ABSTRACT
The methods of social neuroscience Social neuroscience is too recent a field to have developed a distinct methodology of its own. As such its methods are borrowed from disciplines such as psychology (both cognitive and social psychology) and neuroscience (particularly cognitive neuroscience). The chapter will begin by considering various psychological methods such as performance measures (e.g. response times), observational studies, and questionnaires. It then goes on to consider methods linked to cognitive neuroscience – psychophysiological responses (e.g. skin conductance response) and electrophysiological responses – before turning to functional imaging, effects of brain lesions, and brain stimulation. Most of these methods are covered in more detail in Ward (2015). However, specific examples from the field of social neuroscience are used to illustrate the different methods and to explain the complementary nature of the different methods.
