Sociophysiology is the "interplay between society and physical functioning" involving "collaboration of two neighboring sciences: physiology and sociology". In other words, sociophysiology is physiological sociology, a special science that studies the physiological side of human interrelations.
In addition to having been termed an "interdisciplinary area for research, an area which demonstrates the concomitant relationship between physiology and social behavior", sociophysiology may also be described as "social ethology" and "social energetics". That is, the "physiology of reactive phenomena caused by the mutual excitations of individuals of the same species". The interdisciplinary nature of sociophysiology largely entails a "synthesis of psychophysiology and social interaction" such that a "socio-psycho-biological study" of "biologico-sociological phenomena" may ensue. Such "socio-psycho-biological study" has uncovered a "sharing of physiology between people involved in a meaningful interaction", as well as "mutually responsive physiologicengagement having normative function in maintaining social cohesion and well-being in higher social animals". This "mutually responsive physiologic engagement" brings into play the "close links uniting social phenomena to the biological phenomena from which they immediately derive".
Interpersonal physiology
Furthermore, sociophysiology explores the "intimate relationship and mutual regulation between social and physiological systems that is especially vital in human groups". In other words, sociophysiology studies the "physio- and psycho-energetic phenomena at the basis of social groupings". Along these lines, Zeliony noted that In addition, sociophysiology "describes structure-function relationships for body structures and interactive functions relevant to psychiatric illness", and also "assumes that psychiatric disorders are pathological variants of the motivation, emotions, and conflict involved in normal communicational processes". Psychiatry, thus, involves the diagnosis and treatment of what Lilienfeld termed "physiological social pathology", and may be classed as a subfield of sociophysiology, called "pathological sociophysiology" by Zeliony. As summarized by Ellwood, Zeliony thought that, in the future, Ellwood also noted that Zeliony's future sociophysiology, being a naturalbiological science, must be Darwinian. In short, sociophysiology is "reciprocal, interpersonal physiology". Such interpersonal physiology may have implications in the realm of human politics. For example, the findings of a recent study "suggest that political attitudes vary with physiological traits linked to divergent manners of experiencing and processing environmental threats".
