Historical Dialectics, Neural Representations of Social Norms, and Theory–Paradigm Realignment----A dual-helix structural-coupling model and secondary analysis of a public fMRI dataset

This manuscript synthesizes the two versions deposited at https://zenodo.org/records/23140360. The analyses are reported from those manuscripts; the present synthesis does not constitute an independent rerun of the original dataset. How might historical transformations of social regulation be related to neural representations of norms, and what should researchers infer when neural data systematically contradict a theory-inspired prediction? We integrate a historical-epistemological dual-helix model of social and neurocognitive structural coupling with a secondary analysis of public charitable-donation fMRI data (N = 50; Díaz-Gutiérrez et al., 2024). The proposed historical model distinguishes a1–a3 social developments from b1–b3 neurocognitive developments and treats diagonal relations as theoretical correspondences, not experimentally established causal arrows. Behaviorally, reported mean donations were €29.36 (SD = 9.87) for generous norms, €22.52 (SD = 9.01) for selfish norms, and €25.66 (SD = 10.47) for a fairness reference. Cross-run correlation-distance RSA yielded d(G,S) = 0.84, d(S,R) = 0.88, and d(G,R) = 0.91, reversing the operational prediction d(G,R) < d(S,R) < d(G,S). Planned contrasts were negative (C1: mean = −0.0247, t(49) ≈ −3.06, p = .004; C2: mean = −0.0523, t(49) ≈ −6.90, p < .001); 45 of 50 participants showed negative individual rank correspondence. A supplementary leave-one-run-out SVM decoder performed at or below chance (three-class mean accuracy = 26.5%). These findings neither refute Foucauldian history nor establish a new neural mechanism. They motivate a theory–paradigm realignment heuristic: identify auxiliary assumptions, evaluate construct validity, audit analytic pipelines, derive competing explanations, and require an independent discriminating experiment. The historical model and this methodological account jointly argue for rigorous separation of theoretical structure, experimentally manipulated constructs, neural patterns, and causal inference.