Introduction: Contested narratives of the mind and the brain: Neuro/psychological knowledge in popular debates and everyday life

Abstract

This special section evolved out of a workshop entitled ‘Minds and Brains in Everyday Life: Embedding and Negotiating Scientific Concepts in Popular Discourses’, held at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. Our discussions at the workshop and for this special section began with the observation that scientific interpretations and everyday explanations regularly meet and come together in debates about aspects of the mind and the brain. Such entanglements between science and the wider public have already been studied from multiple perspectives in history and the social sciences. Recently, however, warnings have intensified that researchers also need to take into account the limitations that certain scientific claims may encounter in everyday life, and to remain methodologically open to alternative explanations that are not derived from forms of (neuro)psychological knowledge. We suggest that focusing on contested narratives of the mind and the brain may be one approach to studying the interaction between science and the larger public, as well as investigating the ignorance, limits, counterforces, and outright rejection that scientific concepts may encounter in everyday life.

Looking for the Brain Inside the Initial Teacher Training and Outreach Books in Portugal

“…Even with some notions of how we process information, it is not enough to understand how brain mechanisms work, and it may lead to erroneous theories about brain functioning ( Thomas et al, 2019 ). Some assumptions can also be out of initial training and be more connected to popular contexts and everyday interpretations ( Schregel and Broer, 2020 ). We knew that short-term training can impact personal beliefs and promote awareness about myths but do not develop full immunity to neuromyths ( McMahon et al, 2019 ).…”