Peter Shawn Bearman is an American sociologist. He is Jonathan Cole Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University and the founding director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

This talk considers a set of findings from our research program that captures neural and social network data at multiple time points for different groups, most importantly a group of students who volunteered to organize workers in very difficult social situations on the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, in the Summer of Respect project. We first identify a neural mechanism for the emergence of affective reciprocity, the building block of social solidarity. We show that we can predict from neural signatures who group members will like five months in the future. We extend this work to a discussion of transitivity or balance and therefore identify neural signatures for the three features of human social structure—heirarchy, pair-formation, and balance—which, together, distinguish us from other social animals.

Reception to follow.

Co-sponsored by the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior (CB3), MHDI, the departments of Anthropology, Psychology, and Political Science, and SBSRC. Supported by UNL Resource Council and Convocations Committee.