Research
Projects
In conjunction with the Arete Initiative, CCSN manages several exploratory RFP programs in additional to ongoing CCSN core research areas. These programs are not limited to neuroscience in scope, but do incorporate the social neuroscience perspective with other analytic appraoches. |
Once regarded as a subject worthy of the most rigorous inquiries in order to discern its nature and benefits, wisdom is currently overlooked as a topic for serious scholarly and scientific investigation in many fields. Yet it is difficult to imagine a subject more central to the human enterprise and whose exploration holds greater promise in shedding light and opening up creative possibilities for human flourishing. |
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This project seeks to investigate the ways in which the humanities and the sciences might cooperate to develop richer understandings of virtue for modern societies. It is a multidisciplinary research initiative that seeks contributions from individuals and from teams of investigators working within the humanities and the sciences. We support highly original, scholarly projects that demonstrate promise of a distinctive contribution to virtue research and have the potential to begin a new field of interdisciplinary study. |
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Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study (CHASRS) The purpose of the National Institute of Aging Program Project Grant No. PO1 AG18911 ("Social isolation, loneliness, health, and the aging process") is to bring together sociological, psychological, and biological levels of analyses to bear on the relationships among, and mechanisms underlying, social isolation, feelings of loneliness, health, and the aging process. |
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Templeton Interdisciplinary Research Network This multidisciplinary research network builds on the data collected from the CHASRS project. This research examines the replicable and generalizable effects of sociality, spirituality, and meaning making on well-being and health, and possible mechanisms underlying these effects, through the application of social psychological and neuroscientific methods and theories. |
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Cortical Mechanisms This project uses fMRI to measure the distribution of neural activity accompanying various affective states. Specifically, it investigates cortical mechanisms involved in spiritual experiences and those involved in moral affect leading to behavior such as generosity, gratitude, trust, and forgiving. Their fundamental question is whether there is a common biological mechanism underlying spiritual experience and positive social behavior towards others. |
