Interpersonal Physiology
Furthermore, sociophysiology explores the "intimate relationship and mutual regulation between social and physiological systems that is especially vital in human groups" (Barchas 1986: 210). In other words, sociophysiology studies the "physio- and psycho-energetic phenomena at the basis of social groupings" (Solvay 1906: 25). Along these lines, Zeliony (1912) noted that
| “ | The changes of society are the result of the activities of the nervous system. Excitations vary with the same animal and with the same class of animals. The problem of the socio-physiologist is to find out what are the excitors and what the inhibitors. Physiology gives the laws of the nervous system.... Thus the duty of the socio-physiologist is to give a description of the nervous processes of groups which have resulted in changes in the environment. | ” |
|
—Georgii Pavlovich Zeliony, summarized in Ellwood, C. A. (1916). Objectivism in sociology. American Journal of Sociology, vol. 22, no. 3, p. 297-298. |
||
In addition, sociophysiology "describes structure-function relationships for body structures and interactive functions relevant to psychiatric illness" (Gardner 1997: 351), and also "assumes that psychiatric disorders are pathological variants of the motivation, emotions, and conflict involved in normal communicational processes" (Gardner and Price 1999: 247–248). Psychiatry, thus, involves the diagnosis and treatment of what Lilienfeld (1879: 280) termed "physiological social pathology", and may be classed as a subfield of sociophysiology, called "pathological sociophysiology" by Zeliony (1912: 405). As summarized by Ellwood (1916), Zeliony thought that, in the future,
| “ | A socio-physiological pathology will become necessary. Its field of observation will be the deviations from the norm which are observed either as a result of the pathological differences in the organism or as a result of other conditions, as in the insane or those addicted to the use of alcohol. | ” |
|
—Georgii Pavlovich Zeliony, Ellwood, C. A. (1916). Objectivism in sociology. American Journal of Sociology, vol. 22, no. 3, p. 298. |
||
Ellwood (1916: 298) also noted that Zeliony's future sociophysiology, being a natural biological science, must be Darwinian.
In short, sociophysiology is "reciprocal, interpersonal physiology" (Adler 2002: 885). Such interpersonal physiology may have implications in the realm of human politics. For example, the findings of a recent study "suggest that political attitudes vary with physiological traits linked to divergent manners of experiencing and processing environmental threats" (Oxley et al. 2008: 1669).
Read more about this topic: Sociophysiology
Famous quotes containing the word physiology:
“If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realise that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)