Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists. As such, Homo sapiens create emergent organizations beyond the individual—structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and cultures. These emergent structures evolved hand in hand with neural and hormonal mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped these organisms survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too survived to reproduce. The term "social neuroscience" can be traced to a publication entitled "Social Neuroscience Bulletin" that was published quarterly between 1988 and 1994. The term was subsequently popularized in an article by John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson, published in the American Psychologist in 1992. Cacioppo and Berntson are considered as the legitimate fathers of social neuroscience. Still a young field, social neuroscience is closely related to affective neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on how the brain mediates social interactions.

Social Neuroscience is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in social neuroscience. It was established in March 2006 and is published by the Psychology Press, a division of Taylor and Francis. The editor is Paul J. Eslinger (Penn State Hershey Medical Center). According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2011 impact factor of 2.738, ranking it 23rd out of 75 journals in the category "Psychology" and 123rd out of 244 journals in the category "Neuroscience". Originally, it published 3 issues per year (with the last issue being a double one). Starting in 2009, the publication frequency was increased to 6 issues per year. Each year, Social Neuroscience publishes a special issue (e.g., on theory of mind, empathy, developmental neuroscience, or deception). The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, PsycINFO, Scopus, and PubMed/MEDLINE.