Editorial: Taking the Next Step Towards Validating Social Processes From the Research Domain Criteria

Abstract

Navigating social interactions and relationships is a complex endeavor. The successful management of these activities calls upon a variety of underlying biological and behavioral mechanisms that are contextualized by environmental demands. Social challenges can arise for many different reasons, but autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the prototypical disorder of social behavior. That being stated, clinically significant interference with social functioning is shared across a variety of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions. Recognition of the cross-cutting nature of social impairments and deficits in other domains (eg, Cognitive Systemds and Sensorimotor Systems) led to the formation of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).¹ RDoC was proposed as an alternative framework to studying psychiatric conditions. RDoC emphasizes enhancing knowledge on the nature of psychiatric conditions in terms of varying degrees of dysfunction across general biological and psychological systems irrespective of traditional psychiatric diagnoses. The RDoC domains were created through consensus agreement from content-area expert scientists. One such domain, Systems for Social Processes, inclues the following proposed constituent constructs: (1) Attachment and Affiliation; (2) Social Communication (subdivided into Production of Facial Communication and Production of Non-Facial Communication); and (3) Perception and Understanding of Mental States. However, this domain has yet to be formally validated.