologists
The Society of Experimental Psychologists , originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1904 to be an ongoing workshop in which members could visit labs, study apparatus, and hear and...
, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, The Royal Society of Arts, and a Distinguished Member of Psi Chi
Psi Chi
Psi Chi is the International Honor Society in Psychology, founded in 1929 for the purposes of encouraging, stimulating, and maintaining excellence in scholarship, and advancing the science of psychology. With over 1,050 chapters, Psi Chi is one of the largest honor societies in the United States...
. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science
Association for Psychological Science
The Association for Psychological Science , previously the American Psychological Society, is a non-profit international organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of...
, and member of the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
, American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, the American Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, World Innovation Foundation, International Organization of Psychophysiology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Society for Personality and Social Psychology
The Society for Personality and Social Psychology is an academic society for personality and social psychologists with over 4500 members worldwide. SPSP serves as Division 8 of the American Psychological Association and publishes the journals Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and...
, and the Society of Behavioral Medicine.
He has received the Troland Research Award
Troland Research Awards
The Troland Research Awards are an annual prize given by the United States National Academy of Sciences to two researchers under the age of 40 in recognition of psychological research on the relationship between consciousness and the physical world....
from the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, the Distinguished Scientific Award for an early career Contribution to Psychophysiology
Psychophysiology
Psychophysiology is the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiological bases of psychological processes. While psychophysiology was a general broad field of research in the 1960s and 1970s, it has now become quite specialized, and has branched into subspecializations...
, an honorary Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
from Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychophysiology from the Society for Psychophysiological Research, the Donald Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Patricia Barchas
Patricia Barchas
Patricia Barchas was a scholar committed to the study of the interaction of social behavior and physiological processes. She was a pioneer in the study of brain electrical activity and hormonal function in social processes, such as the development of status hierarchies in small social...
Award from the American Psychosomatic Society, the Award for Distinguished Service on Behalf of Personality and Social Psychology from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, the Order of the Sons of Italy Award, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Ohio State University Department of Psychology, and the Scientific Impact Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. He has been the keynote speaker at various meetings including the Festival della Scienza in Genoa, Italy and the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. He also serves on various Boards.
In the late 1970s, Cacioppo collaborated with Richard Petty to develop the elaboration likelihood model of attitudes
Attitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
and persuasion
Persuasion
Persuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding or bringing oneself or another toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic means.- Methods :...
and began investigations of individual differences in cognitive motivation. They also examined the social and biological influences on mind and behavior. A decade later, Cacioppo began working with Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson is professor at Ohio State University with appointments in the departments of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. He is an expert in psychophysiology, neuroscience, biological psychology, and with his colleague John Cacioppo, a founding father of social neuroscience.His research...
to pioneer a new field they called Social neuroscience
Social neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
. This led to an expansion of Cacioppo’s research examining how personal relationships get under the skin to affect Social cognition
Social cognition
Social cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
and emotions, personality
Personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...
processes, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, and health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
. By employing brain scans, monitoring of autonomic and neuroendocrine processes, and assays of immune function, he found the overpowering influence of social context — a factor so strong that it can alter genetic expression in white blood cells. The work further showed how the subjective sense of social isolation (loneliness) uniquely disrupts our perceptions, behavior, and physiology, becoming a trap that not only reinforces isolation, but can lead to early death. In 2004, he and William Patrick began a collaboration that led to their book, Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, which makes the case that social cooperation is, in fact, humanity’s defining characteristic. Cacioppo, together with Louise Hawkley, Jean Decety
Jean Decety
Jean Decety is a neuroscientist and an internationally recognized expert on cognitive neuroscience and social neuroscience. His research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition, particularly empathy, sympathy, emotional self-regulation and more generally...
, Howard Nusbaum
Howard Nusbaum
Howard C. Nusbaum is professor at the University of Chicago, United States in the Department of Psychology and its College, and a steering committee member of the Neuroscience Institute. Nusbaum is an internationally recognized expert in cognitive psychology, speech science, and in the new field of...
, and Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson is professor at Ohio State University with appointments in the departments of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. He is an expert in psychophysiology, neuroscience, biological psychology, and with his colleague John Cacioppo, a founding father of social neuroscience.His research...
, continue to investigate the biological mechanisms involved in social perception, interpersonal processes, cognition, emotion, and behavior.
Social neuroscience
Social neuroscienceSocial neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
is the new discipline that examines the associations between social and neural levels of organizations and the biological mechanisms underlying these associations. Neuroscientists have tended to focus on single organisms, organs, cells, or intracellular processes. Social species create emergent organizations beyond the individual, however, and these emergent structures evolved hand in hand with neural and hormonal mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped animals survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too reproduced. Social neuroscience, therefore, is concerned with how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, capitalizing on concepts and methods from the neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
to inform and refine theories of social psychological processes, and using social and behavioral concepts and data to inform and refine theories of neural organization and function
John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson
Gary Berntson is professor at Ohio State University with appointments in the departments of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. He is an expert in psychophysiology, neuroscience, biological psychology, and with his colleague John Cacioppo, a founding father of social neuroscience.His research...
are the founding fathers of social neuroscience.
More than 20 years ago, John began working with Gary Berntson of The Ohio State University to pioneer a new field they called “social neuroscience.” This is an interdisciplinary attempt to trace how social forces “get under the skin” to affect physiology, as well as how physiology influences social interactions. John’s recent research on loneliness, conducted in collaboration with Louise Hawkley, Ron Thisted, and Linda Waite, has raised questions about one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology—the focus on the individual as the broadest appropriate unit of inquiry.
By employing brain scans, monitoring of autonomic and neuroendocrine processes, and assays of immune function, John and his colleagues have found that the influence of social context is so strong that it can alter genetic expression in white blood cells. This research also showed how the subjective sense of social isolation (“loneliness”) uniquely disrupts our perceptions, behavior, and physiology, becoming a trap that not only reinforces isolation, but can lead to early death.
John Cacioppo and Jean Decety
Jean Decety
Jean Decety is a neuroscientist and an internationally recognized expert on cognitive neuroscience and social neuroscience. His research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms underpinning social cognition, particularly empathy, sympathy, emotional self-regulation and more generally...
played an instrumental role in the creation of the Society for Social Neuroscience
Society for social neuroscience
The Society for Social Neuroscience is a professional society, headquartered at the University of Chicago for neuroscientists, psychologists, social scientists, and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the biological systems that implement social processes and...
in 2010.
Co-author
- Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches, (1981): Westview Press.
- Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change, (1986): Springer.
- Emotional Contagion - Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction, (1993): Cambridge University Press.
- Social Neuroscience: Key Readings in Social Psychology, (2004): Psychology Press.
- Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, (2008): W.W. Norton & Co.
Editor
- Perspectives in Cardiovascular Psychophysiology, (1982): The Guilford Press.
- Social Psychophysiology: A Sourcebook, (1983): The Guilford Press.
- Principles of Psychophysiology: Physical, Social and Inferential Elements, (1990): Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521348850
- Foundations in Social Neuroscience, (2002): The MIT Press.
- Essays in social neuroscience, (2004): The MIT Press.
- Social Neuroscience: People Thinking About Thinking People, (2005): The MIT Press
- Handbook of Psychophysiology (2007): Cambridge University Press.
- Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Science, (2009): John Wiley and Sons.
Editorial duties
- Member of the Editorial board of Social Neuroscience
- The Open Psychology Journal (2007–present)
- Book Series on “The Social Psychologist’s Toolkit” (Sage Press) (2006–present)
- International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology (2006–present)
- Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience (2006–present)
- Basic and Applied Social Psychology (2005–present)
- Canadian Psychology (2002–present)
- BioMed Central (2002–present)
- Journal of Applied Social Psychology (1983–present)
- President-elect of the Society for Social NeuroscienceSociety for social neuroscienceThe Society for Social Neuroscience is a professional society, headquartered at the University of Chicago for neuroscientists, psychologists, social scientists, and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the biological systems that implement social processes and...
See also
- Biological psychology
- Affective neuroscienceAffective neuroscienceAffective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood.-Brain areas related to emotion:...
- Social psychologySocial psychologySocial psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
- Social neuroscienceSocial neuroscienceSocial neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather...
- Social cognitionSocial cognitionSocial cognition is the encoding, storage, retrieval, and processing, in the brain, of information relating to conspecifics, or members of the same species. At one time social cognition referred specifically to an approach to social psychology in which these processes were studied according to the...
External links
- University of Chicago Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience
- Society for Social Neuroscience home page
- New Society for Social Neuroscience to help guide emerging field from the University of Chicago News Office.
- http://arete.uchicago.edu
- University of Chicago Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
- University of Chicago Social Neuroscience Laboratory
- University of Chicago Department of Psychology
- Science of Loneliness
- Video (and audio) of Cacioppo in a conversation with Kerry Howley on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...