The brain, self and society: a social-neuroscience model of predictive processing

Abstract

This paper presents a hypothesis about how social interactions shape and influence predictive processing in the brain. The paper integrates concepts from neuroscience and sociology where a gulf presently exists between the ways that each describe the same phenomenon–how the social world is engaged with by thinking humans. We combine the concepts of predictive processing models (also called predictive coding models in the neuroscience literature) with ideal types, typifications and social practice–concepts from the sociological literature. This generates a unified hypothetical framework integrating the social world and hypothesised brain processes. The hypothesis combines aspects of neuroscience and psychology with social theory to show how social behaviors may be “mapped” onto brain processes. It outlines a conceptual framework that connects the two disciplines and that may enable creative dialogue and potential future research.