The first Russian edition of Robert Jervis's classical work on the problems of perception and misperception in world politics draws attention to the need to strengthen the sovereignty and national security of the Russian Federation in the socio-humanitarian, socio-cultural and scientific spheres. Supplemented by a review of scientific achievements in the field of cognitive psychology and neuro-politics, the study by a well-known American political scientist is a useful source of information about the latest trends in the study of socio-political behavior and makes us rethink the state and directions of development of socio-humanitarian disciplines in Russia. The article concludes that against the background of the latest discoveries in the field of neuroscience, there is an alarming tendency of hypertrophied interest in the study of big data and pseudo-mathematization of socio-humanitarian disciplines, often to the detriment of traditional country studies and the study of historically determined causal interactions of socio-political processes. At the same time, it is noted that modern scientific methods confirm the conclusions of scientists made in the period before the "neuroscientific turn" of recent decades.