Credit: Aidar Ayazbayev/iStockphoto.
f ever a project of multidisciplinary research conducted by a large team of collaborators took on a life of its own, 
it is surely the multi-faceted programs conducted at the University of Chicago on the Scientific Study of Sociality and Spirituality. The linchpin of this exponentially growing intellectual nexus is Dr. John Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago.
Cacioppo, the Tiffany & Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, now finds himself presiding over two distinct, but related, research initiatives. Both derive from his original Templeton-sponsored program “Expanding Spiritual Knowledge Through Science: Chicago Multidisciplinary Research Network.” This was launched in 2005 and focused on sociality and spirituality in relation to aging and health.
“We have taken an evolutionary-biological approach to spirituality and sociality,” explains Cacioppo. Recalling Richard Dawkins’ concept of “the selfish gene,” he observes: “Most of the species that Richard Dawkins talked about, their offspring are ready for survival as soon as they’re born. As for humans, we’re subject to the longest period of abject dependency of any species.” From their earliest days, this experience in infancy introduces human beings to concepts of inter-dependence, altruism and morality. “It’s the gene that’s selfish,” insists Cacioppo, “not the individual.”
“We have tried to ask big questions,” says Cacioppo, “about What exactly are we?” He is grateful that the Foundation “has allowed us to do it in a highly synergistic, somewhat risk-taking fashion with an extraordinary interdisciplinary group.” His Network, a group of 21 academics drawn from disciplines as varied as neurology and history, has produced eclectic results, publishing more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, 42 of them directly resulting from the grant. There are also two books in the pipeline, one of which will appear in September 2008.
The Network has tried, by rigorous scientific investigation, to gain new insights into human nature. “Some scientists might have you believe that the more scientific knowledge we have the less we need the notion of God,” says Cacioppo. “I think what our research is showing is there will always be a place for something—something—like God.” He concedes, however, that “what people mean by God can differ a lot.”
The continuation program, scheduled to run from 2008 to 2011, is called “Working Beyond Boundaries” and aims to transform the Network into a University of Chicago-Templeton Consortium employing scientific research, enriched by theology and philosophy, to determine the biological, behavioral and health effects of social and spiritual connection on human flourishing. As for the collegial structure that characterized the Network, “We absolutely will be continuing this approach.”
It is hoped that this program will refine, specify, and disseminate a rigorous, interdisciplinary epistemological study of sociality and spirituality, while serving as a collaborative hub at the University of Chicago. Among the more than 20 scholars assisting Cacioppo and his principal collaborator, Howard Nusbaum, co-director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, are two colleagues from the Netherlands, Dorret Boomsma of the Free University Amsterdam and Gün Semin of the Utrecht University.
But there is a parallel project that is also exciting Cacioppo. Funded by a $2.9 million Templeton grant, the “Research Competition to Accelerate Progress and New Spiritual Information on the Nature and Benefits of Wisdom” is a cutting-edge study of a subject the ancients would have taken for granted but which has been sidelined by the modern world. Yet Cacioppo, Nusbaum and their colleagues contend that 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 new possibilities for human flourishing.
An important element of the program is an RFP competition to select 20 promising young scholars to receive two-year grants for research projects on wisdom. The response from around the world has startled the organizers. “We received over 532 unique and qualified Letters of Intent from over 37 countries and 48 separate disciplines. We were amazed by the response,” says Cacioppo.
In the event, “We selected 20 absolutely super proposals, but the truth is there were probably 20 to 50 more that were also excellent.” The remaining 500 or so applicants were all contacted, invited to join the Network and encouraged to keep in touch with one another. Since eligibility was restricted to applicants who had gained their PhDs within the past ten years, the scale of the interest was remarkable. The website attracted 14,801 unique visitors from 74 countries. It is now being expanded, with four levels of access ranging from staff and reviewers to the community at large.
In civilizations where wisdom was traditionally respected, the sage was a pivotal figure of authority. Does Cacioppo think 21st-century civilization will reconnect with that concept? “The traditional notion of a sage was this special, gifted individual,” he responds. “What research has shown is that the situation exerts a powerful influence on an individual’s behavior.” He sees the sage as the individual who can resist these situational pressures when appropriate and, in doing so, influence everyone around him. He cites an experiment in which Stanford undergraduates played the role of prison guards, subjecting others to stress; when one student broke ranks and refused to play the bully, the “situational evil” collapsed.
“Although the situation can exert a powerful influence, don’t underestimate the power of one,” concludes Cacioppo. We need to teach wisdom and create wise societies. “We’re reminding people that they will always have the power, as an individual, to do what’s right and influence others.”
