Novus Think Tank / Longer Essays + Peer Reviewed Articles / Media / One-Pagers
Novus Think Tank
As an undergraduate I founded an organization called Novus Think Tank, first as a student organization (USC news article, digital pamphlet) and more recently as a nonprofit organization which works to create an enabling intellectual and practical environment for co-creative, community driven, bottom-up positive change.
More recently we have been building some experimental projects in the academic, nonprofit and public sectors. More to come.
Longer Essays & Peer-Reviewed Articles
A Biological Understanding of Feeling as the Basis for a New Social Framework
A historic transformation of human social thought and action on a scale possibly comparable to those brought on by Ancient Greece and the Enlightenment is currently underway. Those transformations were based on a new understanding of reason; this one will be based on a new understanding of feeling and emotion…
Democracy 2.0: Resilience and Adaptability Built on the Neuroscience of Feeling
…Modern democracies are not living up to their potential. Modern democracies increasingly struggle to peacefully manage political conflict, generate meaningful solutions to complex problems, and resist disruption from authoritarian actors, leading to reduced public faith in democratic institutions and democracy itself. Around the world, democracies are backsliding, and authoritarian and populist leaders and movements are gaining ground.
While we may identify the problem with democracy in flaws of human nature or in the structure of democratic institutions that fail to adequately control them, an intriguing third option is emerging: The root of the problem may instead lie in a historic misunderstanding and disregard for the animating force of democracy itself—the muchmaligned experiences known as feelings….
Moral Reframing of Messages about Mask-Wearing during the COVID-19 Pandemic
When communicating about political issues, messages targeted to resonate with the core values of the receiver may be effective, an approach known as moral reframing …We found that messages framed in terms of loyalty, with appeals to the protection of the community and America, were effective in reducing anti-mask beliefs, compared with unrelated control messages and messages delivering purely scientific information, and that these changes in belief persisted for at least one week. Exploratory analyses showed that participants who saw loyalty-framed messages reported wearing masks in public more frequently in the subsequent week. These data provide evidence that moral reframing of messages about politicized issues can be effective, and specifically that framing messages about health behaviors in terms of group loyalty may be the most productive way of communicating with conservative audiences.
Reflections on the Nature of Spirituality: Evolutionary Context, Biological Mechanisms, and Future Directions
Spiritual traditions and practices promote a positive and lasting transformation of our experience of self and of the world. Such traditions and practices are ubiquitous in human societies, but it remains unclear why and how they developed. Existing theories on the nature of spirituality range from the suggestion that human minds are inherently predisposed to spirituality, to the idea that spirituality developed adaptively to offer moral guidance and to promote mutually beneficial, cooperative behaviors. Here, we assess this question from the perspective of biological and cultural evolution, and propose that spirituality developed as a cultural adaptation to a characteristic feature of human mental experience – the duality, or differentiation, of mental subject and mental object. This model traces the development of spirituality to evolutionary events at the core of human exceptionalism, and supports the transformational potential of spirituality in language consistent with scientific knowledge.
A Potential Role for mu-Opioids in Mediating the Positive Effects of Gratitude
Gratitude is a complex emotional feeling associated with universally desirable positive effects in personal, social, and physiological domains. Why or how gratitude achieves these functional outcomes is not clear. Toward the goal of identifying its' underlying physiological processes, we recently investigated the neural correlates of gratitude … Here we draw from our data and existing literature to offer a theoretical foundation for the physiological correlates of gratitude. We propose that mu-opioid signaling (1) accompanies the mental experience of gratitude, and (2) may account for the positive effects of gratitude on social relationships, subjective wellbeing, and physiological health.
Media
Nathalia Ramos and I interviewed cognitive linguist and political scientist George Lakoff on the Berggruen Institute Ideas Matter Podcast right before the 2020 Presidential Election
Instagram live with Nathalia Ramos: Restoring Belief in Democracy with the Neuroscience of Feeling
Guest talk at Analogue: A biological understanding of feeling as the basis for a new framework for human affairs
National Institute of Limbic Health: Spitfires and Hot-Shots Podcast
What can a biological understanding of feeling tell us about improving policy and protocol in Youth Corrections Facilities?
Press
USC Dornsife Article about the founding of Novus Think Tank
One-Pagers
Written with Dr. Damasio as the ideas took shape
Affective Neuroscience in the Public Square
We often attribute the many daunting problems facing modern society to inherent flaws, either in human nature or in the cultural institutions that we have built. However there is another possibility — these problems may be the predictable result of a significant gap in our knowledge that can be traced back to Ancient Greece. Recent neurobiology research on feeling reframes these problems and points a new way forward.
How a Biological Understanding of Feeling Recommends that Human Practices be Adjusted
Over time, we will need to run a full audit of our societal practices at all levels, to identify areas where a biological model of human affairs suggests adjustments. This effort will be long-lasting, as there are likely to be innumerable opportunities for improvements in the design of our institutions. But there is one foundational element of our thinking where a subtle shift may be especially consequential.
A Biological Interconnection and Interdependence Underpins Human Society
Human society has developed as a result of rational human behavior. Rational human behavior is guided and motivated by underlying processes of life regulation. Such biological processes support an interconnected and interdependent complex system of biology. The development of human society has occurred within this interconnected and interdependent biological system.