A Dominant Social Comparison Heuristic Unites Alternative Mechanisms for the Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitaker, Roger M.; Colombo, Gualtiero B.; Allen, Stuart M.; Dunbar, Robin I. M.

2016-08-01

Cooperation is a fundamental human trait but our understanding of how it functions remains incomplete. Indirect reciprocity is a particular case in point, where one-shot donations are made to unrelated beneficiaries without any guarantee of payback. Existing insights are largely from two independent perspectives: i) individual-level cognitive behaviour in decision making, and ii) identification of conditions that favour evolution of cooperation. We identify a fundamental connection between these two areas by examining social comparison as a means through which indirect reciprocity can evolve. Social comparison is well established as an inherent human disposition through which humans navigate the social world by self-referential evaluation of others. Donating to those that are at least as reputable as oneself emerges as a dominant heuristic, which represents aspirational homophily. This heuristic is found to be implicitly present in the current knowledge of conditions that favour indirect reciprocity. The effective social norms for updating reputation are also observed to support this heuristic. We hypothesise that the cognitive challenge associated with social comparison has contributed to cerebral expansion and the disproportionate human brain size, consistent with the social complexity hypothesis. The findings have relevance for the evolution of autonomous systems that are characterised by one-shot interactions.

Punishment can promote defection in group-structured populations.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T; Taylor, Daniel J; Bryson, Joanna J

2012-10-21

Pro-social punishment, whereby cooperators punish defectors, is often suggested as a mechanism that maintains cooperation in large human groups. Importantly, models that support this idea have to date only allowed defectors to be the target of punishment. However, recent empirical work has demonstrated the existence of anti-social punishment in public goods games. That is, individuals that defect have been found to also punish cooperators. Some recent theoretical studies have found that such anti-social punishment can prevent the evolution of pro-social punishment and cooperation. However, the evolution of anti-social punishment in group-structured populations has not been formally addressed. Previous work has informally argued that group-structure must favour pro-social punishment. Here we formally investigate how two demographic factors, group size and dispersal frequency, affect selection pressures on pro- and anti-social punishment. Contrary to the suggestions of previous work, we find that anti-social punishment can prevent the evolution of pro-social punishment and cooperation under a range of group structures. Given that anti-social punishment has now been found in all studied extant human cultures, the claims of previous models showing the co-evolution of pro-social punishment and cooperation in group-structured populations should be re-evaluated. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Friends with social benefits: host-microbe interactions as a driver of brain evolution and development?

PubMed Central

Stilling, Roman M.; Bordenstein, Seth R.; Dinan, Timothy G.; Cryan, John F.

2014-01-01

The tight association of the human body with trillions of colonizing microbes that we observe today is the result of a long evolutionary history. Only very recently have we started to understand how this symbiosis also affects brain function and behavior. In this hypothesis and theory article, we propose how host-microbe associations potentially influenced mammalian brain evolution and development. In particular, we explore the integration of human brain development with evolution, symbiosis, and RNA biology, which together represent a “social triangle” that drives human social behavior and cognition. We argue that, in order to understand how inter-kingdom communication can affect brain adaptation and plasticity, it is inevitable to consider epigenetic mechanisms as important mediators of genome-microbiome interactions on an individual as well as a transgenerational time scale. Finally, we unite these interpretations with the hologenome theory of evolution. Taken together, we propose a tighter integration of neuroscience fields with host-associated microbiology by taking an evolutionary perspective. PMID:25401092

Uncertainty about social interactions leads to the evolution of social heuristics.

PubMed

van den Berg, Pieter; Wenseleers, Tom

2018-05-31

Individuals face many types of social interactions throughout their lives, but they often cannot perfectly assess what the consequences of their actions will be. Although it is known that unpredictable environments can profoundly affect the evolutionary process, it remains unclear how uncertainty about the nature of social interactions shapes the evolution of social behaviour. Here, we present an evolutionary simulation model, showing that even intermediate uncertainty leads to the evolution of simple cooperation strategies that disregard information about the social interaction ('social heuristics'). Moreover, our results show that the evolution of social heuristics can greatly affect cooperation levels, nearly doubling cooperation rates in our simulations. These results provide new insight into why social behaviour, including cooperation in humans, is often observed to be seemingly suboptimal. More generally, our results show that social behaviour that seems maladaptive when considered in isolation may actually be well-adapted to a heterogeneous and uncertain world.

Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution.

PubMed

Heyes, Cecilia

2016-05-05

Social learning strategies (SLSs) enable humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents to make adaptive decisions aboutwhenthey should copy other agents, andwhothey should copy. Behavioural ecologists and economists have discovered an impressive range of SLSs, and explored their likely impact on behavioural efficiency and reproductive fitness while using the 'phenotypic gambit'; ignoring, or remaining deliberately agnostic about, the nature and origins of the cognitive processes that implement SLSs. Here I argue that this 'blackboxing' of SLSs is no longer a viable scientific strategy. It has contributed, through the 'social learning strategies tournament', to the premature conclusion that social learning is generally better than asocial learning, and to a deep puzzle about the relationship between SLSs and cultural evolution. The puzzle can be solved by recognizing that whereas most SLSs are 'planetary'--they depend on domain-general cognitive processes--some SLSs, found only in humans, are 'cook-like'--they depend on explicit, metacognitive rules, such ascopy digital natives. These metacognitive SLSs contribute to cultural evolution by fostering the development of processes that enhance the exclusivity, specificity, and accuracy of social learning. © 2016 The Author(s).

Evolution of costly explicit memory and cumulative culture.

PubMed

Nakamaru, Mayuko

2016-06-21

Humans can acquire new information and modify it (cumulative culture) based on their learning and memory abilities, especially explicit memory, through the processes of encoding, consolidation, storage, and retrieval. Explicit memory is categorized into semantic and episodic memories. Animals have semantic memory, while episodic memory is unique to humans and essential for innovation and the evolution of culture. As both episodic and semantic memory are needed for innovation, the evolution of explicit memory influences the evolution of culture. However, previous theoretical studies have shown that environmental fluctuations influence the evolution of imitation (social learning) and innovation (individual learning) and assume that memory is not an evolutionary trait. If individuals can store and retrieve acquired information properly, they can modify it and innovate new information. Therefore, being able to store and retrieve information is essential from the perspective of cultural evolution. However, if both storage and retrieval were too costly, forgetting and relearning would have an advantage over storing and retrieving acquired information. In this study, using mathematical analysis and individual-based simulations, we investigate whether cumulative culture can promote the coevolution of costly memory and social and individual learning, assuming that cumulative culture improves the fitness of each individual. The conclusions are: (1) without cumulative culture, a social learning cost is essential for the evolution of storage-retrieval. Costly storage-retrieval can evolve with individual learning but costly social learning does not evolve. When low-cost social learning evolves, the repetition of forgetting and learning is favored more than the evolution of costly storage-retrieval, even though a cultural trait improves the fitness. (2) When cumulative culture exists and improves fitness, storage-retrieval can evolve with social and/or individual learning, which is not influenced by the degree of the social learning cost. Whether individuals socially learn a low level of culture from observing a high or the low level of culture influences the evolution of memory and learning, especially individual learning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognitive evolution in captive foxes is a correlated by-product of experimental domestication.

PubMed

Hare, Brian; Plyusnina, Irene; Ignacio, Natalie; Schepina, Olesya; Stepika, Anna; Wrangham, Richard; Trut, Lyudmila

2005-02-08

Dogs have an unusual ability for reading human communicative gestures (e.g., pointing) in comparison to either nonhuman primates (including chimpanzees) or wolves . Although this unusual communicative ability seems to have evolved during domestication , it is unclear whether this evolution occurred as a result of direct selection for this ability, as previously hypothesized , or as a correlated by-product of selection against fear and aggression toward humans--as is the case with a number of morphological and physiological changes associated with domestication . We show here that fox kits from an experimental population selectively bred over 45 years to approach humans fearlessly and nonaggressively (i.e., experimentally domesticated) are not only as skillful as dog puppies in using human gestures but are also more skilled than fox kits from a second, control population not bred for tame behavior (critically, neither population of foxes was ever bred or tested for their ability to use human gestures) . These results suggest that sociocognitive evolution has occurred in the experimental foxes, and possibly domestic dogs, as a correlated by-product of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression, and it is likely the observed social cognitive evolution did not require direct selection for improved social cognitive ability.

SOCIAL SCIENCE EDUCATION CONSORTIUM. PUBLICATION 106, ANTHROPOLOGY.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

BOHANNAN, PAUL

A CURRICULUM GUIDE OUTLINES THE MAJOR CONCEPTS, STRUCTURE, AND METHODS OF ANTHROPOLOGY FOR GRADES K-6. THE FOLLOWING UNIT AREAS ARE INCLUDED--(1) NEEDS AND NEED SATISFACTION, (2) HUMAN PERSONALITY, (3) SOCIAL GROUPS, (4) SOCIAL NETWORKS, (5) HUMAN CULTURE, (6) CHANGE AND EVOLUTION, AND (7) CURRENT CULTURAL CHANGES. A SUMMARY CHART PRESENTS A FLOW…

Higher frequency of social learning in China than in the West shows cultural variation in the dynamics of cultural evolution.

PubMed

Mesoudi, Alex; Chang, Lei; Murray, Keelin; Lu, Hui Jing

2015-01-07

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the 'social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of cultural evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization.

Higher frequency of social learning in China than in the West shows cultural variation in the dynamics of cultural evolution

PubMed Central

Mesoudi, Alex; Chang, Lei; Murray, Keelin; Lu, Hui Jing

2015-01-01

Cultural evolutionary models have identified a range of conditions under which social learning (copying others) is predicted to be adaptive relative to asocial learning (learning on one's own), particularly in humans where socially learned information can accumulate over successive generations. However, cultural evolution and behavioural economics experiments have consistently shown apparently maladaptive under-utilization of social information in Western populations. Here we provide experimental evidence of cultural variation in people's use of social learning, potentially explaining this mismatch. People in mainland China showed significantly more social learning than British people in an artefact-design task designed to assess the adaptiveness of social information use. People in Hong Kong, and Chinese immigrants in the UK, resembled British people in their social information use, suggesting a recent shift in these groups from social to asocial learning due to exposure to Western culture. Finally, Chinese mainland participants responded less than other participants to increased environmental change within the task. Our results suggest that learning strategies in humans are culturally variable and not genetically fixed, necessitating the study of the ‘social learning of social learning strategies' whereby the dynamics of cultural evolution are responsive to social processes, such as migration, education and globalization. PMID:25392473

Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution

PubMed Central

Heyes, Cecilia

2016-01-01

Social learning strategies (SLSs) enable humans, non-human animals, and artificial agents to make adaptive decisions about when they should copy other agents, and who they should copy. Behavioural ecologists and economists have discovered an impressive range of SLSs, and explored their likely impact on behavioural efficiency and reproductive fitness while using the ‘phenotypic gambit’; ignoring, or remaining deliberately agnostic about, the nature and origins of the cognitive processes that implement SLSs. Here I argue that this ‘blackboxing' of SLSs is no longer a viable scientific strategy. It has contributed, through the ‘social learning strategies tournament', to the premature conclusion that social learning is generally better than asocial learning, and to a deep puzzle about the relationship between SLSs and cultural evolution. The puzzle can be solved by recognizing that whereas most SLSs are ‘planetary'—they depend on domain-general cognitive processes—some SLSs, found only in humans, are ‘cook-like'—they depend on explicit, metacognitive rules, such as copy digital natives. These metacognitive SLSs contribute to cultural evolution by fostering the development of processes that enhance the exclusivity, specificity, and accuracy of social learning. PMID:27069046

Consistent individual differences in human social learning strategies.

PubMed

Molleman, Lucas; van den Berg, Pieter; Weissing, Franz J

2014-04-04

Social learning has allowed humans to build up extensive cultural repertoires, enabling them to adapt to a wide variety of environmental and social conditions. However, it is unclear which social learning strategies people use, especially in social contexts where their payoffs depend on the behaviour of others. Here we show experimentally that individuals differ in their social learning strategies and that they tend to employ the same learning strategy irrespective of the interaction context. Payoff-based learners focus on their peers' success, while decision-based learners disregard payoffs and exclusively focus on their peers' past behaviour. These individual differences may be of considerable importance for cultural evolution. By means of a simple model, we demonstrate that groups harbouring individuals with different learning strategies may be faster in adopting technological innovations and can be more efficient through successful role differentiation. Our study highlights the importance of individual variation for human interactions and sheds new light on the dynamics of cultural evolution.

When does social learning become cultural learning?

PubMed

Heyes, Cecilia

2017-03-01

Developmental research on selective social learning, or 'social learning strategies', is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that are specialized, genetically or culturally, to promote cultural inheritance. However, this review article argues that, to realize its potential, research on the development of selective social learning needs more clearly to distinguish functional from mechanistic explanation; to achieve integration with research on attention and learning in adult humans and 'dumb' animals; and to recognize that psychological mechanisms can be specialized, not only by genetic evolution, but also by associative learning and cultural evolution. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Risky business: The impact of climate and climate variability on human population dynamics in Western Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burke, Ariane; Kageyama, Masa; Latombe, Guilllaume; Fasel, Marc; Vrac, Mathieu; Ramstein, Gilles; James, Patrick M. A.

2017-05-01

The extent to which climate change has affected the course of human evolution is an enduring question. The ability to maintain spatially extensive social networks and a fluid social structure allows human foragers to ;map onto; the landscape, mitigating the impact of ecological risk and conferring resilience. But what are the limits of resilience and to which environmental variables are foraging populations sensitive? We address this question by testing the impact of a suite of environmental variables, including climate variability, on the distribution of human populations in Western Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Climate variability affects the distribution of plant and animal resources unpredictably, creating an element of risk for foragers for whom mobility comes at a cost. We produce a model of habitat suitability that allows us to generate predictions about the probable distribution of human populations and discuss the implications of these predictions for the structure of human populations and their social and cultural evolution during the LGM.

Cultural diversification promotes rapid phenotypic evolution in Xavánte Indians

PubMed Central

Hünemeier, Tábita; Gómez-Valdés, Jorge; Ballesteros-Romero, Mónica; de Azevedo, Soledad; Martínez-Abadías, Neus; Esparza, Mireia; Sjøvold, Torstein; Bonatto, Sandro L.; Salzano, Francisco Mauro; Bortolini, Maria Cátira; González-José, Rolando

2012-01-01

Shifts in social structure and cultural practices can potentially promote unusual combinations of allele frequencies that drive the evolution of genetic and phenotypic novelties during human evolution. These cultural practices act in combination with geographical and linguistic barriers and can promote faster evolutionary changes shaped by gene–culture interactions. However, specific cases indicative of this interaction are scarce. Here we show that quantitative genetic parameters obtained from cephalometric data taken on 1,203 individuals analyzed in combination with genetic, climatic, social, and life-history data belonging to six South Amerindian populations are compatible with a scenario of rapid genetic and phenotypic evolution, probably mediated by cultural shifts. We found that the Xavánte experienced a remarkable pace of evolution: the rate of morphological change is far greater than expected for its time of split from their sister group, the Kayapó, which occurred around 1,500 y ago. We also suggest that this rapid differentiation was possible because of strong social-organization differences. Our results demonstrate how human groups deriving from a recent common ancestor can experience variable paces of phenotypic divergence, probably as a response to different cultural or social determinants. We suggest that assembling composite databases involving cultural and biological data will be of key importance to unravel cases of evolution modulated by the cultural environment. PMID:22184238

The space program's impact on society

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toffler, Alvin

In terms of human evolution, when viewed from 500 or 1000 years from now, today's primitive, still faltering steps beyond the Earth will be recognized as the most important human project of our era, matched only by what is going on in computers and biology. In this paper the social effects of space activity are addressed at three different levels: key social institutions, key social groups, and key social processes.

Extensions of the survival advantage in memory: examining the role of ancestral context and implied social isolation.

PubMed

Kostic, Bogdan; McFarlan, Chastity C; Cleary, Anne M

2012-07-01

Recent work (e.g., Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010) has shown that words are remembered better when they have been processed for their survival value in a grasslands context than when processed in other contexts. It has been suggested that this is because human memory systems were shaped by evolution specifically to help humans survive. Thus far, the survival processing advantage has mainly been shown with grasslands contexts, which are thought to be particularly relevant to human evolution. The present study demonstrated the survival processing advantage with other contexts (e.g., lost in a jungle), including with contexts that should not, in and of themselves, be relevant to human evolution (e.g., lost in outer space). We further examined whether implied social isolation plays a critical role in the survival advantage to memory by comparing scenarios in which the person is alone versus with other people present (e.g., lost at sea alone or with others), and whether the perceived source of danger is social isolation or other human attackers. A survival advantage was shown in both the isolation and the group settings, and whether the primary source of danger was isolation or other human attackers did not matter. These findings suggest that the survival advantage in memory is not dependent on evolutionarily relevant physical contexts (e.g., grasslands) or particular sources of perceived danger (social isolation vs. perceived attackers), showing the advantage to be robust and applicable to a variety of scenarios. 2012 APA, all rights reserved

Hippocampus minor and man's place in nature: a case study in the social construction of neuroanatomy.

PubMed

Gross, C G

1993-10-01

In mid-19th century Britain the possibility of evolution and particularly the evolution of man from apes was vigorously contested. Among the leading antievolutionists was the celebrated anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen and among the leading defenders of evolution was Thomas Henry Huxley. The central dispute between them on human evolution was whether or not man's brain was fundamentally unique in having a hippocampus minor (known today as the calcar avis), a posterior horn in the lateral ventricle, and a posterior lobe. The author considers the background of this controversy, the origin and fate of the term hippocampus minor, why this structure became central to the question of human evolution, and how Huxley used it to support both Darwinism and the political ascendancy of Darwinians. The use of ventricular structures to distinguish humans from other animals appears to reflect an importance given to the ventricles that stretches back to ancient Greek medicine. This account illustrates both the extraordinary persistence of ideas in biology and the role of the political and social matrix in the study of the brain.

Evolution of cooperation driven by social-welfare-based migration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yan; Ye, Hang; Zhang, Hong

2016-03-01

Individuals' migration behavior may play a significant role in the evolution of cooperation. In reality, individuals' migration behavior may depend on their perceptions of social welfare. To study the relationship between social-welfare-based migration and the evolution of cooperation, we consider an evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game (PDG) in which an individual's migration depends on social welfare but not on the individual's own payoff. By introducing three important social welfare functions (SWFs) that are commonly studied in social science, we find that social-welfare-based migration can promote cooperation under a wide range of parameter values. In addition, these three SWFs have different effects on cooperation, especially through the different spatial patterns formed by migration. Because the relative efficiency of the three SWFs will change if the parameter values are changed, we cannot determine which SWF is optimal for supporting cooperation. We also show that memory capacity, which is needed to evaluate individual welfare, may affect cooperation levels in opposite directions under different SWFs. Our work should be helpful for understanding the evolution of human cooperation and bridging the chasm between studies of social preferences and studies of social cooperation.

Assortative social learning and its implications for human (and animal?) societies.

PubMed

Katsnelson, Edith; Lotem, Arnon; Feldman, Marcus W

2014-07-01

Choosing from whom to learn is an important element of social learning. It affects learner success and the profile of behaviors in the population. Because individuals often differ in their traits and capabilities, their benefits from different behaviors may also vary. Homophily, or assortment, the tendency of individuals to interact with other individuals with similar traits, is known to affect the spread of behaviors in humans. We introduce models to study the evolution of assortative social learning (ASL), where assorting on a trait acts as an individual-specific mechanism for filtering relevant models from which to learn when that trait varies. We show that when the trait is polymorphic, ASL may maintain a stable behavioral polymorphism within a population (independently of coexistence with individual learning in a population). We explore the evolution of ASL when assortment is based on a nonheritable or partially heritable trait, and when ASL competes with different non-ASL strategies: oblique (learning from the parental generation) and vertical (learning from the parent). We suggest that the tendency to assort may be advantageous in the context of social learning, and that ASL might be an important concept for the evolutionary theory of social learning. © 2014 The Author(s). Evolution © 2014 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

From evolution to revolution: understanding mutability in large and disruptive human groups

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Whitaker, Roger M.; Felmlee, Diane; Verma, Dinesh C.; Preece, Alun; Williams, Grace-Rose

2017-05-01

Over the last 70 years there has been a major shift in the threats to global peace. While the 1950's and 1960's were characterised by the cold war and the arms race, many security threats are now characterised by group behaviours that are disruptive, subversive or extreme. In many cases such groups are loosely and chaotically organised, but their ideals are sociologically and psychologically embedded in group members to the extent that the group represents a major threat. As a result, insights into how human groups form, emerge and change are critical, but surprisingly limited insights into the mutability of human groups exist. In this paper we argue that important clues to understand the mutability of groups come from examining the evolutionary origins of human behaviour. In particular, groups have been instrumental in human evolution, used as a basis to derive survival advantage, leaving all humans with a basic disposition to navigate the world through social networking and managing their presence in a group. From this analysis we present five critical features of social groups that govern mutability, relating to social norms, individual standing, status rivalry, ingroup bias and cooperation. We argue that understanding how these five dimensions interact and evolve can provide new insights into group mutation and evolution. Importantly, these features lend themselves to digital modeling. Therefore computational simulation can support generative exploration of groups and the discovery of latent factors, relevant to both internal group and external group modelling. Finally we consider the role of online social media in relation to understanding the mutability of groups. This can play an active role in supporting collective behaviour, and analysis of social media in the context of the five dimensions of group mutability provides a fresh basis to interpret the forces affecting groups.

Home range overlap as a driver of intelligence in primates.

PubMed

Grueter, Cyril C

2015-04-01

Various socioecological factors have been suggested to influence cognitive capacity in primates, including challenges associated with foraging and dealing with the complexities of social life. Alexander [Alexander, 1989]. Evolution of the human psyche. In: Mellars P, Stringer C, editors. The human revolution: Behavioural and biological perspectives on the origins of modern humans. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p 455-513] proposed an integrative model for the evolution of human cognitive abilities and complex sociality that incorporates competition among coalitions of conspecifics (inter-group conflict) as a major selective pressure. However, one of the premises of this model, i.e., that when confronted with inter-group conflict selection should favor enhanced cognition, has remained empirically untested. Using a comparative approach on species data, I aimed to test the prediction that primate species (n = 104) that face greater inter-group conflict have higher cognitive abilities (indexed by endocranial volume). The degree of inter-group conflict/complexity was approximated via the variable home range overlap among groups. I found a significant relationship between home range overlap and endocranial volume, even after controlling for other predictor variables and covariates such as group size and body mass. I conclude that brain size evolution cannot be attributed exclusively to social factors such as group size, but likely reflects a variety of social and ecological determinants including inter-group conflict which poses cognitive demands on monitoring both the wider social milieu as well as spatial attributes of the habitat. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cultural evolution and emergent group-level traits through social heterosis.

PubMed

Nonacs, Peter; Kapheim, Karen M

2014-06-01

Smaldino proposes emergent properties of human groups, arising when individuals display both differentiation and organization, constitute a novel unit of cultural selection not addressed by current evolutionary theory. We propose existing theoretical frameworks for maintenance of genetic diversity - social heterosis and social genomes - can similarly explain the appearance and maintenance of human cultural diversity (i.e., group-level traits) and collaborative interdependence.

Brain Evolution and Human Neuropsychology: The Inferential Brain Hypothesis

PubMed Central

Koscik, Timothy R.; Tranel, Daniel

2013-01-01

Collaboration between human neuropsychology and comparative neuroscience has generated invaluable contributions to our understanding of human brain evolution and function. Further cross-talk between these disciplines has the potential to continue to revolutionize these fields. Modern neuroimaging methods could be applied in a comparative context, yielding exciting new data with the potential of providing insight into brain evolution. Conversely, incorporating an evolutionary base into the theoretical perspectives from which we approach human neuropsychology could lead to novel hypotheses and testable predictions. In the spirit of these objectives, we present here a new theoretical proposal, the Inferential Brain Hypothesis, whereby the human brain is thought to be characterized by a shift from perceptual processing to inferential computation, particularly within the social realm. This shift is believed to be a driving force for the evolution of the large human cortex. PMID:22459075

New thinking: the evolution of human cognition

PubMed Central

Heyes, Cecilia

2012-01-01

Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation. Research on the evolution of human cognition asks what types of thinking make us such peculiar animals, and how they have been generated by evolutionary processes. New research in this field looks deeper into the evolutionary history of human cognition, and adopts a more multi-disciplinary approach than earlier ‘Evolutionary Psychology’. It is informed by comparisons between humans and a range of primate and non-primate species, and integrates findings from anthropology, archaeology, economics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. Using these methods, recent research reveals profound commonalities, as well striking differences, between human and non-human minds, and suggests that the evolution of human cognition has been much more gradual and incremental than previously assumed. It accords crucial roles to cultural evolution, techno-social co-evolution and gene–culture co-evolution. These have produced domain-general developmental processes with extraordinary power—power that makes human cognition, and human lives, unique. PMID:22734052

New thinking: the evolution of human cognition.

PubMed

Heyes, Cecilia

2012-08-05

Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation. Research on the evolution of human cognition asks what types of thinking make us such peculiar animals, and how they have been generated by evolutionary processes. New research in this field looks deeper into the evolutionary history of human cognition, and adopts a more multi-disciplinary approach than earlier 'Evolutionary Psychology'. It is informed by comparisons between humans and a range of primate and non-primate species, and integrates findings from anthropology, archaeology, economics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. Using these methods, recent research reveals profound commonalities, as well striking differences, between human and non-human minds, and suggests that the evolution of human cognition has been much more gradual and incremental than previously assumed. It accords crucial roles to cultural evolution, techno-social co-evolution and gene-culture co-evolution. These have produced domain-general developmental processes with extraordinary power-power that makes human cognition, and human lives, unique.

European Social Fund in Portugal: A Complex Question for Human Resource Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tome, Eduardo

2012-01-01

Purpose: This article aims to review the application of the funds awarded by the European Social Fund (ESF) to Portugal, since 1986, from a human resource development (HRD) perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Several variables are analyzed: investment, absorption, people, impact of investment, evolution of skills, main programs, supply and…

Evolution and Ontogeny of Stress Response to Social Challenges in the Human Child

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flinn, Mark V.

2006-01-01

The stress response systems of the human child are highly sensitive to social challenges. Because stress hormones can have negative developmental and health consequences, this presents an evolutionary paradox: Why would natural selection have favored mechanisms that elevate stress hormone levels in response to psychosocial stimuli? Two…

Social coordination in animal vocal interactions. Is there any evidence of turn-taking? The starling as an animal model

PubMed Central

Henry, Laurence; Craig, Adrian J. F. K.; Lemasson, Alban; Hausberger, Martine

2015-01-01

Turn-taking in conversation appears to be a common feature in various human cultures and this universality raises questions about its biological basis and evolutionary trajectory. Functional convergence is a widespread phenomenon in evolution, revealing sometimes striking functional similarities between very distant species even though the mechanisms involved may be different. Studies on mammals (including non-human primates) and bird species with different levels of social coordination reveal that temporal and structural regularities in vocal interactions may depend on the species' social structure. Here we test the hypothesis that turn-taking and associated rules of conversations may be an adaptive response to the requirements of social life, by testing the applicability of turn-taking rules to an animal model, the European starling. Birdsong has for many decades been considered as one of the best models of human language and starling songs have been well described in terms of vocal production and perception. Starlings do have vocal interactions where alternating patterns predominate. Observational and experimental data on vocal interactions reveal that (1) there are indeed clear temporal and structural regularities, (2) the temporal and structural patterning is influenced by the immediate social context, the general social situation, the individual history, and the internal state of the emitter. Comparison of phylogenetically close species of Sturnids reveals that the alternating pattern of vocal interactions varies greatly according to the species' social structure, suggesting that interactional regularities may have evolved together with social systems. These findings lead to solid bases of discussion on the evolution of communication rules in relation to social evolution. They will be discussed also in terms of processes, at the light of recent neurobiological findings. PMID:26441787

Human nature, cultural diversity and evolutionary theory

PubMed Central

Plotkin, Henry

2011-01-01

Incorporating culture into an expanded theory of evolution will provide the foundation for a universal account of human diversity. Two requirements must be met. The first is to see learning as an extension of the processes of evolution. The second is to understand that there are specific components of human culture, viz. higher order knowledge structures and social constructions, which give rise to culture as invented knowledge. These components, which are products of psychological processes and mechanisms, make human culture different from the forms of shared knowledge observed in other species. One serious difficulty for such an expanded theory is that social constructions may not add to the fitness of all humans exposed to them. This may be because human culture has existed for only a relatively short time in evolutionary terms. Or it may be that, as some maintain, adaptation is a limited, even a flawed, aspect of evolutionary theory. PMID:21199849

The evolution of conformist transmission in social learning when the environment changes periodically.

PubMed

Nakahashi, Wataru

2007-08-01

Conformity is often observed in human social learning. Social learners preferentially imitate the majority or most common behavior in many situations, though the strength of conformity varies with the situation. Why has such a psychological tendency evolved? I investigate this problem by extending a standard model of social learning evolution with infinite environmental states (Feldman, M.W., Aoki, K., Kumm, J., 1996. Individual versus social learning: evolutionary analysis in a fluctuating environment. Anthropol. Sci. 104, 209-231) to include conformity bias. I mainly focus on the relationship between the strength of conformity bias that evolves and environmental stability, which is one of the most important factors in the evolution of social learning. Using the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) approach, I show that conformity always evolves when environmental stability and the cost of adopting a wrong behavior are small, though environmental stability and the cost of individual learning both negatively affect the strength of conformity.

Culture rather than genes provides greater scope for the evolution of large-scale human prosociality

PubMed Central

Bell, Adrian V.; Richerson, Peter J.; McElreath, Richard

2009-01-01

Whether competition among large groups played an important role in human social evolution is dependent on how variation, whether cultural or genetic, is maintained between groups. Comparisons between genetic and cultural differentiation between neighboring groups show how natural selection on large groups is more plausible on cultural rather than genetic variation. PMID:19822753

The Institutional Approach for Modeling the Evolution of Human Societies.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T

2018-01-01

Artificial life is concerned with understanding the dynamics of human societies. A defining feature of any society is its institutions. However, defining exactly what an institution is has proven difficult, with authors often talking past each other. This article presents a dynamic model of institutions, which views them as political game forms that generate the rules of a group's economic interactions. Unlike most prior work, the framework presented here allows for the construction of explicit models of the evolution of institutional rules. It takes account of the fact that group members are likely to try to create rules that benefit themselves. Following from this, it allows us to determine the conditions under which self-interested individuals will create institutional rules that support cooperation-for example, that prevent a tragedy of the commons. The article finishes with an example of how a model of the evolution of institutional rewards and punishments for promoting cooperation can be created. It is intended that this framework will allow artificial life researchers to examine how human groups can themselves create conditions for cooperation. This will help provide a better understanding of historical human social evolution, and facilitate the resolution of pressing societal social dilemmas.

Cooperative breeding and monogamy in mammalian societies

PubMed Central

Lukas, Dieter; Clutton-Brock, Tim

2012-01-01

Comparative studies of social insects and birds show that the evolution of cooperative and eusocial breeding systems has been confined to species where females mate completely or almost exclusively with a single male, indicating that high levels of average kinship between group members are necessary for the evolution of reproductive altruism. In this paper, we show that in mammals, the evolution of cooperative breeding has been restricted to socially monogamous species which currently represent 5 per cent of all mammalian species. Since extra-pair paternity is relatively uncommon in socially monogamous and cooperatively breeding mammals, our analyses support the suggestion that high levels of average kinship between group members have played an important role in the evolution of cooperative breeding in non-human mammals, as well as in birds and insects. PMID:22279167

Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative culture

PubMed Central

Tennie, Claudio; Call, Josep; Tomasello, Michael

2009-01-01

Some researchers have claimed that chimpanzee and human culture rest on homologous cognitive and learning mechanisms. While clearly there are some homologous mechanisms, we argue here that there are some different mechanisms at work as well. Chimpanzee cultural traditions represent behavioural biases of different populations, all within the species’ existing cognitive repertoire (what we call the ‘zone of latent solutions’) that are generated by founder effects, individual learning and mostly product-oriented (rather than process-oriented) copying. Human culture, in contrast, has the distinctive characteristic that it accumulates modifications over time (what we call the ‘ratchet effect’). This difference results from the facts that (i) human social learning is more oriented towards process than product and (ii) unique forms of human cooperation lead to active teaching, social motivations for conformity and normative sanctions against non-conformity. Together, these unique processes of social learning and cooperation lead to humans’ unique form of cumulative cultural evolution. PMID:19620111

The co-evolution of social institutions, demography, and large-scale human cooperation.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T; Lehmann, Laurent

2013-11-01

Human cooperation is typically coordinated by institutions, which determine the outcome structure of the social interactions individuals engage in. Explaining the Neolithic transition from small- to large-scale societies involves understanding how these institutions co-evolve with demography. We study this using a demographically explicit model of institution formation in a patch-structured population. Each patch supports both social and asocial niches. Social individuals create an institution, at a cost to themselves, by negotiating how much of the costly public good provided by cooperators is invested into sanctioning defectors. The remainder of their public good is invested in technology that increases carrying capacity, such as irrigation systems. We show that social individuals can invade a population of asocials, and form institutions that support high levels of cooperation. We then demonstrate conditions where the co-evolution of cooperation, institutions, and demographic carrying capacity creates a transition from small- to large-scale social groups. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

The evolution of music and human social capability

PubMed Central

Schulkin, Jay; Raglan, Greta B.

2014-01-01

Music is a core human experience and generative processes reflect cognitive capabilities. Music is often functional because it is something that can promote human well-being by facilitating human contact, human meaning, and human imagination of possibilities, tying it to our social instincts. Cognitive systems also underlie musical performance and sensibilities. Music is one of those things that we do spontaneously, reflecting brain machinery linked to communicative functions, enlarged and diversified across a broad array of human activities. Music cuts across diverse cognitive capabilities and resources, including numeracy, language, and space perception. In the same way, music intersects with cultural boundaries, facilitating our “social self” by linking our shared experiences and intentions. This paper focuses on the intersection between the neuroscience of music, and human social functioning to illustrate the importance of music to human behaviors. PMID:25278827

Generative inference for cultural evolution.

PubMed

Kandler, Anne; Powell, Adam

2018-04-05

One of the major challenges in cultural evolution is to understand why and how various forms of social learning are used in human populations, both now and in the past. To date, much of the theoretical work on social learning has been done in isolation of data, and consequently many insights focus on revealing the learning processes or the distributions of cultural variants that are expected to have evolved in human populations. In population genetics, recent methodological advances have allowed a greater understanding of the explicit demographic and/or selection mechanisms that underlie observed allele frequency distributions across the globe, and their change through time. In particular, generative frameworks-often using coalescent-based simulation coupled with approximate Bayesian computation (ABC)-have provided robust inferences on the human past, with no reliance on a priori assumptions of equilibrium. Here, we demonstrate the applicability and utility of generative inference approaches to the field of cultural evolution. The framework advocated here uses observed population-level frequency data directly to establish the likely presence or absence of particular hypothesized learning strategies. In this context, we discuss the problem of equifinality and argue that, in the light of sparse cultural data and the multiplicity of possible social learning processes, the exclusion of those processes inconsistent with the observed data might be the most instructive outcome. Finally, we summarize the findings of generative inference approaches applied to a number of case studies.This article is part of the theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution'. © 2018 The Author(s).

The evolution of utility functions and psychological altruism.

PubMed

Clavien, Christine; Chapuisat, Michel

2016-04-01

Numerous studies show that humans tend to be more cooperative than expected given the assumption that they are rational maximizers of personal gain. As a result, theoreticians have proposed elaborated formal representations of human decision-making, in which utility functions including "altruistic" or "moral" preferences replace the purely self-oriented "Homo economicus" function. Here we review mathematical approaches that provide insights into the mathematical stability of alternative utility functions. Candidate utility functions may be evaluated with help of game theory, classical modeling of social evolution that focuses on behavioral strategies, and modeling of social evolution that focuses directly on utility functions. We present the advantages of the latter form of investigation and discuss one surprisingly precise result: "Homo economicus" as well as "altruistic" utility functions are less stable than a function containing a preference for the common welfare that is only expressed in social contexts composed of individuals with similar preferences. We discuss the contribution of mathematical models to our understanding of human other-oriented behavior, with a focus on the classical debate over psychological altruism. We conclude that human can be psychologically altruistic, but that psychological altruism evolved because it was generally expressed towards individuals that contributed to the actor's fitness, such as own children, romantic partners and long term reciprocators. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Footprints reveal direct evidence of group behavior and locomotion in Homo erectus

PubMed Central

Hatala, Kevin G.; Roach, Neil T.; Ostrofsky, Kelly R.; Wunderlich, Roshna E.; Dingwall, Heather L.; Villmoare, Brian A.; Green, David J.; Harris, John W. K.; Braun, David R.; Richmond, Brian G.

2016-01-01

Bipedalism is a defining feature of the human lineage. Despite evidence that walking on two feet dates back 6–7 Ma, reconstructing hominin gait evolution is complicated by a sparse fossil record and challenges in inferring biomechanical patterns from isolated and fragmentary bones. Similarly, patterns of social behavior that distinguish modern humans from other living primates likely played significant roles in our evolution, but it is exceedingly difficult to understand the social behaviors of fossil hominins directly from fossil data. Footprints preserve direct records of gait biomechanics and behavior but they have been rare in the early human fossil record. Here we present analyses of an unprecedented discovery of 1.5-million-year-old footprint assemblages, produced by 20+ Homo erectus individuals. These footprints provide the oldest direct evidence for modern human-like weight transfer and confirm the presence of an energy-saving longitudinally arched foot in H. erectus. Further, print size analyses suggest that these H. erectus individuals lived and moved in cooperative multi-male groups, offering direct evidence consistent with human-like social behaviors in H. erectus. PMID:27403790

Social network and decision-making in primates: a report on Franco-Japanese research collaborations.

PubMed

Sueur, Cédric; Pelé, Marie

2016-07-01

Sociality is suggested to evolve as a strategy for animals to cope with challenges in their environment. Within a population, each individual can be seen as part of a network of social interactions that vary in strength, type and dynamics (Sueur et al. 2011a). The structure of this social network can strongly impact upon not only on the fitness of individuals and their decision-making, but also on the ecology of populations and the evolution of a species. Our Franco-Japanese collaboration allowed us to study social networks in several species (Japanese macaques, chimpanzees, colobines, etc.) and on different topics (social epidemiology, social evolution, information transmission). Individual attributes such as stress, rank or age can affect how individuals take decisions and the structure of the social network. This heterogeneity is linked to the assortativity of individuals and to the efficiency of the flow within a network. It is important, therefore, that this heterogeneity is integrated in the process or pattern under study in order to provide a better resolution of investigation and, ultimately, a better understanding of behavioural strategies, social dynamics and social evolution. How social information affects decision-making could be important to understand how social groups make collective decisions and how information may spread throughout the social group. In human beings, road-crossing behaviours in the presence of other individuals is a good way to study the influence of social information on individual behaviour and decision-making, for instance. Culture directly affects which information - personal vs social - individuals prefer to follow. Our collaboration contributed to the understanding of the relative influence of different factors, cultural and ecological, on primate, including human, sociality.

Grandmothering life histories and human pair bonding.

PubMed

Coxworth, James E; Kim, Peter S; McQueen, John S; Hawkes, Kristen

2015-09-22

The evolution of distinctively human life history and social organization is generally attributed to paternal provisioning based on pair bonds. Here we develop an alternative argument that connects the evolution of human pair bonds to the male-biased mating sex ratios that accompanied the evolution of human life history. We simulate an agent-based model of the grandmother hypothesis, compare simulated sex ratios to data on great apes and human hunter-gatherers, and note associations between a preponderance of males and mate guarding across taxa. Then we explore a recent model that highlights the importance of mating sex ratios for differences between birds and mammals and conclude that lessons for human evolution cannot ignore mammalian reproductive constraints. In contradiction to our claim that male-biased sex ratios are characteristically human, female-biased ratios are reported in some populations. We consider the likelihood that fertile men are undercounted and conclude that the mate-guarding hypothesis for human pair bonds gains strength from explicit links with our grandmothering life history.

Social & Cooperative Learning in the Solving of Case Histories

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gooran, Deena; Braude, Stan

2007-01-01

Human Biology courses are typically offered for non-biology majors who, like students in high school biology courses, have varying degrees of motivation and background. The primary focus is on explaining the biology behind human health and disease, but human ecology, human evolution, and human genetics may also be covered. Hence, Human Biology…

The Evaluation of Occupational Social Work.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Googins, Bradley; Godfrey, Joline

1985-01-01

The evolution of occupational social work from its beginnings in welfare capitalism, through the human relations movement in the 1930s and 1940s, and into the occupational alcoholism programs and employee assistance programs of the last decade is surveyed. A broad definition of occupational social work is offered. (Author)

Human uniqueness-self-interest and social cooperation.

PubMed

Okada, Daijiro; Bingham, Paul M

2008-07-21

Humans are unique among all species of terrestrial history in both ecological dominance and individual properties. Many, or perhaps all, of the unique elements of this nonpareil status can be plausibly interpreted as evolutionary and strategic elements and consequences of the unprecedented intensity and scale of our social cooperation. Convincing explanation of this unique human social adaptation remains a central, unmet challenge to the scientific enterprise. We develop a hypothesis for the ancestral origin of expanded cooperative social behavior. Specifically, we present a game theoretic analysis demonstrating that a specific pattern of expanded social cooperation between conspecific individuals with conflicts of interest (including non-kin) can be strategically viable, but only in animals that possess a highly unusual capacity for conspecific violence (credible threat) having very specific properties that dramatically reduce the costs of coercive violence. The resulting reduced costs allow preemptive or compensated coercion to be an instantaneously self-interested behavior under diverse circumstances rather than in rare, idiosyncratic circumstances as in actors (animals) who do not have access to inexpensive coercive threat. Humans are apparently unique among terrestrial organisms in having evolved conspecific coercive capabilities that fulfill these stringent requirements. Thus, our results support the proposal that access to a novel capacity for projection of coercive threat might represent the essential initiating event for the evolution of a human-like pattern of social cooperation and the subsequent evolution of the diverse features of human uniqueness. Empirical evidence indicates that these constraints were, in fact, met only in our evolutionary lineage. The logic for the emergence of uniquely human cooperation suggested by our analysis apparently accounts simply for the human fossil record.

Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great apes.

PubMed

Barton, Robert A; Venditti, Chris

2014-10-20

Humans' unique cognitive abilities are usually attributed to a greatly expanded neocortex, which has been described as "the crowning achievement of evolution and the biological substrate of human mental prowess". The human cerebellum, however, contains four times more neurons than the neocortex and is attracting increasing attention for its wide range of cognitive functions. Using a method for detecting evolutionary rate changes along the branches of phylogenetic trees, we show that the cerebellum underwent rapid size increase throughout the evolution of apes, including humans, expanding significantly faster than predicted by the change in neocortex size. As a result, humans and other apes deviated significantly from the general evolutionary trend for neocortex and cerebellum to change in tandem, having significantly larger cerebella relative to neocortex size than other anthropoid primates. These results suggest that cerebellar specialization was a far more important component of human brain evolution than hitherto recognized and that technical intelligence was likely to have been at least as important as social intelligence in human cognitive evolution. Given the role of the cerebellum in sensory-motor control and in learning complex action sequences, cerebellar specialization is likely to have underpinned the evolution of humans' advanced technological capacities, which in turn may have been a preadaptation for language. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gene–culture interaction and the evolution of the human sense of fairness

PubMed Central

Liu, Tru-Gin; Lu, Yao

2016-01-01

How Darwinian evolution would produce creatures with the proclivity of Darwinian generosity, most of them voluntarily giving up the immediate benefit for themselves or their genes, remains a puzzle. This study targets a problem, the origin of human sense of fairness, and uses fairness-related genes and the social manipulation of Darwinian generosity as the key variables underlying the human sense of fairness, inequity aversion, as well as their relationships within cooperation, and the anticipation foresight of the way relationships are affected by resource division, given the assumption of randomly matched partners. Here we suggest a model in which phenotype will gradually converge towards the perfect sense of fairness along with the prospect of cooperation. Later, the sense of fairness will decrease but it is never extinct. Where social manipulation of Darwinian generosity overshadows genetics, the sense of fairness could be acute to the degree of social manipulation. Above all, there still exists a threshold in the degree of social manipulation, beyond which altruism dominates selfishness in human cooperation. Finally, we propose three new directions toward more realistic scenarios stimulated by recent development of the synergy between statistical physics, network science and evolutionary game theory. PMID:27562008

Hunter-Gatherer Inter-Band Interaction Rates: Implications for Cumulative Culture

PubMed Central

Hill, Kim R.; Wood, Brian M.; Baggio, Jacopo; Hurtado, A. Magdalena; Boyd, Robert T.

2014-01-01

Our species exhibits spectacular success due to cumulative culture. While cognitive evolution of social learning mechanisms may be partially responsible for adaptive human culture, features of early human social structure may also play a role by increasing the number potential models from which to learn innovations. We present interview data on interactions between same-sex adult dyads of Ache and Hadza hunter-gatherers living in multiple distinct residential bands (20 Ache bands; 42 Hadza bands; 1201 dyads) throughout a tribal home range. Results show high probabilities (5%–29% per year) of cultural and cooperative interactions between randomly chosen adults. Multiple regression suggests that ritual relationships increase interaction rates more than kinship, and that affinal kin interact more often than dyads with no relationship. These may be important features of human sociality. Finally, yearly interaction rates along with survival data allow us to estimate expected lifetime partners for a variety of social activities, and compare those to chimpanzees. Hadza and Ache men are estimated to observe over 300 men making tools in a lifetime, whereas male chimpanzees interact with only about 20 other males in a lifetime. High intergroup interaction rates in ancestral humans may have promoted the evolution of cumulative culture. PMID:25047714

Hunter-gatherer inter-band interaction rates: implications for cumulative culture.

PubMed

Hill, Kim R; Wood, Brian M; Baggio, Jacopo; Hurtado, A Magdalena; Boyd, Robert T

2014-01-01

Our species exhibits spectacular success due to cumulative culture. While cognitive evolution of social learning mechanisms may be partially responsible for adaptive human culture, features of early human social structure may also play a role by increasing the number potential models from which to learn innovations. We present interview data on interactions between same-sex adult dyads of Ache and Hadza hunter-gatherers living in multiple distinct residential bands (20 Ache bands; 42 Hadza bands; 1201 dyads) throughout a tribal home range. Results show high probabilities (5%-29% per year) of cultural and cooperative interactions between randomly chosen adults. Multiple regression suggests that ritual relationships increase interaction rates more than kinship, and that affinal kin interact more often than dyads with no relationship. These may be important features of human sociality. Finally, yearly interaction rates along with survival data allow us to estimate expected lifetime partners for a variety of social activities, and compare those to chimpanzees. Hadza and Ache men are estimated to observe over 300 men making tools in a lifetime, whereas male chimpanzees interact with only about 20 other males in a lifetime. High intergroup interaction rates in ancestral humans may have promoted the evolution of cumulative culture.

Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization: reconciling 'Darwinian' and 'Spencerian' evolutionary approaches in anthropology.

PubMed

Currie, Thomas E; Mace, Ruth

2011-04-12

Traditional investigations of the evolution of human social and political institutions trace their ancestry back to nineteenth century social scientists such as Herbert Spencer, and have concentrated on the increase in socio-political complexity over time. More recent studies of cultural evolution have been explicitly informed by Darwinian evolutionary theory and focus on the transmission of cultural traits between individuals. These two approaches to investigating cultural change are often seen as incompatible. However, we argue that many of the defining features and assumptions of 'Spencerian' cultural evolutionary theory represent testable hypotheses that can and should be tackled within a broader 'Darwinian' framework. In this paper we apply phylogenetic comparative techniques to data from Austronesian-speaking societies of Island South-East Asia and the Pacific to test hypotheses about the mode and tempo of human socio-political evolution. We find support for three ideas often associated with Spencerian cultural evolutionary theory: (i) political organization has evolved through a regular sequence of forms, (ii) increases in hierarchical political complexity have been more common than decreases, and (iii) political organization has co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification.

Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization: reconciling ‘Darwinian’ and ‘Spencerian’ evolutionary approaches in anthropology

PubMed Central

Currie, Thomas E.; Mace, Ruth

2011-01-01

Traditional investigations of the evolution of human social and political institutions trace their ancestry back to nineteenth century social scientists such as Herbert Spencer, and have concentrated on the increase in socio-political complexity over time. More recent studies of cultural evolution have been explicitly informed by Darwinian evolutionary theory and focus on the transmission of cultural traits between individuals. These two approaches to investigating cultural change are often seen as incompatible. However, we argue that many of the defining features and assumptions of ‘Spencerian’ cultural evolutionary theory represent testable hypotheses that can and should be tackled within a broader ‘Darwinian’ framework. In this paper we apply phylogenetic comparative techniques to data from Austronesian-speaking societies of Island South-East Asia and the Pacific to test hypotheses about the mode and tempo of human socio-political evolution. We find support for three ideas often associated with Spencerian cultural evolutionary theory: (i) political organization has evolved through a regular sequence of forms, (ii) increases in hierarchical political complexity have been more common than decreases, and (iii) political organization has co-evolved with the wider presence of hereditary social stratification. PMID:21357233

The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity.

PubMed

Efferson, Charles; Lalive, Rafael; Cacault, Maria Paula; Kistler, Deborah

2016-01-01

Conformist social learning can have a pronounced impact on the cultural evolution of human societies, and it can shape both the genetic and cultural evolution of human social behavior more broadly. Conformist social learning is beneficial when the social learner and the demonstrators from whom she learns are similar in the sense that the same behavior is optimal for both. Otherwise, the social learner's optimum is likely to be rare among demonstrators, and conformity is costly. The trade-off between these two situations has figured prominently in the longstanding debate about the evolution of conformity, but the importance of the trade-off can depend critically on the flexibility of one's social learning strategy. We developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model that allows cognition to encode and process information about the similarity between naive learners and experienced demonstrators. Facultative social learning strategies that condition on perceived similarity evolve under certain circumstances. When this happens, facultative adjustments are often asymmetric. Asymmetric adjustments mean that the tendency to follow the majority when learners perceive demonstrators as similar is stronger than the tendency to follow the minority when learners perceive demonstrators as different. In an associated incentivized experiment, we found that social learners adjusted how they used social information based on perceived similarity, but adjustments were symmetric. The symmetry of adjustments completely eliminated the commonly assumed trade-off between cases in which learners and demonstrators share an optimum versus cases in which they do not. In a second experiment that maximized the potential for social learners to follow their preferred strategies, a few social learners exhibited an inclination to follow the majority. Most, however, did not respond systematically to social information. Additionally, in the complete absence of information about their similarity to demonstrators, social learners were unwilling to make assumptions about whether they shared an optimum with demonstrators. Instead, social learners simply ignored social information even though this was the only information available. Our results suggest that social cognition equips people to use conformity in a discriminating fashion that moderates the evolutionary trade-offs that would occur if conformist social learning was rigidly applied.

The Evolution of Facultative Conformity Based on Similarity

PubMed Central

Efferson, Charles; Lalive, Rafael; Cacault, Maria Paula; Kistler, Deborah

2016-01-01

Conformist social learning can have a pronounced impact on the cultural evolution of human societies, and it can shape both the genetic and cultural evolution of human social behavior more broadly. Conformist social learning is beneficial when the social learner and the demonstrators from whom she learns are similar in the sense that the same behavior is optimal for both. Otherwise, the social learner’s optimum is likely to be rare among demonstrators, and conformity is costly. The trade-off between these two situations has figured prominently in the longstanding debate about the evolution of conformity, but the importance of the trade-off can depend critically on the flexibility of one’s social learning strategy. We developed a gene-culture coevolutionary model that allows cognition to encode and process information about the similarity between naive learners and experienced demonstrators. Facultative social learning strategies that condition on perceived similarity evolve under certain circumstances. When this happens, facultative adjustments are often asymmetric. Asymmetric adjustments mean that the tendency to follow the majority when learners perceive demonstrators as similar is stronger than the tendency to follow the minority when learners perceive demonstrators as different. In an associated incentivized experiment, we found that social learners adjusted how they used social information based on perceived similarity, but adjustments were symmetric. The symmetry of adjustments completely eliminated the commonly assumed trade-off between cases in which learners and demonstrators share an optimum versus cases in which they do not. In a second experiment that maximized the potential for social learners to follow their preferred strategies, a few social learners exhibited an inclination to follow the majority. Most, however, did not respond systematically to social information. Additionally, in the complete absence of information about their similarity to demonstrators, social learners were unwilling to make assumptions about whether they shared an optimum with demonstrators. Instead, social learners simply ignored social information even though this was the only information available. Our results suggest that social cognition equips people to use conformity in a discriminating fashion that moderates the evolutionary trade-offs that would occur if conformist social learning was rigidly applied. PMID:28002461

Social identity and cooperation in cultural evolution.

PubMed

Smaldino, Paul E

2017-12-06

I discuss the function of social identity signaling in facilitating cooperative group formation, and how the nature of that function changes with the structure of social organization. I propose that signals of social identity facilitate assortment for successful coordination in large-scale societies, and that the multidimensional, context-dependent nature of social identity is crucial for successful coordination when individuals have to cooperate in different contexts. Furthermore, the structure of social identity is tied to the structure of society, so that as societies grow larger and more interconnected, the landscape of social identities grows more heterogeneous. This discussion bears directly on the need to articulate the dynamics of emergent, ephemeral groups as a major factor in human cultural evolution. Copyright © 2017 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Selection to outsmart the germs: The evolution of disease recognition and social cognition.

PubMed

Kessler, Sharon E; Bonnell, Tyler R; Byrne, Richard W; Chapman, Colin A

2017-07-01

The emergence of providing care to diseased conspecifics must have been a turning point during the evolution of hominin sociality. On a population level, care may have minimized the costs of socially transmitted diseases at a time of increasing social complexity, although individual care-givers probably incurred increased transmission risks. We propose that care-giving likely originated within kin networks, where the costs may have been balanced by fitness increases obtained through caring for ill kin. We test a novel hypothesis of hominin cognitive evolution in which disease may have selected for the cognitive ability to recognize when a conspecific is infected. Because diseases may produce symptoms that are likely detectable via the perceptual-cognitive pathways integral to social cognition, we suggest that disease recognition and social cognition may have evolved together. Using agent-based modeling, we test 1) under what conditions disease can select for increasing disease recognition and care-giving among kin, 2) whether providing care produces greater selection for cognition than an avoidance strategy, and 3) whether care-giving alters the progression of the disease through the population. The greatest selection was produced by diseases with lower risks to the care-giver and prevalences low enough not to disrupt the kin networks. When care-giving and avoidance strategies were compared, only care-giving reduced the severity of the disease outbreaks and subsequent population crashes. The greatest selection for increased cognitive abilities occurred early in the model runs when the outbreaks and population crashes were most severe. Therefore, over the course of human evolution, repeated introductions of novel diseases into naïve populations could have produced sustained selection for increased disease recognition and care-giving behavior, leading to the evolution of increased cognition, social complexity, and, eventually, medical care in humans. Finally, we lay out predictions derived from our disease recognition hypothesis that we encourage paleoanthropologists, bioarchaeologists, primatologists, and paleogeneticists to test. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dolphin social intelligence: complex alliance relationships in bottlenose dolphins and a consideration of selective environments for extreme brain size evolution in mammals.

PubMed

Connor, Richard C

2007-04-29

Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, live in a large, unbounded society with a fission-fusion grouping pattern. Potential cognitive demands include the need to develop social strategies involving the recognition of a large number of individuals and their relationships with others. Patterns of alliance affiliation among males may be more complex than are currently known for any non-human, with individuals participating in 2-3 levels of shifting alliances. Males mediate alliance relationships with gentle contact behaviours such as petting, but synchrony also plays an important role in affiliative interactions. In general, selection for social intelligence in the context of shifting alliances will depend on the extent to which there are strategic options and risk. Extreme brain size evolution may have occurred more than once in the toothed whales, reaching peaks in the dolphin family and the sperm whale. All three 'peaks' of large brain size evolution in mammals (odontocetes, humans and elephants) shared a common selective environment: extreme mutual dependence based on external threats from predators or conspecific groups. In this context, social competition, and consequently selection for greater cognitive abilities and large brain size, was intense.

The Future as Anthropology: Socialism as a Human Ecological Climax.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ruyle, Eugene E.

This paper attempts to clarify the Marxian concept of socialism and concludes that social evolution will culminate in a world socialist system. By viewing sociocultural systems from an ecological perspective it is argued that individuals tend to maximize their consumption of labor energy, and minimize their own expenditure of labor energy. This…

Survival of the Friendliest: Homo sapiens Evolved via Selection for Prosociality.

PubMed

Hare, Brian

2017-01-03

The challenge of studying human cognitive evolution is identifying unique features of our intelligence while explaining the processes by which they arose. Comparisons with nonhuman apes point to our early-emerging cooperative-communicative abilities as crucial to the evolution of all forms of human cultural cognition, including language. The human self-domestication hypothesis proposes that these early-emerging social skills evolved when natural selection favored increased in-group prosociality over aggression in late human evolution. As a by-product of this selection, humans are predicted to show traits of the domestication syndrome observed in other domestic animals. In reviewing comparative, developmental, neurobiological, and paleoanthropological research, compelling evidence emerges for the predicted relationship between unique human mentalizing abilities, tolerance, and the domestication syndrome in humans. This synthesis includes a review of the first a priori test of the self-domestication hypothesis as well as predictions for future tests.

The Role of the History of Science in the Understanding of Social Darwinism and Eugenics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowler, Peter

1990-01-01

The link between science and society is examined by studying the application of evolution theories and genetics to human affairs. Described are the ways in which biological theories have been applied to social issues. (KR)

Toward the Language-Ready Brain: Biological Evolution and Primate Comparisons.

PubMed

Arbib, Michael A

2017-02-01

The approach to language evolution suggested here focuses on three questions: How did the human brain evolve so that humans can develop, use, and acquire languages? How can the evolutionary quest be informed by studying brain, behavior, and social interaction in monkeys, apes, and humans? How can computational modeling advance these studies? I hypothesize that the brain is language ready in that the earliest humans had protolanguages but not languages (i.e., communication systems endowed with rich and open-ended lexicons and grammars supporting a compositional semantics), and that it took cultural evolution to yield societies (a cultural constructed niche) in which language-ready brains could become language-using brains. The mirror system hypothesis is a well-developed example of this approach, but I offer it here not as a closed theory but as an evolving framework for the development and analysis of conflicting subhypotheses in the hope of their eventual integration. I also stress that computational modeling helps us understand the evolving role of mirror neurons, not in and of themselves, but only in their interaction with systems "beyond the mirror." Because a theory of evolution needs a clear characterization of what it is that evolved, I also outline ideas for research in neurolinguistics to complement studies of the evolution of the language-ready brain. A clear challenge is to go beyond models of speech comprehension to include sign language and models of production, and to link language to visuomotor interaction with the physical and social world.

Cross-cultural Comparison of Learning in Human Hunting : Implications for Life History Evolution.

PubMed

MacDonald, Katharine

2007-12-01

This paper is a cross-cultural examination of the development of hunting skills and the implications for the debate on the role of learning in the evolution of human life history patterns. While life history theory has proven to be a powerful tool for understanding the evolution of the human life course, other schools, such as cultural transmission and social learning theory, also provide theoretical insights. These disparate theories are reviewed, and alternative and exclusive predictions are identified. This study of cross-cultural regularities in how children learn hunting skills, based on the ethnographic literature on traditional hunters, complements existing empirical work and highlights future areas for investigation.

The evolution of human warfare.

PubMed

Pitman, George R

2011-01-01

Here we propose a new theory for the origins and evolution of human warfare as a complex social phenomenon involving several behavioral traits, including aggression, risk taking, male bonding, ingroup altruism, outgroup xenophobia, dominance and subordination, and territoriality, all of which are encoded in the human genome. Among the family of great apes only chimpanzees and humans engage in war; consequently, warfare emerged in their immediate common ancestor that lived in patrilocal groups who fought one another for females. The reasons for warfare changed when the common ancestor females began to immigrate into the groups of their choice, and again, during the agricultural revolution.

Cooperation and the evolution of intelligence

PubMed Central

McNally, Luke; Brown, Sam P.; Jackson, Andrew L.

2012-01-01

The high levels of intelligence seen in humans, other primates, certain cetaceans and birds remain a major puzzle for evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists. It has long been held that social interactions provide the selection pressures necessary for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities (the ‘social intelligence hypothesis’), and in recent years decision-making in the context of cooperative social interactions has been conjectured to be of particular importance. Here we use an artificial neural network model to show that selection for efficient decision-making in cooperative dilemmas can give rise to selection pressures for greater cognitive abilities, and that intelligent strategies can themselves select for greater intelligence, leading to a Machiavellian arms race. Our results provide mechanistic support for the social intelligence hypothesis, highlight the potential importance of cooperative behaviour in the evolution of intelligence and may help us to explain the distribution of cooperation with intelligence across taxa. PMID:22496188

Orbital Dynamics, Environmental Heterogeneity, and the Evolution of the Human Brain

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grove, Matt

2012-01-01

Many explanations have been proposed for the evolution of our anomalously large brains, including social, ecological, and epiphenomenal hypotheses. Recently, an additional hypothesis has emerged, suggesting that advanced cognition and, by inference, increases in brain size, have been driven over evolutionary time by the need to deal with…

When is bigger better? The effects of group size on the evolution of helping behaviours.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T; Lehmann, Laurent

2017-05-01

Understanding the evolution of sociality in humans and other species requires understanding how selection on social behaviour varies with group size. However, the effects of group size are frequently obscured in the theoretical literature, which often makes assumptions that are at odds with empirical findings. In particular, mechanisms are suggested as supporting large-scale cooperation when they would in fact rapidly become ineffective with increasing group size. Here we review the literature on the evolution of helping behaviours (cooperation and altruism), and frame it using a simple synthetic model that allows us to delineate how the three main components of the selection pressure on helping must vary with increasing group size. The first component is the marginal benefit of helping to group members, which determines both direct fitness benefits to the actor and indirect fitness benefits to recipients. While this is often assumed to be independent of group size, marginal benefits are in practice likely to be maximal at intermediate group sizes for many types of collective action problems, and will eventually become very small in large groups due to the law of decreasing marginal returns. The second component is the response of social partners on the past play of an actor, which underlies conditional behaviour under repeated social interactions. We argue that under realistic conditions on the transmission of information in a population, this response on past play decreases rapidly with increasing group size so that reciprocity alone (whether direct, indirect, or generalised) cannot sustain cooperation in very large groups. The final component is the relatedness between actor and recipient, which, according to the rules of inheritance, again decreases rapidly with increasing group size. These results explain why helping behaviours in very large social groups are limited to cases where the number of reproducing individuals is small, as in social insects, or where there are social institutions that can promote (possibly through sanctioning) large-scale cooperation, as in human societies. Finally, we discuss how individually devised institutions can foster the transition from small-scale to large-scale cooperative groups in human evolution. © 2016 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

The Emerging Field of Human Social Genomics

PubMed Central

Slavich, George M.; Cole, Steven W.

2013-01-01

Although we generally experience our bodies as being biologically stable across time and situations, an emerging field of research is demonstrating that external social conditions, especially our subjective perceptions of those conditions, can influence our most basic internal biological processes—namely, the expression of our genes. This research on human social genomics has begun to identify the types of genes that are subject to social-environmental regulation, the neural and molecular mechanisms that mediate the effects of social processes on gene expression, and the genetic polymorphisms that moderate individual differences in genomic sensitivity to social context. The molecular models resulting from this research provide new opportunities for understanding how social and genetic factors interact to shape complex behavioral phenotypes and susceptibility to disease. This research also sheds new light on the evolution of the human genome and challenges the fundamental belief that our molecular makeup is relatively stable and impermeable to social-environmental influence. PMID:23853742

The neural representation of social networks.

PubMed

Weaverdyck, Miriam E; Parkinson, Carolyn

2018-05-24

The computational demands associated with navigating large, complexly bonded social groups are thought to have significantly shaped human brain evolution. Yet, research on social network representation and cognitive neuroscience have progressed largely independently. Thus, little is known about how the human brain encodes the structure of the social networks in which it is embedded. This review highlights recent work seeking to bridge this gap in understanding. While the majority of research linking social network analysis and neuroimaging has focused on relating neuroanatomy to social network size, researchers have begun to define the neural architecture that encodes social network structure, cognitive and behavioral consequences of encoding this information, and individual differences in how people represent the structure of their social world. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Comparative View of Face Perception

PubMed Central

Leopold, David A.; Rhodes, Gillian

2010-01-01

Face perception serves as the basis for much of human social exchange. Diverse information can be extracted about an individual from a single glance at their face, including their identity, emotional state, and direction of attention. Neuropsychological and fMRI experiments reveal a complex network of specialized areas in the human brain supporting these face-reading skills. Here we consider the evolutionary roots of human face perception by exploring the manner in which different animal species view and respond to faces. We focus on behavioral experiments collected from both primates and non-primates, assessing the types of information that animals are able to extract from the faces of their conspecifics, human experimenters, and natural predators. These experiments reveal that faces are an important category of visual stimuli for animals in all major vertebrate taxa, possibly reflecting the early emergence of neural specialization for faces in vertebrate evolution. At the same time, some aspects of facial perception are only evident in primates and a few other social mammals, and may therefore have evolved to suit the needs of complex social communication. Since the human brain likely utilizes both primitive and recently evolved neural specializations for the processing of faces, comparative studies may hold the key to understanding how these parallel circuits emerged during human evolution. PMID:20695655

A comparative view of face perception.

PubMed

Leopold, David A; Rhodes, Gillian

2010-08-01

Face perception serves as the basis for much of human social exchange. Diverse information can be extracted about an individual from a single glance at their face, including their identity, emotional state, and direction of attention. Neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments reveal a complex network of specialized areas in the human brain supporting these face-reading skills. Here we consider the evolutionary roots of human face perception by exploring the manner in which different animal species view and respond to faces. We focus on behavioral experiments collected from both primates and nonprimates, assessing the types of information that animals are able to extract from the faces of their conspecifics, human experimenters, and natural predators. These experiments reveal that faces are an important category of visual stimuli for animals in all major vertebrate taxa, possibly reflecting the early emergence of neural specialization for faces in vertebrate evolution. At the same time, some aspects of facial perception are only evident in primates and a few other social mammals, and may therefore have evolved to suit the needs of complex social communication. Because the human brain likely utilizes both primitive and recently evolved neural specializations for the processing of faces, comparative studies may hold the key to understanding how these parallel circuits emerged during human evolution. 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Language and other artifacts: socio-cultural dynamics of niche construction

PubMed Central

Sinha, Chris

2015-01-01

Niche construction theory is a relatively new approach in evolutionary biology that seeks to integrate an ecological dimension into the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. It is regarded by many evolutionary biologists as providing a significant revision of the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis that unified Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection with 20th century population genetics. Niche construction theory has been invoked as a processual mediator of social cognitive evolution and of the emergence and evolution of language. I argue that language itself can be considered as a biocultural niche and evolutionary artifact. I provide both a general analysis of the cognitive and semiotic status of artifacts, and a formal analysis of language as a social and semiotic institution, based upon a distinction between the fundamental semiotic relations of “counting as” and “standing for.” I explore the consequences for theories of language and language learning of viewing language as a biocultural niche. I suggest that not only do niches mediate organism-organism interactions, but also that organisms mediate niche-niche interactions in ways that affect evolutionary processes, with the evolution of human infancy and childhood as a key example. I argue that language as a social and semiotic system is not only grounded in embodied engagements with the material and social-interactional world, but also grounds a sub-class of artifacts of particular significance in the cultural history of human cognition. Symbolic cognitive artifacts materially and semiotically mediate human cognition, and are not merely informational repositories, but co-agentively constitutive of culturally and historically emergent cognitive domains. I provide examples of the constitutive cognitive role of symbolic cognitive artifacts drawn from my research with my colleagues on cultural and linguistic conceptualizations of time, and their cultural variability. I conclude by reflecting on the philosophical and social implications of understanding artifacts co-agentively. PMID:26539144

Social change, cultural evolution, and human development.

PubMed

Greenfield, Patricia M

2016-04-01

Social change has accelerated globally. Greenfield's interdisciplinary and multilevel theory of social change and human development provides a unified framework for exploring implications of these changes for cultural values, learning environments/socialization processes, and human development/behavior. Data from societies where social change has occurred in place (US, China, and Mexico) and a community where it has occurred through international migration (Mexican immigrants in the US) elucidate these implications. Globally dominant sociodemographic trends are: rural to urban, agriculture to commerce, isolation to interconnectedness, less to more education, less to more technology, lesser to greater wealth, and larger to smaller families/households. These trends lead to both cultural losses (e.g., interdependence/collectivism, respect, tradition, contextualized thinking) and cultural gains (e.g., independence/individualism, equality, innovation, abstraction). Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Social dilemmas in an online social network: The structure and evolution of cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, Feng; Chen, Xiaojie; Liu, Lianghuan; Wang, Long

2007-11-01

We investigate two paradigms for studying the evolution of cooperation—Prisoner's Dilemma and Snowdrift game in an online friendship network, obtained from a social networking site. By structural analysis, it is revealed that the empirical social network has small-world and scale-free properties. Besides, it exhibits assortative mixing pattern. Then, we study the evolutionary version of the two types of games on it. It is found that cooperation is substantially promoted with small values of game matrix parameters in both games. Whereas the competent cooperators induced by the underlying network of contacts will be dramatically inhibited with increasing values of the game parameters. Further, we explore the role of assortativity in evolution of cooperation by random edge rewiring. We find that increasing amount of assortativity will to a certain extent diminish the cooperation level. We also show that connected large hubs are capable of maintaining cooperation. The evolution of cooperation on empirical networks is influenced by various network effects in a combined manner, compared with that on model networks. Our results can help understand the cooperative behaviors in human groups and society.

Evolution of Cooperation in Adaptive Social Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Segbroeck, Sven Van; Santos, Francisco C.; Traulsen, Arne; Lenaerts, Tom; Pacheco, Jorge M.

Humans are organized in societies, a phenomenon that would never have been possible without the evolution of cooperative behavior. Several mechanisms that foster this evolution have been unraveled over the years, with population structure as a prominent promoter of cooperation. Modern networks of exchange and cooperation are, however, becoming increasingly volatile, and less and less based on long-term stable structure. Here, we address how this change of paradigm aspects the evolution of cooperation. We discuss analytical and numerical models in which individuals can break social ties and create new ones. Interactions are modeled as two-player dilemmas of cooperation. Once a link between two individuals has formed, the productivity of this link is evaluated. Links can be broken off at different rates. This individual capacity of forming new links or severing inconvenient ones can effectively change the nature of the game. We address random formation of new links and local linking rules as well as different individual capacities to maintain social interactions. We conclude by discussing how adaptive social networks can become an important step towards more realistic models of cultural dynamics.

Evolution and the psychology of intergroup conflict: the male warrior hypothesis.

PubMed

McDonald, Melissa M; Navarrete, Carlos David; Van Vugt, Mark

2012-03-05

The social science literature contains numerous examples of human tribalism and parochialism-the tendency to categorize individuals on the basis of their group membership, and treat ingroup members benevolently and outgroup members malevolently. We hypothesize that this tribal inclination is an adaptive response to the threat of coalitional aggression and intergroup conflict perpetrated by 'warrior males' in both ancestral and modern human environments. Here, we describe how male coalitional aggression could have affected the social psychologies of men and women differently and present preliminary evidence from experimental social psychological studies testing various predictions from the 'male warrior' hypothesis. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our research for studying intergroup relations both in humans and non-humans and discuss some practical implications.

Mirror neurons and the social nature of language: the neural exploitation hypothesis.

PubMed

Gallese, Vittorio

2008-01-01

This paper discusses the relevance of the discovery of mirror neurons in monkeys and of the mirror neuron system in humans to a neuroscientific account of primates' social cognition and its evolution. It is proposed that mirror neurons and the functional mechanism they underpin, embodied simulation, can ground within a unitary neurophysiological explanatory framework important aspects of human social cognition. In particular, the main focus is on language, here conceived according to a neurophenomenological perspective, grounding meaning on the social experience of action. A neurophysiological hypothesis--the "neural exploitation hypothesis"--is introduced to explain how key aspects of human social cognition are underpinned by brain mechanisms originally evolved for sensorimotor integration. It is proposed that these mechanisms were later on adapted as new neurofunctional architecture for thought and language, while retaining their original functions as well. By neural exploitation, social cognition and language can be linked to the experiential domain of action.

Pathways to cognitive design.

PubMed

Wertz, Annie E; Moya, Cristina

2018-05-30

Despite a shared recognition that the design of the human mind and the design of human culture are tightly linked, researchers in the evolutionary social sciences tend to specialize in understanding one at the expense of the other. The disciplinary boundaries roughly correspond to research traditions that focus more on natural selection and those that focus more on cultural evolution. In this paper, we articulate how two research traditions within the evolutionary social sciences-evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution-approach the study of design. We focus our analysis on the design of cognitive mechanisms that are the result of the interplay of genetic and cultural evolution. We aim to show how the approaches of these two research traditions can complement each other, and provide a framework for developing a wider range of testable hypotheses about cognitive design. To do so, we provide concrete illustrations of how this integrated approach can be used to interrogate cognitive design using examples from our own work on plant and symbolic group boundary cognition. We hope this recognition of different pathways to design will broaden the hypothesis space in the evolutionary social sciences and encourage methodological pluralism in the investigation of the mind. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bringing Darwin into the social sciences and the humanities: cultural evolution and its philosophical implications.

PubMed

Blancke, Stefaan; Denis, Gilles

2018-04-10

In the field of cultural evolution it is generally assumed that the study of culture and cultural change would benefit enormously from being informed by evolutionary thinking. Recently, however, there has been much debate about what this "being informed" means. According to the standard view, an interesting analogy obtains between cultural and biological evolution. In the literature, however, the analogy is interpreted and used in at least three distinct, but interrelated ways. We provide a taxonomy in order to clarify these different meanings. Subsequently, we discuss the alternatives model of cultural attraction theory and memetics, which both challenge basic assumptions of the standard view. Finally, we briefly summarize the contributions to the special issue on Darwin in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, which is the result of a collaborative project between scholars and scientists from the universities of Lille and Ghent. Furthermore, we explain how they add to the discussions about the integration of evolutionary thinking and the study of culture.

Evolution and the Human Population. Science In a Social CONtext.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Solomon, Joan

Science In a Social CONtext is a series of eight books based on the project SISCON-in-Schools. The books provide a new course in science and society for general studies at sixth-form level. The course has been specially designed to make scientific problems accessible to the non-scientist, as well as to explain the social aspects of science to the…

Collective Dynamics of Belief Evolution under Cognitive Coherence and Social Conformity.

PubMed

Rodriguez, Nathaniel; Bollen, Johan; Ahn, Yong-Yeol

2016-01-01

Human history has been marked by social instability and conflict, often driven by the irreconcilability of opposing sets of beliefs, ideologies, and religious dogmas. The dynamics of belief systems has been studied mainly from two distinct perspectives, namely how cognitive biases lead to individual belief rigidity and how social influence leads to social conformity. Here we propose a unifying framework that connects cognitive and social forces together in order to study the dynamics of societal belief evolution. Each individual is endowed with a network of interacting beliefs that evolves through interaction with other individuals in a social network. The adoption of beliefs is affected by both internal coherence and social conformity. Our framework may offer explanations for how social transitions can arise in otherwise homogeneous populations, how small numbers of zealots with highly coherent beliefs can overturn societal consensus, and how belief rigidity protects fringe groups and cults against invasion from mainstream beliefs, allowing them to persist and even thrive in larger societies. Our results suggest that strong consensus may be insufficient to guarantee social stability, that the cognitive coherence of belief-systems is vital in determining their ability to spread, and that coherent belief-systems may pose a serious problem for resolving social polarization, due to their ability to prevent consensus even under high levels of social exposure. We argue that the inclusion of cognitive factors into a social model could provide a more complete picture of collective human dynamics.

The Association between Pro-Social Attitude and Reproductive Success Differs between Men and Women

PubMed Central

Fieder, Martin; Huber, Susanne

2012-01-01

The evolution of pro-social attitude and cooperation in humans is under debate. Most of the knowledge on human cooperation results from laboratory experiments and theoretic modeling. Evolutionary explanations, however, rest upon fitness consequences. We therefore examined fitness correlates of pro-social behavior in a real life setting, analyzing data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (n = 2545 men, 2967 women). We investigated whether pro-social attitude, proxied by self reported voluntary work, is associated with lifetime reproductive success. We find a sex difference in the association between pro-social attitude and offspring number. In men, a pro-social attitude was associated with higher offspring number, whereas in women, it was associated with lower offspring count. To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate fitness consequences of pro-social behavior towards strangers. We conclude that analysing real life settings may help to explain the evolutionary forces leading to pro-social behavior in humans and speculate that these factors might differ between the sexes. PMID:22496750

Psychology and the Search for Meaning. Inaugural Lecture.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mundy-Castle, A. C.

The author reviews the evolution of man to stress the role of psychology in a nation's social and technological development. It is especially important for developing nations to realize that technology must be coordinated with human social and psychological needs. To clarify the type of being man is, the author provides an account of human…

Data-Driven Approaches for Paraphrasing across Language Variations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Wei

2014-01-01

Our language changes very rapidly, accompanying political, social and cultural trends, as well as the evolution of science and technology. The Internet, especially the social media, has accelerated this process of change. This poses a severe challenge for both human beings and natural language processing (NLP) systems, which usually only model a…

Human behavior. Sex equality can explain the unique social structure of hunter-gatherer bands.

PubMed

Dyble, M; Salali, G D; Chaudhary, N; Page, A; Smith, D; Thompson, J; Vinicius, L; Mace, R; Migliano, A B

2015-05-15

The social organization of mobile hunter-gatherers has several derived features, including low within-camp relatedness and fluid meta-groups. Although these features have been proposed to have provided the selective context for the evolution of human hypercooperation and cumulative culture, how such a distinctive social system may have emerged remains unclear. We present an agent-based model suggesting that, even if all individuals in a community seek to live with as many kin as possible, within-camp relatedness is reduced if men and women have equal influence in selecting camp members. Our model closely approximates observed patterns of co-residence among Agta and Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers. Our results suggest that pair-bonding and increased sex egalitarianism in human evolutionary history may have had a transformative effect on human social organization. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Cities and Urban Land Use in Advanced Placement Human Geography.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ford, Larry R.

2000-01-01

Discusses the cities and urban land use section of the Advanced Placement (AP) human geography course, focusing on the: (1) definitions of urbanism; (2) origin and evolution of cities; (3) functional character of contemporary cities; (4) built environment and social space; and (5) responses to urban growth. (CMK)

Darwinian Liberal Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arnhart, Larry

2006-01-01

Be it metaphysics, theology, or some other unifying framework, humans have long sought to determine "first principles" underlying knowledge. Larry Arnhart continues in this vein, positing a Darwinian web of genetic, cultural, and cognitive evolution to explain our social behavior in terms of human nature as governed by biology. He leaves it to us…

Evolution and the psychology of intergroup conflict: the male warrior hypothesis

PubMed Central

McDonald, Melissa M.; Navarrete, Carlos David; Van Vugt, Mark

2012-01-01

The social science literature contains numerous examples of human tribalism and parochialism—the tendency to categorize individuals on the basis of their group membership, and treat ingroup members benevolently and outgroup members malevolently. We hypothesize that this tribal inclination is an adaptive response to the threat of coalitional aggression and intergroup conflict perpetrated by ‘warrior males’ in both ancestral and modern human environments. Here, we describe how male coalitional aggression could have affected the social psychologies of men and women differently and present preliminary evidence from experimental social psychological studies testing various predictions from the ‘male warrior’ hypothesis. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our research for studying intergroup relations both in humans and non-humans and discuss some practical implications. PMID:22271783

Simulating the Evolution of the Human Family: Cooperative Breeding Increases in Harsh Environments

PubMed Central

Smaldino, Paul E.; Newson, Lesley; Schank, Jeffrey C.; Richerson, Peter J.

2013-01-01

Verbal and mathematical models that consider the costs and benefits of behavioral strategies have been useful in explaining animal behavior and are often used as the basis of evolutionary explanations of human behavior. In most cases, however, these models do not account for the effects that group structure and cultural traditions within a human population have on the costs and benefits of its members' decisions. Nor do they consider the likelihood that cultural as well as genetic traits will be subject to natural selection. In this paper, we present an agent-based model that incorporates some key aspects of human social structure and life history. We investigate the evolution of a population under conditions of different environmental harshness and in which selection can occur at the level of the group as well as the level of the individual. We focus on the evolution of a socially learned characteristic related to individuals' willingness to contribute to raising the offspring of others within their family group. We find that environmental harshness increases the frequency of individuals who make such contributions. However, under the conditions we stipulate, we also find that environmental variability can allow groups to survive with lower frequencies of helpers. The model presented here is inevitably a simplified representation of a human population, but it provides a basis for future modeling work toward evolutionary explanations of human behavior that consider the influence of both genetic and cultural transmission of behavior. PMID:24278318

Simulating the evolution of the human family: cooperative breeding increases in harsh environments.

PubMed

Smaldino, Paul E; Newson, Lesley; Schank, Jeffrey C; Richerson, Peter J

2013-01-01

Verbal and mathematical models that consider the costs and benefits of behavioral strategies have been useful in explaining animal behavior and are often used as the basis of evolutionary explanations of human behavior. In most cases, however, these models do not account for the effects that group structure and cultural traditions within a human population have on the costs and benefits of its members' decisions. Nor do they consider the likelihood that cultural as well as genetic traits will be subject to natural selection. In this paper, we present an agent-based model that incorporates some key aspects of human social structure and life history. We investigate the evolution of a population under conditions of different environmental harshness and in which selection can occur at the level of the group as well as the level of the individual. We focus on the evolution of a socially learned characteristic related to individuals' willingness to contribute to raising the offspring of others within their family group. We find that environmental harshness increases the frequency of individuals who make such contributions. However, under the conditions we stipulate, we also find that environmental variability can allow groups to survive with lower frequencies of helpers. The model presented here is inevitably a simplified representation of a human population, but it provides a basis for future modeling work toward evolutionary explanations of human behavior that consider the influence of both genetic and cultural transmission of behavior.

[Digitizing Human and Social Sciences Journals. Recent History and Perspectives].

PubMed

Parisot, Thomas

2015-06-01

Recent years have seen the emergence and the gradual rise of French journals digital offers in the fields of human and social sciences. In this article, we will both reconsider the conditions of occurrence of these services and discuss the evolution of their environment. Through the example of several emerging initiatives in the field of scientific publishing, in a context marked by continuity but also rupture, we will try to glimpse the role journals could play in the new digital world being created.

Interactions among human behavior, social networks, and societal infrastructures: A Case Study in Computational Epidemiology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barrett, Christopher L.; Bisset, Keith; Chen, Jiangzhuo; Eubank, Stephen; Lewis, Bryan; Kumar, V. S. Anil; Marathe, Madhav V.; Mortveit, Henning S.

Human behavior, social networks, and the civil infrastructures are closely intertwined. Understanding their co-evolution is critical for designing public policies and decision support for disaster planning. For example, human behaviors and day to day activities of individuals create dense social interactions that are characteristic of modern urban societies. These dense social networks provide a perfect fabric for fast, uncontrolled disease propagation. Conversely, people’s behavior in response to public policies and their perception of how the crisis is unfolding as a result of disease outbreak can dramatically alter the normally stable social interactions. Effective planning and response strategies must take these complicated interactions into account. In this chapter, we describe a computer simulation based approach to study these issues using public health and computational epidemiology as an illustrative example. We also formulate game-theoretic and stochastic optimization problems that capture many of the problems that we study empirically.

The Evolution of Adolescence and the Adolescence of Evolution: The Coming of Age of Humans and the Theory about the Forces that Made Them

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawley, Patricia H.

2011-01-01

Adolescence is a period characterized by well-documented growth and change, including reproductive, social, and cognitive development. Though not unheard of, modern evolutionary approaches to adolescence are still relatively uncommon. Recent treatises in developmental biology, however, have yielded new tools through which to explore human…

Human and ape: the legend, the history and the DNA

PubMed Central

Diamandopoulos, AA; Goudas, CP

2007-01-01

A vast amount of papers is published every year about species evolution, the most interesting being those recently published in the journal "Nature", concerning the human-ape relationship. The results and the new theories generated from this research are sometimes astonishing, rising not only biological, but also social, religious and cultural questions. One of the new questions concerns the role of species interbreeding as a means of evolution. In the subject of species interbreeding between human and ape we found some interesting historical and mythical information that sort of back-up this theory of interbreeding, with a historical and cultural side of view. PMID:19582186

Male infanticide leads to social monogamy in primates.

PubMed

Opie, Christopher; Atkinson, Quentin D; Dunbar, Robin I M; Shultz, Susanne

2013-08-13

Although common in birds, social monogamy, or pair-living, is rare among mammals because internal gestation and lactation in mammals makes it advantageous for males to seek additional mating opportunities. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of social monogamy among mammals: as a male mate-guarding strategy, because of the benefits of biparental care, or as a defense against infanticidal males. However, comparative analyses have been unable to resolve the root causes of monogamy. Primates are unusual among mammals because monogamy has evolved independently in all of the major clades. Here we combine trait data across 230 primate species with a Bayesian likelihood framework to test for correlated evolution between monogamy and a range of traits to evaluate the competing hypotheses. We find evidence of correlated evolution between social monogamy and both female ranging patterns and biparental care, but the most compelling explanation for the appearance of monogamy is male infanticide. It is only the presence of infanticide that reliably increases the probability of a shift to social monogamy, whereas monogamy allows the secondary adoption of paternal care and is associated with a shift to discrete ranges. The origin of social monogamy in primates is best explained by long lactation periods caused by altriciality, making primate infants particularly vulnerable to infanticidal males. We show that biparental care shortens relative lactation length, thereby reducing infanticide risk and increasing reproductive rates. These phylogenetic analyses support a key role for infanticide in the social evolution of primates, and potentially, humans.

Male infanticide leads to social monogamy in primates

PubMed Central

Opie, Christopher; Atkinson, Quentin D.; Dunbar, Robin I. M.; Shultz, Susanne

2013-01-01

Although common in birds, social monogamy, or pair-living, is rare among mammals because internal gestation and lactation in mammals makes it advantageous for males to seek additional mating opportunities. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of social monogamy among mammals: as a male mate-guarding strategy, because of the benefits of biparental care, or as a defense against infanticidal males. However, comparative analyses have been unable to resolve the root causes of monogamy. Primates are unusual among mammals because monogamy has evolved independently in all of the major clades. Here we combine trait data across 230 primate species with a Bayesian likelihood framework to test for correlated evolution between monogamy and a range of traits to evaluate the competing hypotheses. We find evidence of correlated evolution between social monogamy and both female ranging patterns and biparental care, but the most compelling explanation for the appearance of monogamy is male infanticide. It is only the presence of infanticide that reliably increases the probability of a shift to social monogamy, whereas monogamy allows the secondary adoption of paternal care and is associated with a shift to discrete ranges. The origin of social monogamy in primates is best explained by long lactation periods caused by altriciality, making primate infants particularly vulnerable to infanticidal males. We show that biparental care shortens relative lactation length, thereby reducing infanticide risk and increasing reproductive rates. These phylogenetic analyses support a key role for infanticide in the social evolution of primates, and potentially, humans. PMID:23898180

Aspects of bioenergetics and civilization.

PubMed

Zotin, A I; Lamprecht, I

1996-06-07

By means of an allometric relation between the oxygen consumption rate and the body mass of an animal a metabolic coefficient is derived that can be used as a measure of standard metabolism in different animal species. This coefficient increased in the course of evolution corresponding to the time of appearance of each class of animal. It reached its highest values in Primates and passerine birds. A further increase across an energetic threshold was only possible with human civilization. A similar approach to evolution is performed through an encephalization coefficient showing that in all phases of evolution, species existed with a much larger relative brain volume than the other members of their class. These species might have established a non-human civilization on Earth if evolution would have taken another path. Finally, social activities of insects and the use of external energy sources by animals are discussed to show further implications of this bioenergetic approach to evolution.

Evolution of Gender Differences in Post-Secondary Human Capital Investments: College Majors. Working Paper #03-11

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gemici, Ahu; Wiswall, Matthew

2011-01-01

Over the past 40 years, the level of human capital investments has changed substantially for men and women. Changes in the intensive margin of college major selection have been also been substantial, as the number of graduates in humanities, social science, and teaching has declined, and the number in science, engineering, and business has…

Origins of altruism diversity II: Runaway co-evolution of altruistic strategies via “reciprocal niche construction”

PubMed Central

Van Dyken, J. David; Wade, Michael J.

2012-01-01

Understanding the evolution of altruism requires knowledge of both its constraints and its drivers. Here we show that, paradoxically, ecological constraints on altruism may ultimately be its strongest driver. We construct a two-trait, co-evolutionary adaptive dynamics model of social evolution in a genetically structured population with local resource competition. The intensity of local resource competition, which influences the direction and strength of social selection and which is typically treated as a static parameter, is here allowed to be an evolvable trait. Evolution of survival/fecundity altruism, which requires weak local competition, increases local competition as it evolves, creating negative environmental feedback that ultimately inhibits its further evolutionary advance. Alternatively, evolution of resource-based altruism, which requires strong local competition, weakens local competition as it evolves, also ultimately causing its own evolution to stall. When evolving independently, these altruistic strategies are intrinsically self-limiting. However, the co-existence of these two altruism types transforms the negative eco-evolutionary feedback generated by each strategy on itself into positive feedback on the other, allowing the presence of one trait to drive the evolution of the other. We call this feedback conversion “reciprocal niche construction”. In the absence of constraints, this process leads to runaway co-evolution of altruism types. We discuss applications to the origins and evolution of eusociality, division of labor, the inordinate ecological success of eusocial species, and the interaction between technology and demography in human evolution. Our theory suggests that the evolution of extreme sociality may often be an autocatalytic process. PMID:22834748

The social brain hypothesis of schizophrenia.

PubMed

Burns, Jonathan

2006-06-01

The social brain hypothesis is a useful heuristic for understanding schizophrenia. It focuses attention on the core Bleulerian concept of autistic alienation and is consistent with well-replicated findings of social brain dysfunction in schizophrenia as well as contemporary theories of human cognitive and brain evolution. The contributions of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein allow us to arrive at a new "philosophy of interpersonal relatedness", which better reflects the "embodied mind" and signifies the end of Cartesian dualistic thinking. In this paper I review the evolution, development and neurobiology of the social brain - the anatomical and functional substrate for adaptive social behaviour and cognition. Functional imaging identifies fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal cortical networks as comprising the social brain, while the discovery of "mirror neurons" provides an understanding of social cognition at a cellular level. Patients with schizophrenia display abnormalities in a wide range of social cognition tasks such as emotion recognition, theory of mind and affective responsiveness. Furthermore, recent research indicates that schizophrenia is a disorder of functional and structural connectivity of social brain networks. These findings lend support to the claim that schizophrenia represents a costly by-product of social brain evolution in Homo sapiens. Individuals with this disorder find themselves seriously disadvantaged in the social arena and vulnerable to the stresses of their complex social environments. This state of "disembodiment" and interpersonal alienation is the core phenomenon of schizophrenia and the root cause of intolerable suffering in the lives of those affected.

The social brain hypothesis of schizophrenia

PubMed Central

BURNS, JONATHAN

2006-01-01

The social brain hypothesis is a useful heuristic for understanding schizophrenia. It focuses attention on the core Bleulerian concept of autistic alienation and is consistent with well-replicated findings of social brain dysfunction in schizophrenia as well as contemporary theories of human cognitive and brain evolution. The contributions of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein allow us to arrive at a new "philosophy of interpersonal relatedness", which better reflects the "embodied mind" and signifies the end of Cartesian dualistic thinking. In this paper I review the evolution, development and neurobiology of the social brain - the anatomical and functional substrate for adaptive social behaviour and cognition. Functional imaging identifies fronto-temporal and fronto-parietal cortical networks as comprising the social brain, while the discovery of "mirror neurons" provides an understanding of social cognition at a cellular level. Patients with schizophrenia display abnormalities in a wide range of social cognition tasks such as emotion recognition, theory of mind and affective responsiveness. Furthermore, recent research indicates that schizophrenia is a disorder of functional and structural connectivity of social brain networks. These findings lend support to the claim that schizophrenia represents a costly by-product of social brain evolution in Homo sapiens. Individuals with this disorder find themselves seriously disadvantaged in the social arena and vulnerable to the stresses of their complex social environments. This state of "disembodiment" and interpersonal alienation is the core phenomenon of schizophrenia and the root cause of intolerable suffering in the lives of those affected. PMID:16946939

How Elders Guided the Evolution of the Modern Human Brain, Social Behavior, and Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coe, Kathryn; Palmer, Craig T.

2009-01-01

In this article the authors revisit the earlier studies of the role and importance of elders and pursue various lines of evidence--biological, archaeological, and cross-cultural/ethnographic--to build the fundamental argument that elders and the knowledge they have acquired from their ancestors, through social learning, have played a key role in…

Cultural macroevolution matters

PubMed Central

Gray, Russell D.

2017-01-01

Evolutionary thinking can be applied to both cultural microevolution and macroevolution. However, much of the current literature focuses on cultural microevolution. In this article, we argue that the growing availability of large cross-cultural datasets facilitates the use of computational methods derived from evolutionary biology to answer broad-scale questions about the major transitions in human social organization. Biological methods can be extended to human cultural evolution. We illustrate this argument with examples drawn from our recent work on the roles of Big Gods and ritual human sacrifice in the evolution of large, stratified societies. These analyses show that, although the presence of Big Gods is correlated with the evolution of political complexity, in Austronesian cultures at least, they do not play a causal role in ratcheting up political complexity. In contrast, ritual human sacrifice does play a causal role in promoting and sustaining the evolution of stratified societies by maintaining and legitimizing the power of elites. We briefly discuss some common objections to the application of phylogenetic modeling to cultural evolution and argue that the use of these methods does not require a commitment to either gene-like cultural inheritance or to the view that cultures are like vertebrate species. We conclude that the careful application of these methods can substantially enhance the prospects of an evolutionary science of human history. PMID:28739960

Archeology, biology, anthropology: human evolution according to Gabriel de Mortillet and John Lubbock (France, England c. 1860-1870).

PubMed

Richard, Nathalie

2012-01-01

This essay compares the first evolutionary syntheses on human prehistory formulated by John Lubbock (1865) in Britain and Gabriel de Mortillet (1869-1883) in France, which both brought the question of human evolution in multidisciplinary light by borrowing tools from archaeology and ethnology rather than from biology. This paper shows that these syntheses displayed similarities as well as differences, and intends to give a comparative assessment of some intellectual and social characteristics of British and French nineteenth-century prehistoric archaeology. Lubbock's and Mortillet's syntheses relied heavily on archaeological collections but these were of different content and status. They stressed progress but they were also organized in accordance to different visions of evolution. Both were articulated from political and religious standpoints, but these standpoints were different in their content and tone.

A moral history of the evolution of a caste of workers.

PubMed Central

Samuels, S W

1996-01-01

Using a dialectic method of philosophic inquiry, the actual ethical, legal, and social situation associated with genetic testing of beryllium-exposed workers in Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilities for markers of chronic beryllium disease is described. The cultural evolution of a caste system in a similar situation, and its social and biological implications, among uranium miners in the Erz Gebirge of Central Europe and on the Colorado Plateau of the United States, marked by suicide and lung disease, including cancer, is also described. The historically persistent social disease resulting from these situations. The Masada Syndrome, named from an analogous situation in biblical times, is characterized. Cultural intervention, a necessary condition for the ethical progression of the Human Genome Project, is outlined. PMID:8933047

Evolution of Cooperation in Social Dilemmas on Complex Networks

PubMed Central

Iyer, Swami; Killingback, Timothy

2016-01-01

Cooperation in social dilemmas is essential for the functioning of systems at multiple levels of complexity, from the simplest biological organisms to the most sophisticated human societies. Cooperation, although widespread, is fundamentally challenging to explain evolutionarily, since natural selection typically favors selfish behavior which is not socially optimal. Here we study the evolution of cooperation in three exemplars of key social dilemmas, representing the prisoner’s dilemma, hawk-dove and coordination classes of games, in structured populations defined by complex networks. Using individual-based simulations of the games on model and empirical networks, we give a detailed comparative study of the effects of the structural properties of a network, such as its average degree, variance in degree distribution, clustering coefficient, and assortativity coefficient, on the promotion of cooperative behavior in all three classes of games. PMID:26928428

Relationship between humanity and plant natural resources – in the context of food and agriculture

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Agriculture, the domestication, culture, and management of plants and animals, has led to profound social changes in human evolution and development; it can be considered as the basis for civilization. Roughly 12,000 years ago agriculture appeared independently in several parts of the world. A natur...

Network Structure and Community Evolution on Twitter: Human Behavior Change in Response to the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

PubMed Central

Lu, Xin; Brelsford, Christa

2014-01-01

To investigate the dynamics of social networks and the formation and evolution of online communities in response to extreme events, we collected three datasets from Twitter shortly before and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We find that while almost all users increased their online activity after the earthquake, Japanese speakers, who are assumed to be more directly affected by the event, expanded the network of people they interact with to a much higher degree than English speakers or the global average. By investigating the evolution of communities, we find that the behavior of joining or quitting a community is far from random: users tend to stay in their current status and are less likely to join new communities from solitary or shift to other communities from their current community. While non-Japanese speakers did not change their conversation topics significantly after the earthquake, nearly all Japanese users changed their conversations to earthquake-related content. This study builds a systematic framework for investigating human behaviors under extreme events with online social network data and our findings on the dynamics of networks and communities may provide useful insight for understanding how patterns of social interaction are influenced by extreme events. PMID:25346468

Network Structure and Community Evolution on Twitter: Human Behavior Change in Response to the 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Xin; Brelsford, Christa

2014-10-01

To investigate the dynamics of social networks and the formation and evolution of online communities in response to extreme events, we collected three datasets from Twitter shortly before and after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We find that while almost all users increased their online activity after the earthquake, Japanese speakers, who are assumed to be more directly affected by the event, expanded the network of people they interact with to a much higher degree than English speakers or the global average. By investigating the evolution of communities, we find that the behavior of joining or quitting a community is far from random: users tend to stay in their current status and are less likely to join new communities from solitary or shift to other communities from their current community. While non-Japanese speakers did not change their conversation topics significantly after the earthquake, nearly all Japanese users changed their conversations to earthquake-related content. This study builds a systematic framework for investigating human behaviors under extreme events with online social network data and our findings on the dynamics of networks and communities may provide useful insight for understanding how patterns of social interaction are influenced by extreme events.

From Pleistocene to Holocene: the prehistory of southwest Asia in evolutionary context.

PubMed

Watkins, Trevor

2017-08-14

In this paper I seek to show how cultural niche construction theory offers the potential to extend the human evolutionary story beyond the Pleistocene, through the Neolithic, towards the kind of very large-scale societies in which we live today. The study of the human past has been compartmentalised, each compartment using different analytical vocabularies, so that their accounts are written in mutually incompatible languages. In recent years social, cognitive and cultural evolutionary theories, building on a growing body of archaeological evidence, have made substantial sense of the social and cultural evolution of the genus Homo. However, specialists in this field of studies have found it difficult to extend their kind of analysis into the Holocene human world. Within southwest Asia the three or four millennia of the Neolithic period at the beginning of the Holocene represents a pivotal point, which saw the transformation of human society in the emergence of the first large-scale, permanent communities, the domestication of plants and animals, and the establishment of effective farming economies. Following the Neolithic, the pace of human social, economic and cultural evolution continued to increase. By 5000 years ago, in parts of southwest Asia and northeast Africa there were very large-scale urban societies, and the first large-scale states (kingdoms). An extension of cultural niche construction theory enables us to extend the evolutionary narrative of the Pleistocene into the Holocene, opening the way to developing a single, long-term, evolutionary account of human history.

Pursuing Darwin’s curious parallel: Prospects for a science of cultural evolution

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

In the past few decades, scholars from several disciplines have pursued the curious parallel noted by Darwin between the genetic evolution of species and the cultural evolution of beliefs, skills, knowledge, languages, institutions, and other forms of socially transmitted information. Here, I review current progress in the pursuit of an evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both biological and evolutionary theory, but also treats culture as more than a proximate mechanism that is directly controlled by genes. Both genetic and cultural evolution can be described as systems of inherited variation that change over time in response to processes such as selection, migration, and drift. Appropriate differences between genetic and cultural change are taken seriously, such as the possibility in the latter of nonrandomly guided variation or transformation, blending inheritance, and one-to-many transmission. The foundation of cultural evolution was laid in the late 20th century with population-genetic style models of cultural microevolution, and the use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct cultural macroevolution. Since then, there have been major efforts to understand the sociocognitive mechanisms underlying cumulative cultural evolution, the consequences of demography on cultural evolution, the empirical validity of assumed social learning biases, the relative role of transformative and selective processes, and the use of quantitative phylogenetic and multilevel selection models to understand past and present dynamics of society-level change. I conclude by highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges of studying cultural evolution, including its relation to the traditional social sciences and humanities. PMID:28739929

Pursuing Darwin's curious parallel: Prospects for a science of cultural evolution.

PubMed

Mesoudi, Alex

2017-07-24

In the past few decades, scholars from several disciplines have pursued the curious parallel noted by Darwin between the genetic evolution of species and the cultural evolution of beliefs, skills, knowledge, languages, institutions, and other forms of socially transmitted information. Here, I review current progress in the pursuit of an evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both biological and evolutionary theory, but also treats culture as more than a proximate mechanism that is directly controlled by genes. Both genetic and cultural evolution can be described as systems of inherited variation that change over time in response to processes such as selection, migration, and drift. Appropriate differences between genetic and cultural change are taken seriously, such as the possibility in the latter of nonrandomly guided variation or transformation, blending inheritance, and one-to-many transmission. The foundation of cultural evolution was laid in the late 20th century with population-genetic style models of cultural microevolution, and the use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct cultural macroevolution. Since then, there have been major efforts to understand the sociocognitive mechanisms underlying cumulative cultural evolution, the consequences of demography on cultural evolution, the empirical validity of assumed social learning biases, the relative role of transformative and selective processes, and the use of quantitative phylogenetic and multilevel selection models to understand past and present dynamics of society-level change. I conclude by highlighting the interdisciplinary challenges of studying cultural evolution, including its relation to the traditional social sciences and humanities.

Measures of node centrality in mobile social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Zhenxiang; Shi, Yan; Chen, Shanzhi

2015-02-01

Mobile social networks exploit human mobility and consequent device-to-device contact to opportunistically create data paths over time. While links in mobile social networks are time-varied and strongly impacted by human mobility, discovering influential nodes is one of the important issues for efficient information propagation in mobile social networks. Although traditional centrality definitions give metrics to identify the nodes with central positions in static binary networks, they cannot effectively identify the influential nodes for information propagation in mobile social networks. In this paper, we address the problems of discovering the influential nodes in mobile social networks. We first use the temporal evolution graph model which can more accurately capture the topology dynamics of the mobile social network over time. Based on the model, we explore human social relations and mobility patterns to redefine three common centrality metrics: degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality. We then employ empirical traces to evaluate the benefits of the proposed centrality metrics, and discuss the predictability of nodes' global centrality ranking by nodes' local centrality ranking. Results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed centrality metrics.

Social evolution. Oxytocin-gaze positive loop and the coevolution of human-dog bonds.

PubMed

Nagasawa, Miho; Mitsui, Shouhei; En, Shiori; Ohtani, Nobuyo; Ohta, Mitsuaki; Sakuma, Yasuo; Onaka, Tatsushi; Mogi, Kazutaka; Kikusui, Takefumi

2015-04-17

Human-like modes of communication, including mutual gaze, in dogs may have been acquired during domestication with humans. We show that gazing behavior from dogs, but not wolves, increased urinary oxytocin concentrations in owners, which consequently facilitated owners' affiliation and increased oxytocin concentration in dogs. Further, nasally administered oxytocin increased gazing behavior in dogs, which in turn increased urinary oxytocin concentrations in owners. These findings support the existence of an interspecies oxytocin-mediated positive loop facilitated and modulated by gazing, which may have supported the coevolution of human-dog bonding by engaging common modes of communicating social attachment. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Male tolerance and male–male bonds in a multilevel primate society

PubMed Central

Patzelt, Annika; Kopp, Gisela H.; Ndao, Ibrahima; Kalbitzer, Urs; Zinner, Dietmar

2014-01-01

Male relationships in most species of mammals generally are characterized by intense intrasexual competition, with little bonding among unrelated individuals. In contrast, human societies are characterized by high levels of cooperation and strong bonds among both related and unrelated males. The emergence of cooperative male–male relationships has been linked to the multilevel structure of traditional human societies. Based on an analysis of the patterns of spatial and social interaction in combination with genetic relatedness data of wild Guinea baboons (Papio papio), we show that this species exhibits a multilevel social organization in which males maintain strong bonds and are highly tolerant of each other. Several “units” of males with their associated females form “parties,” which team up as “gangs.” Several gangs of the same “community” use the same home range. Males formed strong bonds predominantly within parties; however, these bonds were not correlated with genetic relatedness. Agonistic interactions were relatively rare and were restricted to a few dyads. Although the social organization of Guinea baboons resembles that of hamadryas baboons, we found stronger male–male affiliation and more elaborate greeting rituals among male Guinea baboons and less aggression toward females. Thus, the social relationships of male Guinea baboons differ markedly from those of other members of the genus, adding valuable comparative data to test hypotheses regarding social evolution. We suggest that this species constitutes an intriguing model to study the predictors and fitness benefits of male bonds, thus contributing to a better understanding of the evolution of this important facet of human social behavior. PMID:25201960

Male tolerance and male-male bonds in a multilevel primate society.

PubMed

Patzelt, Annika; Kopp, Gisela H; Ndao, Ibrahima; Kalbitzer, Urs; Zinner, Dietmar; Fischer, Julia

2014-10-14

Male relationships in most species of mammals generally are characterized by intense intrasexual competition, with little bonding among unrelated individuals. In contrast, human societies are characterized by high levels of cooperation and strong bonds among both related and unrelated males. The emergence of cooperative male-male relationships has been linked to the multilevel structure of traditional human societies. Based on an analysis of the patterns of spatial and social interaction in combination with genetic relatedness data of wild Guinea baboons (Papio papio), we show that this species exhibits a multilevel social organization in which males maintain strong bonds and are highly tolerant of each other. Several "units" of males with their associated females form "parties," which team up as "gangs." Several gangs of the same "community" use the same home range. Males formed strong bonds predominantly within parties; however, these bonds were not correlated with genetic relatedness. Agonistic interactions were relatively rare and were restricted to a few dyads. Although the social organization of Guinea baboons resembles that of hamadryas baboons, we found stronger male-male affiliation and more elaborate greeting rituals among male Guinea baboons and less aggression toward females. Thus, the social relationships of male Guinea baboons differ markedly from those of other members of the genus, adding valuable comparative data to test hypotheses regarding social evolution. We suggest that this species constitutes an intriguing model to study the predictors and fitness benefits of male bonds, thus contributing to a better understanding of the evolution of this important facet of human social behavior.

Genetic Differences Between Great Apes and Humans: Implications for Human Evolution

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Varki, Ajit

2004-03-17

When considering protein sequences, humans are 99-100% identical to chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest evolutionary relatives. The evolution of humans (and the unique features of our species) from a common ancestor with these great apes involved many steps, influenced by interactions amongst factors of genetic, developmental, ecological, microbial, climatic, behavioral, cultural and social origin. The genetic factors can be approached by direct comparisons of human and great ape genomes, genes and gene products, and by elucidating biochemical and biological consequences of the differences. We have discovered multiple genetic and biochemical differences between humans and great apes, particularly in relationship tomore » a family of cell surface molecules called sialic acids. These differences have implications for the human condition, ranging from susceptibility or resistance to microbial pathogens; effects on endogenous receptors in the immune system; potential effects on placental signaling; the expression of oncofetal antigens in cancers; consequences of dietary intake of animal foods; and the development of the mammalian brain. This talk will provide an overview of these and other genetic differences between humans and great apes, with attention to differences potentially relevant to the evolution of humans.« less

[Sierra of the Atapuerca, thinking about the evolution].

PubMed

Carbonell, Eudald

2007-01-01

Homo sapiens walks to the future in a uncertain way. The fosil evidences from the lithosphere can help us to get into know the social and cultural evolution of all the species that have precede us and even our own. Atapuerca, with more than 1.2 MA old of fossilized history from the Pleistocene to the Holocene is throwing a scientific message through the study of all its archaeological sites. There are thousands of animal and human fossils in Trinchera del Ferrocarril, Cueva de Gran Dolina, Sima del Elefante and Galeria that yield information on the cultural cannibalism practices by Homo antecessor 900,000 years ago, and the hunting and gathering that Homo heidelbergensis developed 400,000 years ago. Finally in the Sima de los Huesos, with a similar chronology than at the H. heidelbergensis sites from the Trinchera del Ferrocarril, we find the first intentional accumulation of hominid bodies. These contributions are significant to the knowledge of the biological and cultural human evolution and permits to deepen it empirically. We hope that understanding the message we will be able to improve our species through the socialization of the scientific knowledge.

Five Encounters with "El Sistema" International: A Venezuelan Marvel Becomes a Global Movement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Booth, Eric; Tunstall, Tricia

2014-01-01

Genuine worldwide movements for social change are rare in human history. Even more rare is the phenomenon of a worldwide movement for social change through art, with teaching artists at the forefront. This article presents the evolution of such a movement now, in the global blossoming of "El Sistema," a program that seeks to change the…

Infectious disease, behavioural flexibility and the evolution of culture in primates.

PubMed

McCabe, Collin M; Reader, Simon M; Nunn, Charles L

2015-01-22

Culturally transmitted traits are observed in a wide array of animal species, yet we understand little about the costs of the behavioural patterns that underlie culture, such as innovation and social learning. We propose that infectious diseases are a significant cost associated with cultural transmission. We investigated two hypotheses that may explain such a connection: that social learning and exploratory behaviours (specifically, innovation and extractive foraging) either compensate for existing infection or increase exposure to infectious agents. We used Bayesian comparative methods, controlling for sampling effort, body mass, group size, geographical range size, terrestriality, latitude and phylogenetic uncertainty. Across 127 primate species, we found a positive association between pathogen richness and rates of innovation, extractive foraging and social learning. This relationship was driven by two independent phenomena: socially contagious diseases were positively associated with rates of social learning, and environmentally transmitted diseases were positively associated with rates of exploration. Because higher pathogen burdens can contribute to morbidity and mortality, we propose that parasitism is a significant cost associated with the behavioural patterns that underpin culture, and that increased pathogen exposure is likely to have played an important role in the evolution of culture in both non-human primates and humans. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

The economic origins of ultrasociality.

PubMed

Gowdy, John; Krall, Lisi

2016-01-01

Ultrasociality refers to the social organization of a few species, including humans and some social insects, having a complex division of labor, city-states, and an almost exclusive dependence on agriculture for subsistence. We argue that the driving forces in the evolution of these ultrasocial societies were economic. With the agricultural transition, species could directly produce their own food and this was such a competitive advantage that those species now dominate the planet. Once underway, this transition was propelled by the selection of within-species groups that could best capture the advantages of (1) actively managing the inputs to food production, (2) a more complex division of labor, and (3) increasing returns to larger scale and larger group size. Together these factors reoriented productive life and radically altered the structure of these societies. Once agriculture began, populations expanded as these economic drivers opened up new opportunities for the exploitation of resources and the active management of inputs to food production. With intensified group-level competition, larger populations and intensive resource exploitation became competitive advantages, and the "social conquest of Earth" was underway. Ultrasocial species came to dominate the earth's ecosystems. Ultrasociality also brought a loss of autonomy for individuals within the group. We argue that exploring the common causes and consequences of ultrasociality in humans and the social insects that adopted agriculture can provide fruitful insights into the evolution of complex human society.

The evolution of anti-social punishment in optional public goods games

PubMed Central

Rand, David G.; Nowak, Martin A.

2011-01-01

Cooperation, where one individual incurs a cost to help another, is a fundamental building block of the natural world and of human society. It has been suggested that costly punishment can promote the evolution of cooperation, with the threat of punishment deterring free-riders. Recent experiments, however, have revealed the existence of ‘anti-social’ punishment, where non-cooperators punish cooperators. While various theoretical models find that punishment can promote the evolution of cooperation, these models a priori exclude the possibility of anti-social punishment. Here we extend the standard theory of optional public goods games to include the full set of punishment strategies. We find that punishment no longer increases cooperation, and that selection favors substantial levels of anti-social punishment for a wide range of parameters. Furthermore, we conduct behavioral experiments, which lead to results that are consistent with our model predictions. As opposed to an altruistic act that promotes cooperation, punishment is mostly a self-interested tool for protecting oneself against potential competitors. PMID:21847108

Beliefs and Perceptions about the Future: A Measurement of Future Time Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Husman, Jenefer; Shell, Duane F.

2008-01-01

Human's ability to consider the future, willingness to make sacrifices in the present to obtain something better in the future has been a significant part of our success as a species (Suddendorf, T., & Corballis, M. C. (1997). "Mental time travel and the evolution of the human mind." "Genetic, social, and general psychology monographs" 123,…

Planet of the apes.

PubMed

Maderspacher, Florian

2005-03-08

What makes us humans so special? Our language, our genes, our culture, our cognitive skills? At the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, psychologists, linguists and biologists tackle this old question in a truly multidisciplinary way. Their results have implications not just for our understanding of human evolution--they also touch directly on many social and environmental issues. Florian Maderspacher reports.

So, are we the massively lucky species?

PubMed

Penn, Derek C; Holyoak, Keith J; Povinelli, Daniel J

2012-08-01

We are in vehement agreement with most of Vaesen's key claims. But Vaesen fails to consider or rebut the possibility that there are deep causal dependencies among the various cognitive traits he identifies as uniquely human. We argue that "higher-order relational reasoning" is one such linchpin trait in the evolution of human tool use, social intelligence, language, and culture.

The social brain: allowing humans to boldly go where no other species has been

PubMed Central

Frith, Uta; Frith, Chris

2010-01-01

The biological basis of complex human social interaction and communication has been illuminated through a coming together of various methods and disciplines. Among these are comparative studies of other species, studies of disorders of social cognition and developmental psychology. The use of neuroimaging and computational models has given weight to speculations about the evolution of social behaviour and culture in human societies. We highlight some networks of the social brain relevant to two-person interactions and consider the social signals between interacting partners that activate these networks. We make a case for distinguishing between signals that automatically trigger interaction and cooperation and ostensive signals that are used deliberately. We suggest that this ostensive signalling is needed for ‘closing the loop’ in two-person interactions, where the partners each know that they have the intention to communicate. The use of deliberate social signals can serve to increase reputation and trust and facilitates teaching. This is likely to be a critical factor in the steep cultural ascent of mankind. PMID:20008394

Face Patch Resting State Networks Link Face Processing to Social Cognition

PubMed Central

Schwiedrzik, Caspar M.; Zarco, Wilbert; Everling, Stefan; Freiwald, Winrich A.

2015-01-01

Faces transmit a wealth of social information. How this information is exchanged between face-processing centers and brain areas supporting social cognition remains largely unclear. Here we identify these routes using resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging in macaque monkeys. We find that face areas functionally connect to specific regions within frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices, as well as subcortical structures supporting emotive, mnemonic, and cognitive functions. This establishes the existence of an extended face-recognition system in the macaque. Furthermore, the face patch resting state networks and the default mode network in monkeys show a pattern of overlap akin to that between the social brain and the default mode network in humans: this overlap specifically includes the posterior superior temporal sulcus, medial parietal, and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, areas supporting high-level social cognition in humans. Together, these results reveal the embedding of face areas into larger brain networks and suggest that the resting state networks of the face patch system offer a new, easily accessible venue into the functional organization of the social brain and into the evolution of possibly uniquely human social skills. PMID:26348613

Associative learning alone is insufficient for the evolution and maintenance of the human mirror neuron system.

PubMed

Oberman, Lindsay M; Hubbard, Edward M; McCleery, Joseph P

2014-04-01

Cook et al. argue that mirror neurons originate from associative learning processes, without evolutionary influence from social-cognitive mechanisms. We disagree with this claim and present arguments based upon cross-species comparisons, EEG findings, and developmental neuroscience that the evolution of mirror neurons is most likely driven simultaneously and interactively by evolutionarily adaptive psychological mechanisms and lower-level biological mechanisms that support them.

Social evolution in multispecies biofilms

PubMed Central

Mitri, Sara; Xavier, João B.; Foster, Kevin R.

2011-01-01

Microbial ecology is revealing the vast diversity of strains and species that coexist in many environments, ranging from free-living communities to the symbionts that compose the human microbiome. In parallel, there is growing evidence of the importance of cooperative phenotypes for the growth and behavior of microbial groups. Here we ask: How does the presence of multiple species affect the evolution of cooperative secretions? We use a computer simulation of spatially structured cellular groups that captures key features of their biology and physical environment. When nutrient competition is strong, we find that the addition of new species can inhibit cooperation by eradicating secreting strains before they can become established. When nutrients are abundant and many species mix in one environment, however, our model predicts that secretor strains of any one species will be surrounded by other species. This “social insulation” protects secretors from competition with nonsecretors of the same species and can improve the prospects of within-species cooperation. We also observe constraints on the evolution of mutualistic interactions among species, because it is difficult to find conditions that simultaneously favor both within- and among-species cooperation. Although relatively simple, our model reveals the richness of interactions between the ecology and social evolution of multispecies microbial groups, which can be critical for the evolution of cooperation. PMID:21690380

The Evolution of the International System: Surrender Sovereignty or Fight to the Death

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-01

8 Robert Wright, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny (New York, NY: First Vintage Books, 2001), 6-7. 9 Kenneth...systems, ecologies, cells, developing embryos , and ant colonies‖ as well as any socially constructed human group.36 Each system is made up of agents...Arnold. Discord and Collaboration. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962. Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny

Five rules for the evolution of cooperation.

PubMed

Nowak, Martin A

2006-12-08

Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. Genomes, cells, multicellular organisms, social insects, and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived that specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation.

Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nowak, Martin A.

2006-12-01

Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. Genomes, cells, multicellular organisms, social insects, and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived that specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation.

Learning, climate and the evolution of cultural capacity.

PubMed

Whitehead, Hal

2007-03-21

Patterns of environmental variation influence the utility, and thus evolution, of different learning strategies. I use stochastic, individual-based evolutionary models to assess the relative advantages of 15 different learning strategies (genetic determination, individual learning, vertical social learning, horizontal/oblique social learning, and contingent combinations of these) when competing in variable environments described by 1/f noise. When environmental variation has little effect on fitness, then genetic determinism persists. When environmental variation is large and equal over all time-scales ("white noise") then individual learning is adaptive. Social learning is advantageous in "red noise" environments when variation over long time-scales is large. Climatic variability increases with time-scale, so that short-lived organisms should be able to rely largely on genetic determination. Thermal climates usually are insufficiently red for social learning to be advantageous for species whose fitness is very determined by temperature. In contrast, population trajectories of many species, especially large mammals and aquatic carnivores, are sufficiently red to promote social learning in their predators. The ocean environment is generally redder than that on land. Thus, while individual learning should be adaptive for many longer-lived organisms, social learning will often be found in those dependent on the populations of other species, especially if they are marine. This provides a potential explanation for the evolution of a prevalence of social learning, and culture, in humans and cetaceans.

Social learning and evolution: the cultural intelligence hypothesis

PubMed Central

van Schaik, Carel P.; Burkart, Judith M.

2011-01-01

If social learning is more efficient than independent individual exploration, animals should learn vital cultural skills exclusively, and routine skills faster, through social learning, provided they actually use social learning preferentially. Animals with opportunities for social learning indeed do so. Moreover, more frequent opportunities for social learning should boost an individual's repertoire of learned skills. This prediction is confirmed by comparisons among wild great ape populations and by social deprivation and enculturation experiments. These findings shaped the cultural intelligence hypothesis, which complements the traditional benefit hypotheses for the evolution of intelligence by specifying the conditions in which these benefits can be reaped. The evolutionary version of the hypothesis argues that species with frequent opportunities for social learning should more readily respond to selection for a greater number of learned skills. Because improved social learning also improves asocial learning, the hypothesis predicts a positive interspecific correlation between social-learning performance and individual learning ability. Variation among primates supports this prediction. The hypothesis also predicts that more heavily cultural species should be more intelligent. Preliminary tests involving birds and mammals support this prediction too. The cultural intelligence hypothesis can also account for the unusual cognitive abilities of humans, as well as our unique mechanisms of skill transfer. PMID:21357223

Social learning and evolution: the cultural intelligence hypothesis.

PubMed

van Schaik, Carel P; Burkart, Judith M

2011-04-12

If social learning is more efficient than independent individual exploration, animals should learn vital cultural skills exclusively, and routine skills faster, through social learning, provided they actually use social learning preferentially. Animals with opportunities for social learning indeed do so. Moreover, more frequent opportunities for social learning should boost an individual's repertoire of learned skills. This prediction is confirmed by comparisons among wild great ape populations and by social deprivation and enculturation experiments. These findings shaped the cultural intelligence hypothesis, which complements the traditional benefit hypotheses for the evolution of intelligence by specifying the conditions in which these benefits can be reaped. The evolutionary version of the hypothesis argues that species with frequent opportunities for social learning should more readily respond to selection for a greater number of learned skills. Because improved social learning also improves asocial learning, the hypothesis predicts a positive interspecific correlation between social-learning performance and individual learning ability. Variation among primates supports this prediction. The hypothesis also predicts that more heavily cultural species should be more intelligent. Preliminary tests involving birds and mammals support this prediction too. The cultural intelligence hypothesis can also account for the unusual cognitive abilities of humans, as well as our unique mechanisms of skill transfer.

Adaptable individuals and innovative lineages

PubMed Central

Sterelny, Kim

2016-01-01

This paper suggests (i) that while work on animal innovation has made good progress in understanding some of the proximate mechanisms and selective regimes through which innovation emerges, it has somewhat neglected the role of the social environment of innovation; a neglect manifest in the fact that innovation counts are almost always counts of resource-acquisition innovations; the invention of social tools is rarely considered. The same is true of many experimental projects, as these typically impose food acquisition tasks on their experimental subjects. (ii) That neglect is important, because innovations often pose collective action problems; the hominin species were technically innovative because they were also socially adaptable. (iii) In part for this reason, there remains a disconnect between research on hominin innovation and research on animal innovation. (iv) Finally, the paper suggests that there is something of a disconnect between the theoretical work on innovation in hominin evolution (based on theories of cultural evolution) and the experimental tradition on human innovation. That disconnect is largely due to the theoretical work retreating from strong claims about the proximate mechanisms of human cultural accumulation. PMID:26926286

Bridging the bonding gap: the transition from primates to humans.

PubMed

Dunbar, R I M

2012-07-05

Primate societies are characterized by bonded social relationships of a kind that are rare in other mammal taxa. These bonded relationships, which provide the basis for coalitions, are underpinned by an endorphin mechanism mediated by social grooming. However, bonded relationships of this kind impose constraints on the size of social groups that are possible. When ecological pressures have demanded larger groups, primates have had to evolve new mechanisms to facilitate bonding. This has involved increasing the size of vocal and visual communication repertoires, increasing the time devoted to social interaction and developing a capacity to manage two-tier social relationships (strong and weak ties). I consider the implications of these constraints for the evolution of human social communities and argue that laughter was an early evolutionary innovation that helped bridge the bonding gap between the group sizes characteristic of chimpanzees and australopithecines and those in later hominins.

Disease dynamics and costly punishment can foster socially imposed monogamy.

PubMed

Bauch, Chris T; McElreath, Richard

2016-04-05

Socially imposed monogamy in humans is an evolutionary puzzle because it requires costly punishment by those who impose the norm. Moreover, most societies were--and are--polygynous; yet many larger human societies transitioned from polygyny to socially imposed monogamy beginning with the advent of agriculture and larger residential groups. We use a simulation model to explore how interactions between group size, sexually transmitted infection (STI) dynamics and social norms can explain the timing and emergence of socially imposed monogamy. Polygyny dominates when groups are too small to sustain STIs. However, in larger groups, STIs become endemic (especially in concurrent polygynist networks) and have an impact on fertility, thereby mediating multilevel selection. Punishment of polygynists improves monogamist fitness within groups by reducing their STI exposure, and between groups by enabling punishing monogamist groups to outcompete polygynists. This suggests pathways for the emergence of socially imposed monogamy, and enriches our understanding of costly punishment evolution.

Disease dynamics and costly punishment can foster socially imposed monogamy

PubMed Central

Bauch, Chris T.; McElreath, Richard

2016-01-01

Socially imposed monogamy in humans is an evolutionary puzzle because it requires costly punishment by those who impose the norm. Moreover, most societies were—and are—polygynous; yet many larger human societies transitioned from polygyny to socially imposed monogamy beginning with the advent of agriculture and larger residential groups. We use a simulation model to explore how interactions between group size, sexually transmitted infection (STI) dynamics and social norms can explain the timing and emergence of socially imposed monogamy. Polygyny dominates when groups are too small to sustain STIs. However, in larger groups, STIs become endemic (especially in concurrent polygynist networks) and have an impact on fertility, thereby mediating multilevel selection. Punishment of polygynists improves monogamist fitness within groups by reducing their STI exposure, and between groups by enabling punishing monogamist groups to outcompete polygynists. This suggests pathways for the emergence of socially imposed monogamy, and enriches our understanding of costly punishment evolution. PMID:27044573

Anthropomorphism in Human–Robot Co-evolution

PubMed Central

Damiano, Luisa; Dumouchel, Paul

2018-01-01

Social robotics entertains a particular relationship with anthropomorphism, which it neither sees as a cognitive error, nor as a sign of immaturity. Rather it considers that this common human tendency, which is hypothesized to have evolved because it favored cooperation among early humans, can be used today to facilitate social interactions between humans and a new type of cooperative and interactive agents – social robots. This approach leads social robotics to focus research on the engineering of robots that activate anthropomorphic projections in users. The objective is to give robots “social presence” and “social behaviors” that are sufficiently credible for human users to engage in comfortable and potentially long-lasting relations with these machines. This choice of ‘applied anthropomorphism’ as a research methodology exposes the artifacts produced by social robotics to ethical condemnation: social robots are judged to be a “cheating” technology, as they generate in users the illusion of reciprocal social and affective relations. This article takes position in this debate, not only developing a series of arguments relevant to philosophy of mind, cognitive sciences, and robotic AI, but also asking what social robotics can teach us about anthropomorphism. On this basis, we propose a theoretical perspective that characterizes anthropomorphism as a basic mechanism of interaction, and rebuts the ethical reflections that a priori condemns “anthropomorphism-based” social robots. To address the relevant ethical issues, we promote a critical experimentally based ethical approach to social robotics, “synthetic ethics,” which aims at allowing humans to use social robots for two main goals: self-knowledge and moral growth. PMID:29632507

Tracking the evolutionary origins of dog-human cooperation: the “Canine Cooperation Hypothesis”

PubMed Central

Range, Friederike; Virányi, Zsófia

2015-01-01

At present, beyond the fact that dogs can be easier socialized with humans than wolves, we know little about the motivational and cognitive effects of domestication. Despite this, it has been suggested that during domestication dogs have become socially more tolerant and attentive than wolves. These two characteristics are crucial for cooperation, and it has been argued that these changes allowed dogs to successfully live and work with humans. However, these domestication hypotheses have been put forward mainly based on dog-wolf differences reported in regard to their interactions with humans. Thus, it is possible that these differences reflect only an improved capability of dogs to accept humans as social partners instead of an increase of their general tolerance, attentiveness and cooperativeness. At the Wolf Science Center, in order to detangle these two explanations, we raise and keep dogs and wolves similarly socializing them with conspecifics and humans and then test them in interactions not just with humans but also conspecifics. When investigating attentiveness toward human and conspecific partners using different paradigms, we found that the wolves were at least as attentive as the dogs to their social partners and their actions. Based on these findings and the social ecology of wolves, we propose the Canine Cooperation Hypothesis suggesting that wolves are characterized with high social attentiveness and tolerance and are highly cooperative. This is in contrast with the implications of most domestication hypotheses about wolves. We argue, however, that these characteristics of wolves likely provided a good basis for the evolution of dog-human cooperation. PMID:25642203

Tracking the evolutionary origins of dog-human cooperation: the "Canine Cooperation Hypothesis".

PubMed

Range, Friederike; Virányi, Zsófia

2014-01-01

At present, beyond the fact that dogs can be easier socialized with humans than wolves, we know little about the motivational and cognitive effects of domestication. Despite this, it has been suggested that during domestication dogs have become socially more tolerant and attentive than wolves. These two characteristics are crucial for cooperation, and it has been argued that these changes allowed dogs to successfully live and work with humans. However, these domestication hypotheses have been put forward mainly based on dog-wolf differences reported in regard to their interactions with humans. Thus, it is possible that these differences reflect only an improved capability of dogs to accept humans as social partners instead of an increase of their general tolerance, attentiveness and cooperativeness. At the Wolf Science Center, in order to detangle these two explanations, we raise and keep dogs and wolves similarly socializing them with conspecifics and humans and then test them in interactions not just with humans but also conspecifics. When investigating attentiveness toward human and conspecific partners using different paradigms, we found that the wolves were at least as attentive as the dogs to their social partners and their actions. Based on these findings and the social ecology of wolves, we propose the Canine Cooperation Hypothesis suggesting that wolves are characterized with high social attentiveness and tolerance and are highly cooperative. This is in contrast with the implications of most domestication hypotheses about wolves. We argue, however, that these characteristics of wolves likely provided a good basis for the evolution of dog-human cooperation.

[Is there a "biology of violence"?].

PubMed

Karli, Pierre

2004-01-01

Human violence does not stem from any specific biological substrate. As affective processes play a pre-eminent role in the elaboration and evolution of social interactions, a "biology of violence" draws essentially upon the concepts, methods and techniques of "affective neuroscience".

The evolution of wilderness social science and future research to protect experiences, resources, and societal benefits

Treesearch

Alan E. Watson; H. Ken Cordell; Robert Manning; Steven Martin

2016-01-01

The historic Wilderness Act celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014, and wilderness social science shared a similar legacy. As paradoxical as it might seem, humans are an important part of wilderness, helping to define the very concept and representing an important component of wilderness use and management. Much of the past five decades of wilderness-related...

Relaxed genetic control of cortical organization in human brains compared with chimpanzees

PubMed Central

Gómez-Robles, Aida; Hopkins, William D.; Schapiro, Steven J.; Sherwood, Chet C.

2015-01-01

The study of hominin brain evolution has focused largely on the neocortical expansion and reorganization undergone by humans as inferred from the endocranial fossil record. Comparisons of modern human brains with those of chimpanzees provide an additional line of evidence to define key neural traits that have emerged in human evolution and that underlie our unique behavioral specializations. In an attempt to identify fundamental developmental differences, we have estimated the genetic bases of brain size and cortical organization in chimpanzees and humans by studying phenotypic similarities between individuals with known kinship relationships. We show that, although heritability for brain size and cortical organization is high in chimpanzees, cerebral cortical anatomy is substantially less genetically heritable than brain size in humans, indicating greater plasticity and increased environmental influence on neurodevelopment in our species. This relaxed genetic control on cortical organization is especially marked in association areas and likely is related to underlying microstructural changes in neural circuitry. A major result of increased plasticity is that the development of neural circuits that underlie behavior is shaped by the environmental, social, and cultural context more intensively in humans than in other primate species, thus providing an anatomical basis for behavioral and cognitive evolution. PMID:26627234

Human behavior in online social systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grabowski, A.

2009-06-01

We present and study data concerning human behavior in four online social systems: (i) an Internet community of friends of over 107 people, (ii) a music community website with over 106 users, (iii) a gamers’ community server with over 5 × 106 users and (iv) a booklovers’ website with over 2.5 × 105 users. The purpose of those systems is different; however, their properties are very similar. We have found that the distribution of human activity (e.g., the sum of books read or songs played) has the form of a power law. Moreover, the relationship between human activity and time has a power-law form, too. We present a simple interest-driven model of the evolution of such systems which explains the emergence of two scaling regimes.

Laughter as an approach to vocal evolution: The bipedal theory.

PubMed

Provine, Robert R

2017-02-01

Laughter is a simple, stereotyped, innate, human play vocalization that is ideal for the study of vocal evolution. The basic approach of describing the act of laughter and when we do it has revealed a variety of phenomena of social, linguistic, and neurological significance. Findings include the acoustic structure of laughter, the minimal voluntary control of laughter, the punctuation effect (which describes the placement of laughter in conversation and indicates the dominance of speech over laughter), and the role of laughter in human matching and mating. Especially notable is the use of laughter to discover why humans can speak and other apes cannot. Quadrupeds, including our primate ancestors, have a 1:1 relation between breathing and stride because their thorax must absorb forelimb impacts during running. The direct link between breathing and locomotion limits vocalizations to short, simple utterances, such as the characteristic panting chimpanzee laugh (one sound per inward or outward breath). The evolution of bipedal locomotion freed the respiration system of its support function during running, permitting greater breath control and the selection for human-type laughter (a parsed exhalation), and subsequently the virtuosic, sustained, expiratory vocalization of speech. This is the basis of the bipedal theory of speech evolution.

Facial Displays Are Tools for Social Influence.

PubMed

Crivelli, Carlos; Fridlund, Alan J

2018-05-01

Based on modern theories of signal evolution and animal communication, the behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) reconceives our 'facial expressions of emotion' as social tools that serve as lead signs to contingent action in social negotiation. BECV offers an externalist, functionalist view of facial displays that is not bound to Western conceptions about either expressions or emotions. It easily accommodates recent findings of diversity in facial displays, their public context-dependency, and the curious but common occurrence of solitary facial behavior. Finally, BECV restores continuity of human facial behavior research with modern functional accounts of non-human communication, and provides a non-mentalistic account of facial displays well-suited to new developments in artificial intelligence and social robotics. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

The evolution of social learning rules: payoff-biased and frequency-dependent biased transmission.

PubMed

Kendal, Jeremy; Giraldeau, Luc-Alain; Laland, Kevin

2009-09-21

Humans and other animals do not use social learning indiscriminately, rather, natural selection has favoured the evolution of social learning rules that make selective use of social learning to acquire relevant information in a changing environment. We present a gene-culture coevolutionary analysis of a small selection of such rules (unbiased social learning, payoff-biased social learning and frequency-dependent biased social learning, including conformism and anti-conformism) in a population of asocial learners where the environment is subject to a constant probability of change to a novel state. We define conditions under which each rule evolves to a genetically polymorphic equilibrium. We find that payoff-biased social learning may evolve under high levels of environmental variation if the fitness benefit associated with the acquired behaviour is either high or low but not of intermediate value. In contrast, both conformist and anti-conformist biases can become fixed when environment variation is low, whereupon the mean fitness in the population is higher than for a population of asocial learners. Our examination of the population dynamics reveals stable limit cycles under conformist and anti-conformist biases and some highly complex dynamics including chaos. Anti-conformists can out-compete conformists when conditions favour a low equilibrium frequency of the learned behaviour. We conclude that evolution, punctuated by the repeated successful invasion of different social learning rules, should continuously favour a reduction in the equilibrium frequency of asocial learning, and propose that, among competing social learning rules, the dominant rule will be the one that can persist with the lowest frequency of asocial learning.

Human-directed social behaviour in dogs shows significant heritability.

PubMed

Persson, M E; Roth, L S V; Johnsson, M; Wright, D; Jensen, P

2015-04-01

Through domestication and co-evolution with humans, dogs have developed abilities to attract human attention, e.g. in a manner of seeking assistance when faced with a problem solving task. The aims of this study were to investigate within breed variation in human-directed contact seeking in dogs and to estimate its genetic basis. To do this, 498 research beagles, bred and kept under standardized conditions, were tested in an unsolvable problem task. Contact seeking behaviours recorded included both eye contact and physical interactions. Behavioural data was summarized through a principal component analysis, resulting in four components: test interactions, social interactions, eye contact and physical contact. Females scored significantly higher on social interactions and physical contact and age had an effect on eye contact scores. Narrow sense heritabilities (h(2) ) of the two largest components were estimated at 0.32 and 0.23 but were not significant for the last two components. These results show that within the studied dog population, behavioural variation in human-directed social behaviours was sex dependent and that the utilization of eye contact seeking increased with age and experience. Hence, heritability estimates indicate a significant genetic contribution to the variation found in human-directed social interactions, suggesting that social skills in dogs have a genetic basis, but can also be shaped and enhanced through individual experiences. This research gives the opportunity to further investigate the genetics behind dogs' social skills, which could also play a significant part into research on human social disorders such as autism. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.

Social Value Orientation and Capitalism in Societies.

PubMed

Shahrier, Shibly; Kotani, Koji; Kakinaka, Makoto

2016-01-01

Cooperation and competition are core issues in various fields, since they are claimed to affect the evolution of human societies and ecological organizations. A long-standing debate has existed on how social behaviors and preferences are shaped with culture. Considering the economic environment as part of culture, this study examines whether the ongoing modernization of competitive societies, called "capitalism," affects the evolution of people's social preferences and behaviors. To test this argument, we implemented field experiments of social value orientation and surveys with 1002 respondents for three different areas of Bangladesh: (i) rural, (ii) transitional and (iii) capitalistic societies. The main result reveals that with the evolution from rural to capitalistic societies, people are likely to be less prosocial and more likely to be competitive. In a transitional society, there is a considerable proportion of "unidentified" people, neither proself nor prosocial, implying the potential existence of unstable states during a transformation period from rural to capitalistic societies. We also find that people become more proself with increasing age, education and number of children. These results suggest that important environmental, climate change or sustainability problems, which require cooperation rather than competition, will pose more danger as societies become capitalistic.

Social Value Orientation and Capitalism in Societies

PubMed Central

Shahrier, Shibly; Kakinaka, Makoto

2016-01-01

Cooperation and competition are core issues in various fields, since they are claimed to affect the evolution of human societies and ecological organizations. A long-standing debate has existed on how social behaviors and preferences are shaped with culture. Considering the economic environment as part of culture, this study examines whether the ongoing modernization of competitive societies, called “capitalism,” affects the evolution of people’s social preferences and behaviors. To test this argument, we implemented field experiments of social value orientation and surveys with 1002 respondents for three different areas of Bangladesh: (i) rural, (ii) transitional and (iii) capitalistic societies. The main result reveals that with the evolution from rural to capitalistic societies, people are likely to be less prosocial and more likely to be competitive. In a transitional society, there is a considerable proportion of “unidentified” people, neither proself nor prosocial, implying the potential existence of unstable states during a transformation period from rural to capitalistic societies. We also find that people become more proself with increasing age, education and number of children. These results suggest that important environmental, climate change or sustainability problems, which require cooperation rather than competition, will pose more danger as societies become capitalistic. PMID:27792756

Enquire within: cultural evolution and cognitive science.

PubMed

Heyes, Cecilia

2018-04-05

Cultural evolution and cognitive science need each other. Cultural evolution needs cognitive science to find out whether the conditions necessary for Darwinian evolution are met in the cultural domain. Cognitive science needs cultural evolution to explain the origins of distinctively human cognitive processes. Focusing on the first question, I argue that cultural evolutionists can get empirical traction on third-way cultural selection by rooting the distinction between replication and reconstruction, two modes of cultural inheritance, in the distinction between System 1 and System 2 cognitive processes. This move suggests that cultural epidemiologists are right in thinking that replication has higher fidelity than reconstruction, and replication processes are not genetic adaptations for culture, but wrong to assume that replication is rare. If replication is not rare, an important requirement for third-way cultural selection, one-shot fidelity , is likely to be met. However, there are other requirements, overlooked by dual-inheritance theorists when they conflate strong (Darwinian) and weak (choice) senses of 'cultural selection', including dumb choices and recurrent fidelity In a second excursion into cognitive science, I argue that these requirements can be met by metacognitive social learning strategies , and trace the origins of these distinctively human cognitive processes to cultural evolution. Like other forms of cultural learning, they are not cognitive instincts but cognitive gadgets.This article is part of the theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution'. © 2018 The Author(s).

Charting the neglected West: The social system of Guinea baboons.

PubMed

Fischer, Julia; Kopp, Gisela H; Dal Pesco, Federica; Goffe, Adeelia; Hammerschmidt, Kurt; Kalbitzer, Urs; Klapproth, Matthias; Maciej, Peter; Ndao, Ibrahima; Patzelt, Annika; Zinner, Dietmar

2017-01-01

Primate social systems are remarkably diverse, and thus play a central role in understanding social evolution, including the biological origin of human societies. Although baboons have been prominently featured in this context, historically little was known about the westernmost member of the genus, the Guinea baboon (Papio papio). Here, we summarize the findings from the first years of observations at the field site CRP Simenti in the Niokolo Koba National Park in Senegal. Guinea baboons reveal a nested multi-level social organization, with reproductive units comprising one "primary" male, one to several females, young, and occasionally "secondary" males at the base of the society. Three to five units form "parties," which team up with other parties to form a "gang." Different gangs have largely overlapping home ranges and agonistic interactions between different parties or gangs are rare. Some but not all strongly socially bonded males are highly related, and population genetic and behavioral evidence indicate female-biased dispersal. Females play an important role in intersexual bond formation and maintenance, and female tenure length varies between a few weeks to several years. While the social organization resembles that of hamadryas baboons (P. hamadryas), the social structure differs considerably, specifically in terms of low male aggressiveness and female freedom. Despite substantial differences in social organization and social structure, the acoustic structure of Guinea baboon vocalizations does not differ substantially from that of other baboon taxa. With its multi-level organization, stable bonds between males and females, as well as a high-degree of male-male cooperation and tolerance, Guinea baboons constitute an intriguing model for reconstructing human social evolution. © 2017 American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

Humanism and multiculturalism: an evolutionary alliance.

PubMed

Comas-Diaz, Lillian

2012-12-01

Humanism and multiculturalism are partners in an evolutionary alliance. Humanistic and multicultural psychotherapies have historically influenced each other. Humanism represents the third force in psychotherapy, while multiculturalism embodies the fourth developmental stage. Multiculturalism embraces humanistic values grounded in collective and social justice contexts. Examples of multicultural humanistic constructs include contextualism, holism, and liberation. Certainly, the multicultural-humanistic connection is a necessary shift in the evolution of psychotherapy. Humanism and multiculturalism participate in the development of an inclusive and evolutionary psychotherapy. (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

Looking Through a Social Lens: Conceptualising Social Aspects of Knowledge Management for Global Health Practitioners.

PubMed

Limaye, Rupali J; Sullivan, Tara M; Dalessandro, Scott; Jenkins, Ann Hendrix

2017-04-13

Knowledge management plays a critical role in global health. Global health practitioners require knowledge in every aspect of their jobs, and in resource-scarce contexts, practitioners must be able to rely on a knowledge management system to access the latest research and practice to ensure the highest quality of care. However, we suggest that there is a gap in the way knowledge management is primarily utilized in global health, namely, the systematic incorporation of human and social factors. In this paper, we briefly outline the evolution of knowledge management and then propose a conceptualization of knowledge management that incorporates human and social factors for use within a global health context. Our conceptualization of social knowledge management recognizes the importance of social capital, social learning, social software and platforms, and social networks , all within the context of a larger social system and driven by social benefit . We then outline the limitations and discuss future directions of our conceptualization, and suggest how this new conceptualization is essential for any global health practitioner in the business of managing knowledge.

[New insights into the neuroscience of human altruism].

PubMed

Hurlemann, R; Marsh, N

2016-11-01

Numerous honorary initiatives for humanitarian aid towards refugees illustrate the high prevalence of altruistic behavior in the population. In medicine, an exquisite example of a human propensity for altruism is organ donation. Current perspectives on the neurobiology of altruism suggest that it is deeply rooted in the motivational architecture of the social brain. This is reflected by the social evolution of cooperation and parochialism, both of which are modulated by the evolutionarily conserved peptide hormone oxytocin. From a psychiatric perspective, altruism varies along a dimensional spectrum, with pathological hyperaltruism resulting in unexpected harm for oneself and others.

A Life-Cycle Model of Human Social Groups Produces a U-Shaped Distribution in Group Size.

PubMed

Salali, Gul Deniz; Whitehouse, Harvey; Hochberg, Michael E

2015-01-01

One of the central puzzles in the study of sociocultural evolution is how and why transitions from small-scale human groups to large-scale, hierarchically more complex ones occurred. Here we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model as a first step towards understanding the ecological dynamics of small and large-scale human groups. By analogy with the interactions between single-celled and multicellular organisms, we build a theory of group lifecycles as an emergent property of single cell demographic and expansion behaviours. We find that once the transition from small-scale to large-scale groups occurs, a few large-scale groups continue expanding while small-scale groups gradually become scarcer, and large-scale groups become larger in size and fewer in number over time. Demographic and expansion behaviours of groups are largely influenced by the distribution and availability of resources. Our results conform to a pattern of human political change in which religions and nation states come to be represented by a few large units and many smaller ones. Future enhancements of the model should include decision-making rules and probabilities of fragmentation for large-scale societies. We suggest that the synthesis of population ecology and social evolution will generate increasingly plausible models of human group dynamics.

A Life-Cycle Model of Human Social Groups Produces a U-Shaped Distribution in Group Size

PubMed Central

Salali, Gul Deniz; Whitehouse, Harvey; Hochberg, Michael E.

2015-01-01

One of the central puzzles in the study of sociocultural evolution is how and why transitions from small-scale human groups to large-scale, hierarchically more complex ones occurred. Here we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model as a first step towards understanding the ecological dynamics of small and large-scale human groups. By analogy with the interactions between single-celled and multicellular organisms, we build a theory of group lifecycles as an emergent property of single cell demographic and expansion behaviours. We find that once the transition from small-scale to large-scale groups occurs, a few large-scale groups continue expanding while small-scale groups gradually become scarcer, and large-scale groups become larger in size and fewer in number over time. Demographic and expansion behaviours of groups are largely influenced by the distribution and availability of resources. Our results conform to a pattern of human political change in which religions and nation states come to be represented by a few large units and many smaller ones. Future enhancements of the model should include decision-making rules and probabilities of fragmentation for large-scale societies. We suggest that the synthesis of population ecology and social evolution will generate increasingly plausible models of human group dynamics. PMID:26381745

Social learning and the replication process: an experimental investigation.

PubMed

Derex, Maxime; Feron, Romain; Godelle, Bernard; Raymond, Michel

2015-06-07

Human cultural traits typically result from a gradual process that has been described as analogous to biological evolution. This observation has led pioneering scholars to draw inspiration from population genetics to develop a rigorous and successful theoretical framework of cultural evolution. Social learning, the mechanism allowing information to be transmitted between individuals, has thus been described as a simple replication mechanism. Although useful, the extent to which this idealization appropriately describes the actual social learning events has not been carefully assessed. Here, we used a specifically developed computer task to evaluate (i) the extent to which social learning leads to the replication of an observed behaviour and (ii) the consequences it has for fitness landscape exploration. Our results show that social learning does not lead to a dichotomous choice between disregarding and replicating social information. Rather, it appeared that individuals combine and transform information coming from multiple sources to produce new solutions. As a consequence, landscape exploration was promoted by the use of social information. These results invite us to rethink the way social learning is commonly modelled and could question the validity of predictions coming from models considering this process as replicative. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Asymptotic theory of time-varying social networks with heterogeneous activity and tie allocation.

PubMed

Ubaldi, Enrico; Perra, Nicola; Karsai, Márton; Vezzani, Alessandro; Burioni, Raffaella; Vespignani, Alessandro

2016-10-24

The dynamic of social networks is driven by the interplay between diverse mechanisms that still challenge our theoretical and modelling efforts. Amongst them, two are known to play a central role in shaping the networks evolution, namely the heterogeneous propensity of individuals to i) be socially active and ii) establish a new social relationships with their alters. Here, we empirically characterise these two mechanisms in seven real networks describing temporal human interactions in three different settings: scientific collaborations, Twitter mentions, and mobile phone calls. We find that the individuals' social activity and their strategy in choosing ties where to allocate their social interactions can be quantitatively described and encoded in a simple stochastic network modelling framework. The Master Equation of the model can be solved in the asymptotic limit. The analytical solutions provide an explicit description of both the system dynamic and the dynamical scaling laws characterising crucial aspects about the evolution of the networks. The analytical predictions match with accuracy the empirical observations, thus validating the theoretical approach. Our results provide a rigorous dynamical system framework that can be extended to include other processes shaping social dynamics and to generate data driven predictions for the asymptotic behaviour of social networks.

Asymptotic theory of time-varying social networks with heterogeneous activity and tie allocation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ubaldi, Enrico; Perra, Nicola; Karsai, Márton; Vezzani, Alessandro; Burioni, Raffaella; Vespignani, Alessandro

2016-10-01

The dynamic of social networks is driven by the interplay between diverse mechanisms that still challenge our theoretical and modelling efforts. Amongst them, two are known to play a central role in shaping the networks evolution, namely the heterogeneous propensity of individuals to i) be socially active and ii) establish a new social relationships with their alters. Here, we empirically characterise these two mechanisms in seven real networks describing temporal human interactions in three different settings: scientific collaborations, Twitter mentions, and mobile phone calls. We find that the individuals’ social activity and their strategy in choosing ties where to allocate their social interactions can be quantitatively described and encoded in a simple stochastic network modelling framework. The Master Equation of the model can be solved in the asymptotic limit. The analytical solutions provide an explicit description of both the system dynamic and the dynamical scaling laws characterising crucial aspects about the evolution of the networks. The analytical predictions match with accuracy the empirical observations, thus validating the theoretical approach. Our results provide a rigorous dynamical system framework that can be extended to include other processes shaping social dynamics and to generate data driven predictions for the asymptotic behaviour of social networks.

Competition for resources can explain patterns of social and individual learning in nature.

PubMed

Smolla, Marco; Gilman, R Tucker; Galla, Tobias; Shultz, Susanne

2015-09-22

In nature, animals often ignore socially available information despite the multiple theoretical benefits of social learning over individual trial-and-error learning. Using information filtered by others is quicker, more efficient and less risky than randomly sampling the environment. To explain the mix of social and individual learning used by animals in nature, most models penalize the quality of socially derived information as either out of date, of poor fidelity or costly to acquire. Competition for limited resources, a fundamental evolutionary force, provides a compelling, yet hitherto overlooked, explanation for the evolution of mixed-learning strategies. We present a novel model of social learning that incorporates competition and demonstrates that (i) social learning is favoured when competition is weak, but (ii) if competition is strong social learning is favoured only when resource quality is highly variable and there is low environmental turnover. The frequency of social learning in our model always evolves until it reduces the mean foraging success of the population. The results of our model are consistent with empirical studies showing that individuals rely less on social information where resources vary little in quality and where there is high within-patch competition. Our model provides a framework for understanding the evolution of social learning, a prerequisite for human cumulative culture. © 2015 The Author(s).

Competition for resources can explain patterns of social and individual learning in nature

PubMed Central

Smolla, Marco; Gilman, R. Tucker; Galla, Tobias; Shultz, Susanne

2015-01-01

In nature, animals often ignore socially available information despite the multiple theoretical benefits of social learning over individual trial-and-error learning. Using information filtered by others is quicker, more efficient and less risky than randomly sampling the environment. To explain the mix of social and individual learning used by animals in nature, most models penalize the quality of socially derived information as either out of date, of poor fidelity or costly to acquire. Competition for limited resources, a fundamental evolutionary force, provides a compelling, yet hitherto overlooked, explanation for the evolution of mixed-learning strategies. We present a novel model of social learning that incorporates competition and demonstrates that (i) social learning is favoured when competition is weak, but (ii) if competition is strong social learning is favoured only when resource quality is highly variable and there is low environmental turnover. The frequency of social learning in our model always evolves until it reduces the mean foraging success of the population. The results of our model are consistent with empirical studies showing that individuals rely less on social information where resources vary little in quality and where there is high within-patch competition. Our model provides a framework for understanding the evolution of social learning, a prerequisite for human cumulative culture. PMID:26354936

Social bonds affect anti-predator behaviour in a tolerant species of macaque, Macaca nigra.

PubMed

Micheletta, Jérôme; Waller, Bridget M; Panggur, Maria R; Neumann, Christof; Duboscq, Julie; Agil, Muhammad; Engelhardt, Antje

2012-10-07

Enduring positive social bonds between individuals are crucial for humans' health and well being. Similar bonds can be found in a wide range of taxa, revealing the evolutionary origins of humans' social bonds. Evidence suggests that these strong social bonds can function to buffer the negative effects of living in groups, but it is not known whether they also function to minimize predation risk. Here, we show that crested macaques (Macaca nigra) react more strongly to playbacks of recruitment alarm calls (i.e. calls signalling the presence of a predator and eliciting cooperative mobbing behaviour) if they were produced by an individual with whom they share a strong social bond. Dominance relationships between caller and listener had no effect on the reaction of the listener. Thus, strong social bonds may improve the coordination and efficiency of cooperative defence against predators, and therefore increase chances of survival. This result broadens our understanding of the evolution and function of social bonds by highlighting their importance in the anti-predator context.

Oxytocin Receptor Gene Polymorphisms Are Associated with Human Directed Social Behavior in Dogs (Canis familiaris)

PubMed Central

Lakatos, Gabriella; Pergel, Enikő; Turcsán, Borbála; Pluijmakers, Jolanda; Vas, Judit; Elek, Zsuzsanna; Brúder, Ildikó; Földi, Levente; Sasvári-Székely, Mária; Miklósi, Ádám; Rónai, Zsolt; Kubinyi, Enikő

2014-01-01

The oxytocin system has a crucial role in human sociality; several results prove that polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene are related to complex social behaviors in humans. Dogs' parallel evolution with humans and their adaptation to the human environment has made them a useful species to model human social interactions. Previous research indicates that dogs are eligible models for behavioral genetic research, as well. Based on these previous findings, our research investigated associations between human directed social behaviors and two newly described (−212AG, 19131AG) and one known (rs8679684) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions (5′ and 3′ UTR) of the oxytocin receptor gene in German Shepherd (N = 104) and Border Collie (N = 103) dogs. Dogs' behavior traits have been estimated in a newly developed test series consisting of five episodes: Greeting by a stranger, Separation from the owner, Problem solving, Threatening approach, Hiding of the owner. Buccal samples were collected and DNA was isolated using standard protocols. SNPs in the 3′ and 5′ UTR regions were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction based techniques followed by subsequent electrophoresis analysis. The gene–behavior association analysis suggests that oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms have an impact in both breeds on (i) proximity seeking towards an unfamiliar person, as well as their owner, and on (ii) how friendly dogs behave towards strangers, although the mediating molecular regulatory mechanisms are yet unknown. Based on these results, we conclude that similarly to humans, the social behavior of dogs towards humans is influenced by the oxytocin system. PMID:24454713

Oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms are associated with human directed social behavior in dogs (Canis familiaris).

PubMed

Kis, Anna; Bence, Melinda; Lakatos, Gabriella; Pergel, Enikő; Turcsán, Borbála; Pluijmakers, Jolanda; Vas, Judit; Elek, Zsuzsanna; Brúder, Ildikó; Földi, Levente; Sasvári-Székely, Mária; Miklósi, Adám; Rónai, Zsolt; Kubinyi, Enikő

2014-01-01

The oxytocin system has a crucial role in human sociality; several results prove that polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene are related to complex social behaviors in humans. Dogs' parallel evolution with humans and their adaptation to the human environment has made them a useful species to model human social interactions. Previous research indicates that dogs are eligible models for behavioral genetic research, as well. Based on these previous findings, our research investigated associations between human directed social behaviors and two newly described (-212AG, 19131AG) and one known (rs8679684) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions (5' and 3' UTR) of the oxytocin receptor gene in German Shepherd (N = 104) and Border Collie (N = 103) dogs. Dogs' behavior traits have been estimated in a newly developed test series consisting of five episodes: Greeting by a stranger, Separation from the owner, Problem solving, Threatening approach, Hiding of the owner. Buccal samples were collected and DNA was isolated using standard protocols. SNPs in the 3' and 5' UTR regions were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction based techniques followed by subsequent electrophoresis analysis. The gene-behavior association analysis suggests that oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms have an impact in both breeds on (i) proximity seeking towards an unfamiliar person, as well as their owner, and on (ii) how friendly dogs behave towards strangers, although the mediating molecular regulatory mechanisms are yet unknown. Based on these results, we conclude that similarly to humans, the social behavior of dogs towards humans is influenced by the oxytocin system.

Five rules for the evolution of cooperation

PubMed Central

Nowak, Martin A.

2011-01-01

Cooperation is needed for evolution to construct new levels of organization. The emergence of genomes, cells, multi-cellular organisms, social insects and human society are all based on cooperation. Cooperation means that selfish replicators forgo some of their reproductive potential to help one another. But natural selection implies competition and therefore opposes cooperation unless a specific mechanism is at work. Here I discuss five mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation: kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity and group selection. For each mechanism, a simple rule is derived which specifies whether natural selection can lead to cooperation. PMID:17158317

How social learning adds up to a culture: from birdsong to human public opinion

PubMed Central

Feher, Olga; Fimiarz, Daniel; Conley, Dalton

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Distributed social learning may occur at many temporal and spatial scales, but it rarely adds up to a stable culture. Cultures vary in stability and diversity (polymorphism), ranging from chaotic or drifting cultures, through cumulative polymorphic cultures, to stable monolithic cultures with high conformity levels. What features can sustain polymorphism, preventing cultures from collapsing into either chaotic or highly conforming states? We investigate this question by integrating studies across two quite separate disciplines: the emergence of song cultures in birds, and the spread of public opinion and social conventions in humans. In songbirds, the learning process has been studied in great detail, while in human studies the structure of social networks has been experimentally manipulated on large scales. In both cases, the manner in which communication signals are compressed and filtered – either during learning or while traveling through the social network – can affect culture polymorphism and stability. We suggest a simple mechanism of a shifting balance between converging and diverging social forces to explain these effects. Understanding social forces that shape cultural evolution might be useful for designing agile communication systems, which are stable and polymorphic enough to promote gradual changes in institutional behavior. PMID:28057835

The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language

PubMed Central

Pinker, Steven

2010-01-01

Although Darwin insisted that human intelligence could be fully explained by the theory of evolution, the codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that abstract intelligence was of no use to ancestral humans and could only be explained by intelligent design. Wallace's apparent paradox can be dissolved with two hypotheses about human cognition. One is that intelligence is an adaptation to a knowledge-using, socially interdependent lifestyle, the “cognitive niche.” This embraces the ability to overcome the evolutionary fixed defenses of plants and animals by applications of reasoning, including weapons, traps, coordinated driving of game, and detoxification of plants. Such reasoning exploits intuitive theories about different aspects of the world, such as objects, forces, paths, places, states, substances, and other people's beliefs and desires. The theory explains many zoologically unusual traits in Homo sapiens, including our complex toolkit, wide range of habitats and diets, extended childhoods and long lives, hypersociality, complex mating, division into cultures, and language (which multiplies the benefit of knowledge because know-how is useful not only for its practical benefits but as a trade good with others, enhancing the evolution of cooperation). The second hypothesis is that humans possess an ability of metaphorical abstraction, which allows them to coopt faculties that originally evolved for physical problem-solving and social coordination, apply them to abstract subject matter, and combine them productively. These abilities can help explain the emergence of abstract cognition without supernatural or exotic evolutionary forces and are in principle testable by analyses of statistical signs of selection in the human genome. PMID:20445094

Colloquium paper: the cognitive niche: coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language.

PubMed

Pinker, Steven

2010-05-11

Although Darwin insisted that human intelligence could be fully explained by the theory of evolution, the codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that abstract intelligence was of no use to ancestral humans and could only be explained by intelligent design. Wallace's apparent paradox can be dissolved with two hypotheses about human cognition. One is that intelligence is an adaptation to a knowledge-using, socially interdependent lifestyle, the "cognitive niche." This embraces the ability to overcome the evolutionary fixed defenses of plants and animals by applications of reasoning, including weapons, traps, coordinated driving of game, and detoxification of plants. Such reasoning exploits intuitive theories about different aspects of the world, such as objects, forces, paths, places, states, substances, and other people's beliefs and desires. The theory explains many zoologically unusual traits in Homo sapiens, including our complex toolkit, wide range of habitats and diets, extended childhoods and long lives, hypersociality, complex mating, division into cultures, and language (which multiplies the benefit of knowledge because know-how is useful not only for its practical benefits but as a trade good with others, enhancing the evolution of cooperation). The second hypothesis is that humans possess an ability of metaphorical abstraction, which allows them to coopt faculties that originally evolved for physical problem-solving and social coordination, apply them to abstract subject matter, and combine them productively. These abilities can help explain the emergence of abstract cognition without supernatural or exotic evolutionary forces and are in principle testable by analyses of statistical signs of selection in the human genome.

A hypothesis on a role of oxytocin in the social mechanisms of speech and vocal learning.

PubMed

Theofanopoulou, Constantina; Boeckx, Cedric; Jarvis, Erich D

2017-08-30

Language acquisition in humans and song learning in songbirds naturally happen as a social learning experience, providing an excellent opportunity to reveal social motivation and reward mechanisms that boost sensorimotor learning. Our knowledge about the molecules and circuits that control these social mechanisms for vocal learning and language is limited. Here we propose a hypothesis of a role for oxytocin (OT) in the social motivation and evolution of vocal learning and language. Building upon existing evidence, we suggest specific neural pathways and mechanisms through which OT might modulate vocal learning circuits in specific developmental stages. © 2017 The Authors.

A hypothesis on a role of oxytocin in the social mechanisms of speech and vocal learning

PubMed Central

Jarvis, Erich D.

2017-01-01

Language acquisition in humans and song learning in songbirds naturally happen as a social learning experience, providing an excellent opportunity to reveal social motivation and reward mechanisms that boost sensorimotor learning. Our knowledge about the molecules and circuits that control these social mechanisms for vocal learning and language is limited. Here we propose a hypothesis of a role for oxytocin (OT) in the social motivation and evolution of vocal learning and language. Building upon existing evidence, we suggest specific neural pathways and mechanisms through which OT might modulate vocal learning circuits in specific developmental stages. PMID:28835557

Modelling opinion formation driven communities in social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iñiguez, Gerardo; Barrio, Rafael A.; Kertész, János; Kaski, Kimmo K.

2011-09-01

In a previous paper we proposed a model to study the dynamics of opinion formation in human societies by a co-evolution process involving two distinct time scales of fast transaction and slower network evolution dynamics. In the transaction dynamics we take into account short range interactions as discussions between individuals and long range interactions to describe the attitude to the overall mood of society. The latter is handled by a uniformly distributed parameter α, assigned randomly to each individual, as quenched personal bias. The network evolution dynamics is realised by rewiring the societal network due to state variable changes as a result of transaction dynamics. The main consequence of this complex dynamics is that communities emerge in the social network for a range of values in the ratio between time scales. In this paper we focus our attention on the attitude parameter α and its influence on the conformation of opinion and the size of the resulting communities. We present numerical studies and extract interesting features of the model that can be interpreted in terms of social behaviour.

Extensions of the Survival Advantage in Memory: Examining the Role of Ancestral Context and Implied Social Isolation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kostic, Bogdan; McFarlan, Chastity C.; Cleary, Anne M.

2012-01-01

Recent work (e.g., Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010) has shown that words are remembered better when they have been processed for their survival value in a grasslands context than when processed in other contexts. It has been suggested that this is because human memory systems were shaped by evolution specifically to help humans survive. Thus far,…

Atypical birdsong and artificial languages provide insights into how communication systems are shaped by learning, use, and transmission.

PubMed

Fehér, Olga

2017-02-01

In this article, I argue that a comparative approach focusing on the cognitive capacities and behavioral mechanisms that underlie vocal learning in songbirds and humans can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary origins of language. The experimental approaches I discuss use abnormal song and atypical linguistic input to study the processes of individual learning, social interaction, and cultural transmission. Atypical input places increased learning and communicative pressure on learners, so exploring how they respond to this type of input provides a particularly clear picture of the biases and constraints at work during learning and use. Furthermore, simulating the cultural transmission of these unnatural communication systems in the laboratory informs us about how learning and social biases influence the structure of communication systems in the long run. Findings based on these methods suggest fundamental similarities in the basic social-cognitive mechanisms underlying vocal learning in birds and humans, and continuing research promises insights into the uniquely human mechanisms and into how human cognition and social behavior interact, and ultimately impact on the evolution of language.

Dynamics of Alliance Formation and the Egalitarian Revolution

PubMed Central

Gavrilets, Sergey; Duenez-Guzman, Edgar A.; Vose, Michael D.

2008-01-01

Background Arguably the most influential force in human history is the formation of social coalitions and alliances (i.e., long-lasting coalitions) and their impact on individual power. Understanding the dynamics of alliance formation and its consequences for biological, social, and cultural evolution is a formidable theoretical challenge. In most great ape species, coalitions occur at individual and group levels and among both kin and non-kin. Nonetheless, ape societies remain essentially hierarchical, and coalitions rarely weaken social inequality. In contrast, human hunter-gatherers show a remarkable tendency to egalitarianism, and human coalitions and alliances occur not only among individuals and groups, but also among groups of groups. These observations suggest that the evolutionary dynamics of human coalitions can only be understood in the context of social networks and cognitive evolution. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we develop a stochastic model describing the emergence of networks of allies resulting from within-group competition for status or mates between individuals utilizing dyadic information. The model shows that alliances often emerge in a phase transition-like fashion if the group size, awareness, aggressiveness, and persuasiveness of individuals are large and the decay rate of individual affinities is small. With cultural inheritance of social networks, a single leveling alliance including all group members can emerge in several generations. Conclusions/Significance We propose a simple and flexible theoretical approach for studying the dynamics of alliance emergence applicable where game-theoretic methods are not practical. Our approach is both scalable and expandable. It is scalable in that it can be generalized to larger groups, or groups of groups. It is expandable in that it allows for inclusion of additional factors such as behavioral, genetic, social, and cultural features. Our results suggest that a rapid transition from a hierarchical society of great apes to an egalitarian society of hunter-gatherers (often referred to as “egalitarian revolution”) could indeed follow an increase in human cognitive abilities. The establishment of stable group-wide egalitarian alliances creates conditions promoting the origin of cultural norms favoring the group interests over those of individuals. PMID:18827928

The Public Health Service guidelines. Governing research involving human subjects: An analysis of the policy-making process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Frankel, M. S.

1972-01-01

The policy making process which led to development of the Public Health Service Guidelines governing research involving human subjects is outlined. Part 1 examines the evolution of PHS Guidelines, tracing (1) evolution of thought and legal interpretation regarding research using human subjects; (2) initial involvement of the Federal government; (3) development of the government's research program; (4) the social-political environment in which formal government policy was developed; and (5) various policy statements issued by the government. Part 2 analyzes the process by which PHS Guidelines were developed and examines the values and other underlying factors which contributed to their development. It was concluded that the evolution of the Guidelines is best understood within the context of a mixed-scanning strategy. In such a strategy, policy makers make fundamental decisions regarding the basic direction of policy and subsequent decisions are made incrementally and within the contexts set by the original fundamental decisions.

The power of social structure: how we became an intelligent lineage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Sousa António, Marina Resendes; Schulze-Makuch, Dirk

2011-01-01

New findings pertinent to the human lineage origin (Ardipithecus ramidus) prompt a new analysis of the extrapolation of the social behavior of our closest relatives, the great apes, into human ‘natural social behavior’. With the new findings it becomes clear that human ancestors had very divergent social arrangements from the ones we observe today in our closest genetic relatives. The social structure of chimpanzees and gorillas is characterized by male competition. Aggression and the instigation of fear are common place. The morphology of A. ramidus points in the direction of a social system characterized by female-choice instead of male-male competition. This system tends to be characterized by reduced aggression levels, leading to more stable arrangements. It is postulated here that the social stability with accompanying group cohesion propitiated by this setting is favorable to the investment in more complex behaviors, the development of innovative approaches to solve familiar problems, an increase in exploratory behavior, and eventually higher intelligence and the use of sophisticated tools and technology. The concentration of research efforts into the study of social animals with similar social systems (e.g., New World social monkeys (Callitrichidae), social canids (Canidae) and social rodents (Rodentia)) are likely to provide new insights into the understanding of what factors determined our evolution into an intelligent species capable of advanced technology.

Testing the hypothesis on cognitive evolution of modern humans' learning ability: current status of past-climatic approaches.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yoneda, Minoru; Abe-Ouchi, Ayako; Kawahata, Hodaka; Yokoyama, Yusuke; Oguchi, Takashi

2014-05-01

The impact of climate change on human evolution is important and debating topic for many years. Since 2010, we have involved in a general joint project entitled "Replacement of Neanderthal by Modern Humans: Testing Evolutional Models of Learning", which based on a theoretical prediction that the cognitive ability related to individual and social learning divide fates of ancient humans in very unstable Late Pleistocene climate. This model predicts that the human populations which experienced a series of environmental changes would have higher rate of individual learners, while detailed reconstructions of global climate change have reported fluent and drastic change based on ice cores and stalagmites. However, we want to understand the difference between anatomically modern human which survived and the other archaic extinct humans including European Neanderthals and Asian Denisovans. For this purpose the global synchronized change is not useful for understanding but the regional difference in the amplitude and impact of climate change is the information required. Hence, we invited a geophysicist busing Global Circulation Model to reconstruct the climatic distribution and temporal change in a continental scale. At the same time, some geochemists and geographers construct a database of local climate changes recorded in different proxies. At last, archaeologists and anthropologists tried to interpret the emergence and disappearance of human species in Europe and Asia on the reconstructed past climate maps using some tools, such as Eco-cultural niche model. Our project will show the regional difference in climate change and related archaeological events and its impact on the evolution of learning ability of modern humans.

Static, Dynamic and Semantic Dimensions: Towards a Multidisciplinary Approach of Social Networks Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thovex, Christophe; Trichet, Francky

The objective of our work is to extend static and dynamic models of Social Networks Analysis (SNA), by taking conceptual aspects of enterprises and institutions social graph into account. The originality of our multidisciplinary work is to introduce abstract notions of electro-physic to define new measures in SNA, for new decision-making functions dedicated to Human Resource Management (HRM). This paper introduces a multidimensional system and new measures: (1) a tension measure for social network analysis, (2) an electrodynamic, predictive and semantic system for recommendations on social graphs evolutions and (3) a reactance measure used to evaluate the individual stress at work of the members of a social network.

Cytokine variations and mood disorders: influence of social stressors and social support

PubMed Central

Audet, Marie-Claude; McQuaid, Robyn J.; Merali, Zul; Anisman, Hymie

2014-01-01

Stressful events have been implicated in the evolution of mood disorders. In addition to brain neurotransmitters and growth factors, the view has been offered that these disorders might be provoked by the activation of the inflammatory immune system as well as by de novo changes of inflammatory cytokines within the brain. The present review describes the impact of social stressors in animals and in humans on behavioral changes reminiscent of depressive states as well as on cytokine functioning. Social stressors increase pro-inflammatory cytokines in circulation as well as in brain regions that have been associated with depression, varying with the animal's social status and/or behavioral methods used to contend with social challenges. Likewise, in humans, social stressors that favor the development of depression are accompanied by elevated circulating cytokine levels and conversely, conditions that limit the cytokine elevations correlated with symptom attenuation or reversal. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the potentially powerful effects of social support, social identity, and connectedness in maintaining well-being and in diminishing symptoms of depression. PMID:25565946

Towards generalizing co-evolutionary dynamics of socio-hydrology: Theoretical frameworks of cultural evolution and robustness-fragility tradeoff

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oh, W. S.; Yu, D. J.; Davis, T.; Hillis, V.; Waring, T. M.

2017-12-01

One ongoing challenge to socio-hydrology is the problem of generalization: to what extent do common human-water co-evolutions exist across distinct cases and what are underlying mechanisms of these co-evolutions. This problem stems in part from a lack of unifying theories in socio-hydrology, which hinders the explanation and generalization of results between cases in different regions. Theories help an analyst to make assumptions that are necessary to diagnose a specific phenomenon, to explain the general mechanisms of causation, and, thus, to predict future outcomes. To help address the issue, this study introduces two theories that are increasingly used in the fields of sustainability science and social-ecological systems research: robustness-fragility tradeoff (RFTO) and cultural multi-level selection (CMLS). We apply each of these theories to two distinct cases (water management issues in southwest Bangladesh and the Kissimmee River Basin, Florida) and interpret the phenomena of the levee and adaptation effects. CMLS and RFTO focus on complementary aspects of socio-hydrological phenomena. The theory of RFTO, which is mostly about inherent tradeoffs associated with infrastructure improvements, explains how efforts to increase system robustness can generate hidden endogenous risks. CMLS theory, rooted in the broader theory of cultural evolution, concerns how human cultural dynamics can act as an endogenous driver of system change across multiple levels of social organizations. Using the applied examples, we demonstrate that these two theories can provide an effective way to study social-hydrological systems and to overcome the generalization problem. Our work shows that multiple theories can be synthesized to give a richer understanding of diverse socio-hydrological patterns.

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine

PubMed Central

Stieglitz, Jonathan; Trumble, Benjamin; Blackwell, Aaron D.; Beheim, Bret; Davis, Helen; Hooper, Paul; Kaplan, Hillard

2017-01-01

Abstract The Tsimane Health and Life History Project, an integrated bio‐behavioral study of the human life course, is designed to test competing hypotheses of human life‐history evolution. One aim is to understand the bidirectional connections between life history and social behavior in a high‐fertility, kin‐based context lacking amenities of modern urban life (e.g. sanitation, banks, electricity). Another aim is to understand how a high pathogen burden influences health and well‐being during development and adulthood. A third aim addresses how modernization shapes human life histories and sociality. Here we outline the project's goals, history, and main findings since its inception in 2002. We reflect on the implications of current findings and highlight the need for more coordinated ethnographic and biomedical study of contemporary nonindustrial populations to address broad questions that can situate evolutionary anthropology in a key position within the social and life sciences. PMID:28429567

The Evolution of Human Rights in the Age of Biotechnology.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ryan, John Paul; Hron, Benjamin

1999-01-01

Examines some of the main issues and developments within biotechnology that legislators must address. Suggests how these can be utilized in the social studies classroom. Includes three articles by Hilary Glazer and Hannah Letterman, Elizabeth M. Yang, and Ami S. Jaeger. (CMK)

In search of a unifying theory of complex brain evolution.

PubMed

Krubitzer, Leah

2009-03-01

The neocortex is the part of the brain that is involved in perception, cognition, and volitional motor control. In mammals it is a highly dynamic structure that has been dramatically altered in different lineages, and these alterations account for the remarkable variations in behavior that species exhibit. When we consider how this structure changes and becomes more complex in some mammals such as humans, we must also consider how the alterations that occur at macro levels of organization, such as the level of the individual and social system, as well as micro levels of organization, such as the level of neurons, synapses and molecules, impact the neocortex. It is also important to consider the constraints imposed on the evolution of the neocortex. Observations of highly conserved features of cortical organization that all mammals share, as well as the convergent evolution of similar features of organization, indicate that the constraints imposed on the neocortex are pervasive and restrict the avenues along which evolution can proceed. Although both genes and the laws of physics place formidable constraints on the evolution of all animals, humans have evolved a number of mechanisms that allow them to loosen these constraints and often alter the course of their own evolution. While this cortical plasticity is a defining feature of mammalian neocortex, it appears to be exaggerated in humans and could be considered a unique derivation of our species.

The origins and evolution of leadership.

PubMed

King, Andrew J; Johnson, Dominic D P; Van Vugt, Mark

2009-10-13

How groups of individuals achieve coordination and collective action is an important topic in the natural sciences, but until recently the role of leadership in this process has been largely overlooked. In contrast, leadership is arguably one of the most important themes in the social sciences, permeating all aspects of human social affairs: the election of Barack Obama, the war in Iraq, and the collapse of the banks are all high-profile events that draw our attention to the fundamental role of leadership and followership. Converging ideas and developments in both the natural and social sciences suggest that leadership and followership share common properties across humans and other animals, pointing to ancient roots and evolutionary origins. Here, we draw upon key insights from the animal and human literature to lay the foundation for a new science of leadership inspired by an evolutionary perspective. Identifying the origins of human leadership and followership, as well as which aspects are shared with other animals and which are unique, offers ways of understanding, predicting, and improving leadership today.

Mechanisms of adaptive evolution. Darwinism and Lamarckism restated.

PubMed

Aboitiz, F

1992-07-01

This article discusses the conceptual basis of the different mechanisms of adaptive evolution. It is argued that only two such mechanisms may conceivably exist, Lamarckism and Darwinism. Darwinism is the fundamental process generating the diversity of species. Some aspects of the gene-centered approach to Darwinism are questioned, since they do not account for the generation of biological diversity. Diversity in biological design must be explained in relation to the diversity of interactions of organisms (or other higher-level units) with their environment. This aspect is usually overlooked in gene-centered views of evolution. A variant of the gene-selectionist approach has been proposed to account for the spread of cultural traits in human societies. Alternatively, I argue that social evolution is rather driven by what I call pseudo-Lamarckian inheritance. Finally, I argue that Lamarckian and pseudo-Lamarckian inheritance are just special cases of faithful replication which are found in the development of some higher-order units, such as multicellular organisms and human societies.

Multiple effect of social influence on cooperation in interdependent network games.

PubMed

Jiang, Luo-Luo; Li, Wen-Jing; Wang, Zhen

2015-10-01

The social influence exists widely in the human society, where individual decision-making process (from congressional election to electronic commerce) may be affected by the attitude and behavior of others belonging to different social networks. Here, we couple the snowdrift (SD) game and the prisoner's dilemma (PD) game on two interdependent networks, where strategies in both games are associated by social influence to mimick the majority rule. More accurately, individuals' strategies updating refers to social learning (based on payoff difference) and above-mentioned social influence (related with environment of interdependent group), which is controlled by social influence strength s. Setting s = 0 decouples the networks and returns the traditional network game; while its increase involves the interactions between networks. By means of numerous Monte Carlo simulations, we find that such a mechanism brings multiple influence to the evolution of cooperation. Small s leads to unequal cooperation level in both games, because social learning is still the main updating rule for most players. Though intermediate and large s guarantees the synchronized evolution of strategy pairs, cooperation finally dies out and reaches a completely dominance in both cases. Interestingly, these observations are attributed to the expansion of cooperation clusters. Our work may provide a new understanding to the emergence of cooperation in intercorrelated social systems.

Multiple effect of social influence on cooperation in interdependent network games

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, Luo-Luo; Li, Wen-Jing; Wang, Zhen

2015-10-01

The social influence exists widely in the human society, where individual decision-making process (from congressional election to electronic commerce) may be affected by the attitude and behavior of others belonging to different social networks. Here, we couple the snowdrift (SD) game and the prisoner’s dilemma (PD) game on two interdependent networks, where strategies in both games are associated by social influence to mimick the majority rule. More accurately, individuals’ strategies updating refers to social learning (based on payoff difference) and above-mentioned social influence (related with environment of interdependent group), which is controlled by social influence strength s. Setting s = 0 decouples the networks and returns the traditional network game; while its increase involves the interactions between networks. By means of numerous Monte Carlo simulations, we find that such a mechanism brings multiple influence to the evolution of cooperation. Small s leads to unequal cooperation level in both games, because social learning is still the main updating rule for most players. Though intermediate and large s guarantees the synchronized evolution of strategy pairs, cooperation finally dies out and reaches a completely dominance in both cases. Interestingly, these observations are attributed to the expansion of cooperation clusters. Our work may provide a new understanding to the emergence of cooperation in intercorrelated social systems.

New frontiers in the study of human cultural and genetic evolution.

PubMed

Ross, Cody T; Richerson, Peter J

2014-12-01

In this review, we discuss the dynamic linkages between culture and the genetic evolution of the human species. We begin by briefly describing the framework of gene-culture coevolutionary (or dual-inheritance) models for human evolutionary change. Until recently, the literature on gene-culture coevolution was composed primarily of mathematical models and formalized theory describing the complex dynamics underlying human behavior, adaptation, and technological evolution, but had little empirical support concerning genetics. The rapid progress in the fields of molecular genetics and genomics, however, is now providing the kinds of data needed to produce rich empirical support for gene-culture coevolutionary models. We briefly outline how theoretical and methodological progress in genome sciences has provided ways for the strength of selection on genes to be evaluated, and then outline how evidence of selection on several key genes can be directly linked to human cultural practices. We then describe some exciting new directions in the empirical study of gene-culture coevolution, and conclude with a discussion of the role of gene-culture evolutionary models in the future integration of medical, biological, and social sciences. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interdisciplinary methods and practices for integrating social sciences into studies on catchment evolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carr, G.

2017-12-01

Real world problems rarely regard disciplinary boundaries. This is particularly apparent in catchments, where knowledge and understanding from many different research disciplines is essential to address the water resource challenges facing society. People are an integral part of any catchment. Therefore a comprehensive understanding of catchment evolution needs to include the social system. Socio-hydrological models that can simulate the co-evolution of human-water systems, for example, with regards to floods and droughts, show great promise in their capacity to capture and understand such systems. Yet, to develop socio-hydrological models into more comprehensive analysis tools that adequately capture the social components of the system, researchers need to embrace interdisciplinary working and multi-disciplinary research teams. By exploring the development of interdisciplinary research in a water programme, several key practices have been identified that support interdisciplinary collaboration. These include clarification where researchers discuss and re-explain their research or position to expose all the assumptions being made until all involved understand it; harnessing differences where different opinions and types of knowledge are treated respectfully to minimise tensions and disputes; and boundary setting where defensible limits to the research enquiry are set with consideration for the restrictions (funds, skills, resources) through negotiation and discussion between the research team members. Focussing on these research practices while conducting interdisciplinary collaborative research into the human-water system, is anticipated to support the development of more integrated approaches and models.

Origin of symbol-using systems: speech, but not sign, without the semantic urge

PubMed Central

Sereno, Martin I.

2014-01-01

Natural language—spoken and signed—is a multichannel phenomenon, involving facial and body expression, and voice and visual intonation that is often used in the service of a social urge to communicate meaning. Given that iconicity seems easier and less abstract than making arbitrary connections between sound and meaning, iconicity and gesture have often been invoked in the origin of language alongside the urge to convey meaning. To get a fresh perspective, we critically distinguish the origin of a system capable of evolution from the subsequent evolution that system becomes capable of. Human language arose on a substrate of a system already capable of Darwinian evolution; the genetically supported uniquely human ability to learn a language reflects a key contact point between Darwinian evolution and language. Though implemented in brains generated by DNA symbols coding for protein meaning, the second higher-level symbol-using system of language now operates in a world mostly decoupled from Darwinian evolutionary constraints. Examination of Darwinian evolution of vocal learning in other animals suggests that the initial fixation of a key prerequisite to language into the human genome may actually have required initially side-stepping not only iconicity, but the urge to mean itself. If sign languages came later, they would not have faced this constraint. PMID:25092671

An analysis of intergroup rivalry using Ising model and reinforcement learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Feng-Fei; Qin, Zheng; Shao, Zhuo

2014-01-01

Modeling of intergroup rivalry can help us better understand economic competitions, political elections and other similar activities. The result of intergroup rivalry depends on the co-evolution of individual behavior within one group and the impact from the rival group. In this paper, we model the rivalry behavior using Ising model. Different from other simulation studies using Ising model, the evolution rules of each individual in our model are not static, but have the ability to learn from historical experience using reinforcement learning technique, which makes the simulation more close to real human behavior. We studied the phase transition in intergroup rivalry and focused on the impact of the degree of social freedom, the personality of group members and the social experience of individuals. The results of computer simulation show that a society with a low degree of social freedom and highly educated, experienced individuals is more likely to be one-sided in intergroup rivalry.

Contact structure, mobility, environmental impact and behaviour: the importance of social forces to infectious disease dynamics and disease ecology.

PubMed

Arthur, Ronan F; Gurley, Emily S; Salje, Henrik; Bloomfield, Laura S P; Jones, James H

2017-05-05

Human factors, including contact structure, movement, impact on the environment and patterns of behaviour, can have significant influence on the emergence of novel infectious diseases and the transmission and amplification of established ones. As anthropogenic climate change alters natural systems and global economic forces drive land-use and land-cover change, it becomes increasingly important to understand both the ecological and social factors that impact infectious disease outcomes for human populations. While the field of disease ecology explicitly studies the ecological aspects of infectious disease transmission, the effects of the social context on zoonotic pathogen spillover and subsequent human-to-human transmission are comparatively neglected in the literature. The social sciences encompass a variety of disciplines and frameworks for understanding infectious diseases; however, here we focus on four primary areas of social systems that quantitatively and qualitatively contribute to infectious diseases as social-ecological systems. These areas are social mixing and structure, space and mobility, geography and environmental impact, and behaviour and behaviour change. Incorporation of these social factors requires empirical studies for parametrization, phenomena characterization and integrated theoretical modelling of social-ecological interactions. The social-ecological system that dictates infectious disease dynamics is a complex system rich in interacting variables with dynamically significant heterogeneous properties. Future discussions about infectious disease spillover and transmission in human populations need to address the social context that affects particular disease systems by identifying and measuring qualitatively important drivers.This article is part of the themed issue 'Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Gene-culture coevolution in the age of genomics

PubMed Central

Richerson, Peter J.; Boyd, Robert; Henrich, Joseph

2010-01-01

The use of socially learned information (culture) is central to human adaptations. We investigate the hypothesis that the process of cultural evolution has played an active, leading role in the evolution of genes. Culture normally evolves more rapidly than genes, creating novel environments that expose genes to new selective pressures. Many human genes that have been shown to be under recent or current selection are changing as a result of new environments created by cultural innovations. Some changed in response to the development of agricultural subsistence systems in the Early and Middle Holocene. Alleles coding for adaptations to diets rich in plant starch (e.g., amylase copy number) and to epidemic diseases evolved as human populations expanded (e.g., sickle cell and G6PD deficiency alleles that provide protection against malaria). Large-scale scans using patterns of linkage disequilibrium to detect recent selection suggest that many more genes evolved in response to agriculture. Genetic change in response to the novel social environment of contemporary modern societies is also likely to be occurring. The functional effects of most of the alleles under selection during the last 10,000 years are currently unknown. Also unknown is the role of paleoenvironmental change in regulating the tempo of hominin evolution. Although the full extent of culture-driven gene-culture coevolution is thus far unknown for the deeper history of the human lineage, theory and some evidence suggest that such effects were profound. Genomic methods promise to have a major impact on our understanding of gene-culture coevolution over the span of hominin evolutionary history. PMID:20445092

Social affiliation matters: both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships predict survival in wild female baboons

PubMed Central

Archie, Elizabeth A.; Tung, Jenny; Clark, Michael; Altmann, Jeanne; Alberts, Susan C.

2014-01-01

Social integration and support can have profound effects on human survival. The extent of this phenomenon in non-human animals is largely unknown, but such knowledge is important to understanding the evolution of both lifespan and sociality. Here, we report evidence that levels of affiliative social behaviour (i.e. ‘social connectedness’) with both same-sex and opposite-sex conspecifics predict adult survival in wild female baboons. In the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya, adult female baboons that were socially connected to either adult males or adult females lived longer than females who were socially isolated from both sexes—females with strong connectedness to individuals of both sexes lived the longest. Female social connectedness to males was predicted by high dominance rank, indicating that males are a limited resource for females, and females compete for access to male social partners. To date, only a handful of animal studies have found that social relationships may affect survival. This study extends those findings by examining relationships to both sexes in by far the largest dataset yet examined for any animal. Our results support the idea that social effects on survival are evolutionarily conserved in social mammals. PMID:25209936

Elderly people in many respects benefit from interaction with dogs

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Over the course of evolution, humans and animals have entered into a close relationship. By domesticating animals, humans were able to use them to their own advantage. However, animals should not only be seen as mere providers of material value; in fact, they actually enrich humans' lives on an emotional level. The classic examples for this evolution are dogs: they are considered loyal companions, particularly for children and elderly people. This relationship between humans and animals is the subject of this research study and is examined from a gerontological perspective by employing qualitative social research methods. Conclusion: The results of the study reveal the manifold meanings that pets - in particular dogs - can and do have to the elderly. At this point, it should also be noted that there is still a strong need for further research into this topic from a gerontological perspective. PMID:22112364

Genetic Differences Between Humans and Great Apes -- Implications for the Evolution of Humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Varki, Ajit

2004-06-01

At the level of individual protein sequences, humans are 97-100% identical to the great apes, our closest evolutionary relatives. The evolution of humans (and of human intelligence) from a common ancestor with the chimpanzee and bonobo involved many steps, influenced by interactions amongst factors of genetic, developmental, ecological, microbial, climatic, behavioral, cultural and social origin. The genetic factors can be approached by direct comparisons of human and great ape genomes, genes and gene products, and by elucidating biochemical and biological consequences of any differences found. We have discovered multiple genetic and biochemical differences between humans and great apes, particularly with respect to a family of cell surface molecules called sialic acids, as well as in the metabolism of thyroid hormones. The hormone differences have potential consequences for human brain development. The differences in sialic acid biology have multiple implications for the human condition, ranging from susceptibility or resistance to microbial pathogens, effects on endogenous receptors in the immune system, and potential effects on placental signaling, expression of oncofetal antigens in cancers, consequences of dietary intake of animal foods, and development of the mammalian brain.

Women Favour Dyadic Relationships, but Men Prefer Clubs: Cross-Cultural Evidence from Social Networking

PubMed Central

David-Barrett, Tamas; Rotkirch, Anna; Carney, James; Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel; Krems, Jaimie A.; Townley, Dylan; McDaniell, Elinor; Byrne-Smith, Anna; Dunbar, Robin I. M.

2015-01-01

The ability to create lasting, trust-based friendships makes it possible for humans to form large and coherent groups. The recent literature on the evolution of sociality and on the network dynamics of human societies suggests that large human groups have a layered structure generated by emotionally supported social relationships. There are also gender differences in adult social style which may involve different trade-offs between the quantity and quality of friendships. Although many have suggested that females tend to focus on intimate relations with a few other females, while males build larger, more hierarchical coalitions, the existence of such gender differences is disputed and data from adults is scarce. Here, we present cross-cultural evidence for gender differences in the preference for close friendships. We use a sample of ∼112,000 profile pictures from nine world regions posted on a popular social networking site to show that, in self-selected displays of social relationships, women favour dyadic relations, whereas men favour larger, all-male cliques. These apparently different solutions to quality-quantity trade-offs suggest a universal and fundamental difference in the function of close friendships for the two sexes. PMID:25775258

Women favour dyadic relationships, but men prefer clubs: cross-cultural evidence from social networking.

PubMed

David-Barrett, Tamas; Rotkirch, Anna; Carney, James; Behncke Izquierdo, Isabel; Krems, Jaimie A; Townley, Dylan; McDaniell, Elinor; Byrne-Smith, Anna; Dunbar, Robin I M

2015-01-01

The ability to create lasting, trust-based friendships makes it possible for humans to form large and coherent groups. The recent literature on the evolution of sociality and on the network dynamics of human societies suggests that large human groups have a layered structure generated by emotionally supported social relationships. There are also gender differences in adult social style which may involve different trade-offs between the quantity and quality of friendships. Although many have suggested that females tend to focus on intimate relations with a few other females, while males build larger, more hierarchical coalitions, the existence of such gender differences is disputed and data from adults is scarce. Here, we present cross-cultural evidence for gender differences in the preference for close friendships. We use a sample of ∼112,000 profile pictures from nine world regions posted on a popular social networking site to show that, in self-selected displays of social relationships, women favour dyadic relations, whereas men favour larger, all-male cliques. These apparently different solutions to quality-quantity trade-offs suggest a universal and fundamental difference in the function of close friendships for the two sexes.

Social scale and structural complexity in human languages.

PubMed

Nettle, Daniel

2012-07-05

The complexity of different components of the grammars of human languages can be quantified. For example, languages vary greatly in the size of their phonological inventories, and in the degree to which they make use of inflectional morphology. Recent studies have shown that there are relationships between these types of grammatical complexity and the number of speakers a language has. Languages spoken by large populations have been found to have larger phonological inventories, but simpler morphology, than languages spoken by small populations. The results require further investigation, and, most importantly, the mechanism whereby the social context of learning and use affects the grammatical evolution of a language needs elucidation.

Our Social Roots: How Local Ecology Shapes Our Social Structures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mace, Ruth

There is overwhelming evidence that wide-ranging aspects of human biology and human behavior can be considered as adaptations to different subsistence systems. Wider environmental and ecological correlates of behavioral and cultural traits are generally best understood as being mediated by differences in subsistence strategies. Modes of subsistence profoundly influence both human biology, as documented in genetic changes, and human social behavior and cultural norms, such as kinship, marriage, descent, wealth inheritance, and political systems. Thus both cultural and biological factors usually need to be considered together in studies of human evolutionary ecology, combined in specifically defined evolutionary models. Models of cultural adaptation to environmental conditions can be subjected to the same or similar tests that behavioral ecologists have used to seek evidence for adaptive behavior in other species. Phylogenetic comparative methods are proving useful, both for studying co-evolutionary hypotheses (cultural and/or gene-culture co-evolution), and for estimating ancestral states of prehistoric societies. This form of formal cross-cultural comparison is helping to put history back into anthropology, and helping us to understand cultural evolutionary processes at a number of levels.

Social modulation of cognition: Lessons from rhesus macaques relevant to education.

PubMed

Monfardini, Elisabetta; Reynaud, Amélie J; Prado, Jérôme; Meunier, Martine

2017-11-01

Any animal, human or non-human, lives in a world where there are others like itself. Individuals' behaviors are thus inevitably influenced by others, and cognition is no exception. Long acknowledged in psychology, social modulations of cognition have been neglected in cognitive neuroscience. Yet, infusing this classic topic in psychology with brain science methodologies could yield valuable educational insights. In recent studies, we used a non-human primate model, the rhesus macaque, to identify social influences representing ancient biases rooted in evolution, and neuroimaging to shed light on underlying mechanisms. The behavioral and neural data garnered in humans and macaques are summarized, with a focus on two findings relevant to human education. First, peers' mistakes stand out as exceptional professors and seem to have devoted areas and neurons in the primates' brain. Second, peers' mere presence suffices to enhance performance in well-learned tasks, possibly by boosting activity in the brain network involved in the task at hand. These findings could be translated into concrete pedagogical interventions in the classroom. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation.

PubMed

Bussey, K; Bandura, A

1999-10-01

Human differentiation on the basis of gender is a fundamental phenomenon that affects virtually every aspect of people's daily lives. This article presents the social cognitive theory of gender role development and functioning. It specifies how gender conceptions are constructed from the complex mix of experiences and how they operate in concert with motivational and self-regulatory mechanisms to guide gender-linked conduct throughout the life course. The theory integrates psychological and sociostructural determinants within a unified conceptual structure. In this theoretical perspective, gender conceptions and roles are the product of a broad network of social influences operating interdependently in a variety of societal subsystems. Human evolution provides bodily structures and biological potentialities that permit a range of possibilities rather than dictate a fixed type of gender differentiation. People contribute to their self-development and bring about social changes that define and structure gender relationships through their agentic actions within the interrelated systems of influence.

Contact structure, mobility, environmental impact and behaviour: the importance of social forces to infectious disease dynamics and disease ecology

PubMed Central

Gurley, Emily S.

2017-01-01

Human factors, including contact structure, movement, impact on the environment and patterns of behaviour, can have significant influence on the emergence of novel infectious diseases and the transmission and amplification of established ones. As anthropogenic climate change alters natural systems and global economic forces drive land-use and land-cover change, it becomes increasingly important to understand both the ecological and social factors that impact infectious disease outcomes for human populations. While the field of disease ecology explicitly studies the ecological aspects of infectious disease transmission, the effects of the social context on zoonotic pathogen spillover and subsequent human-to-human transmission are comparatively neglected in the literature. The social sciences encompass a variety of disciplines and frameworks for understanding infectious diseases; however, here we focus on four primary areas of social systems that quantitatively and qualitatively contribute to infectious diseases as social–ecological systems. These areas are social mixing and structure, space and mobility, geography and environmental impact, and behaviour and behaviour change. Incorporation of these social factors requires empirical studies for parametrization, phenomena characterization and integrated theoretical modelling of social–ecological interactions. The social–ecological system that dictates infectious disease dynamics is a complex system rich in interacting variables with dynamically significant heterogeneous properties. Future discussions about infectious disease spillover and transmission in human populations need to address the social context that affects particular disease systems by identifying and measuring qualitatively important drivers. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission’. PMID:28289265

Deconstructing sociality, social evolution and relevant nonapeptide functions.

PubMed

Goodson, James L

2013-04-01

Although behavioral neuroendocrinologists often discuss "sociality" as a unitary variable, the term encompasses a wide diversity of behaviors that do not evolve in a linked fashion across species. Thus grouping, monogamy, paternal care, cooperative breeding/alloparental care, and various other forms of social contact are evolutionarily labile and evolve in an almost cafeteria-like fashion, indicating that relevant neural mechanisms are at least partially dissociable. This poses a challenge for the study of the nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologous neuropeptides), because nonapeptides are known to modulate all of these aspects of sociality in one species or another. Hence, we may expect substantial diversity in the behavioral functions of nonapeptides across species, and indeed this is the case. Further compounding this complexity is the fact that the pleiotropic contributions of nonapeptides to social behavior are matched by pleiotropic contributions to physiology. Given these considerations, single "model systems" approaches to nonapeptide function will likely not have strong predictive validity for humans or other species. Rather, if we are to achieve predictive validity, we must sample a wide diversity of species in an attempt to derive general principles. In the present review, I discuss what is known about functional evolution of nonapeptide systems, and critically evaluate general assumptions about bonding and other functions that are based on the model systems approach. From this analysis I attempt to summarize what can and cannot be generalized across species, and highlight critical gaps in our knowledge about the functional evolution of nonapeptide systems as it relates to dimensions of sociality. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Application of social domain of human mind in water management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Piirimäe, Kristjan

2010-05-01

Currently, researches dispute whether a human reasons domain-generally or domain-specifically (Fiddick, 2004). The theory of several intuitive reasoning programmes in human mind suggests that the main driver to increase problem-solving abilities is social domain (Byrne & Bates, 2009). This theory leads to an idea to apply the social domain also in environmental management. More specifically, environmental problems might be presented through social aspects. Cosmides (1989) proposed that the most powerful programme in our social domain might be ‘cheater detection module' - a genetically determined mental tool whose dedicated function is to unmask cheaters. She even suggested that only cheater detection can enable logical reasoning. Recently, this idea has found experimental proof and specifications (Buchner et al., 2009). From this perspective, a participatory environmental decision support system requires involvement of the representatives of social control such as environmental agencies and NGOs. These evaluators might effectively discover legal and moral inconsistencies, logical errors and other weaknesses in proposals if they are encouraged to detect cheating. Thus, instead of just environmental concerns, the query of an artificial intelligence should emphasize cheating. Following the idea of Cosmides (1989), employment of cheater detectors to EDSS might appear the only way to achieve environmental management which applies correct logical reasoning as well as both, legislative requirements and conservationist moral. According to our hypothesis, representatives of social control can well discover legal and moral inconsistencies, logical errors and and other weaknesses in envirionmental management proposals if encouraged for cheater detection. In our social experiment, a draft plan of measures for sustainable management of Lake Peipsi environment was proposed to representatives of social control, including Ministry of Environment, other environmental authorities, and NGOs. These people were randomly divided to two working groups and asked to criticize the proposed plan. One group was encouraged to detect cheating behind the plan. Later, a group of independent experts evaluated the criticism of both groups and each individual person. The resulting assignements rated the group of cheater detectors as significantly more adequate decision-supporters. The results confirmed that simulation of the 'cheater detection module' of human mind might improve the performance of an EDSS. The study calls for the development of special methodologies for the stimulation and application of social domain in water management. References Buchner, A., Bell, R., Mehl, B., & Musch, J., (2009). No enhanced recognition memory, but better source memory for faces of cheaters. Evolution and Human Behaviour, 30(3), 212 - 224. Byrne, R., Bates, L. (2009). Sociality, evolution and cognition. Current Biology, 17(16), R714 - R723. Cosmides, L. (1989). The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection task. Cognition, 31(3), 187-276. Fiddick, L. (2004). Domains of deontic reasoning: Resolving the discrepancy between the cognitive and moral reasoning literatures. The Quartlerly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57A(3), 447 - 474.

BEYOND THE PALEOLITHIC PRESCRIPTION: INCORPORATING DIVERSITY AND FLEXIBILITY IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN DIET EVOLUTION

PubMed Central

Turner, Bethany L.; Thompson, Amanda L.

2014-01-01

Evolutionary paradigms of human health and nutrition center on the evolutionary discordance or “mismatch” model whereby human bodies, reflecting adaptations established in the Paleolithic era, are ill-suited to modern industrialized diets resulting in rapidly increasing rates of chronic metabolic disease. Whereas this model remains useful, we argue that its utility in explaining the evolution of human dietary tendencies is limited. The assumption that human diets are mismatched to our evolved biology implies that they are instinctual or genetically determined and rooted in the Paleolithic. We review current research indicating that human eating habits are primarily learned through behavioral, social and physiological mechanisms starting in utero and extending throughout the life course. Those adaptations that appear to be strongly genetic likely reflect Neolithic, rather than Paleolithic, adaptations and are significantly influenced by human niche-constructing behavior. Incorporating a broader understanding of the evolved mechanisms by which humans learn and imprint eating habits and the reciprocal effects of those habits on physiology would provide useful tools for structuring more lasting nutrition interventions. PMID:23865796

Socio-hydrologic perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and groundwater in Cangzhou, North China Plain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, S.; Tian, F.; Liu, Y.

2017-12-01

This study presents a historical analysis from socio-hydrologic perspectives of the coupled human-groundwater system of the Cangzhou region in the North China Plain. The history of the "pendulum swing" for water allocation between the economic development and aquifer environmental health of the system is divided into five eras (i.e., natural, exploitation, degradation and restoration, drought-triggered deterioration, and returning to the balance). The system evolution was interpreted using the Taiji-Tire model. Over-exploitation was considered as the main cause of aquifer depletion and the groundwater utilization pattern was affected by the varying groundwater table. The aquifer depletion enhanced the community sensitivity of humans toward environmental issues, and upgraded the social productive force for restoration. The evolution of the system was substantially impacted by two droughts. The drought in 1965 induced the system from natural condition to groundwater exploiting. The drought from 1997 to 2002 resulted a pulse in further groundwater abstraction and dramatic aquifer deterioration, and the community sensitivity increased rapidly and induced the social productive force to a tipping point. From then on, the system is returning the balance through new policies and water-saving technologies. Along with the establishment of a strict water resource management strategy and the launch of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, further restorations of groundwater environment would be implemented. However, a comprehensive and coordinated drought management plan should be devised to avoid the irreversible change of the system.

Adaptive social learning strategies in temporally and spatially varying environments : how temporal vs. spatial variation, number of cultural traits, and costs of learning influence the evolution of conformist-biased transmission, payoff-biased transmission, and individual learning.

PubMed

Nakahashi, Wataru; Wakano, Joe Yuichiro; Henrich, Joseph

2012-12-01

Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. To build on prior work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial-but not temporal-variation strongly favors the emergence of conformist transmission. This effect intensifies when migration rates are relatively high and individual learning is costly. We also show that increasing the number of cultural traits above two favors the evolution of conformist transmission, which suggests that the assumption of only two traits in many models has been conservative. We close by discussing how (1) spatial variability represents only one way of introducing the low-level, nonadaptive phenotypic trait variation that so favors conformist transmission, the other obvious way being learning errors, and (2) our findings apply to the evolution of conformist transmission in social interactions. Throughout we emphasize how our models generate empirical predictions suitable for laboratory testing.

The Rhetorical Arts of Cooperation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fahnestock, Jeanne

2013-01-01

Human social evolution depends in part on using language persuasively to secure cooperation. Rhetoric emerged in the West over two thousand years ago as a deliberate cultural construction. Though often misunderstood today, rhetoric is fundamental in general education programs that teach students how knowledge is forged in agreement and applied.…

The Organization as Client: Broadening the Concept of Employee Assistance Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Googins, Bradley; Davidson, Bruce N.

1993-01-01

Notes that many employee assistance programs (EAPs) are broadening their function to address rapidly changing human and social issues of environments in which they operate, refocusing practice to include organization as the client. Discusses traditional EAP practice, evolution of EAPs, changes confronting corporations, and alternative model in…

Women and Evolution, Part II: Subsistence and Social Organization Among Early Hominids

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zihlman, Adrienne L.

1978-01-01

The earliest human females, previously ignored in evolutionary reconstructions, are interpreted as playing a critical role in the success of the species. It is suggested that prehistoric males and females were interdependent, both in sharing food and cooperating in nurturing the young. (Author/KR)

Intellectual and Physical Disabilities in Prehistory and Early Civilization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berkson, Gershon

2004-01-01

This paper is focused on three basic questions: The first concerns when specific disabilities first appeared during human evolution. The second question has to do with causes of disabilities. The third question concerns social responses to people with disabilities. Discussions on each of the issues are presented.

Socio-hydrologic Perspectives of the Co-evolution of Humans and Water in the Tarim River Basin, Western China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Ye; Tian, Fuqiang; Hu, Heping; Liu, Dengfeng; Sivapalan, Murugesu

2013-04-01

Socio-hydrology studies the co-evolution of coupled human-water systems, which is of great importance for long-term sustainable water resource management in basins suffering from serious eco-environmental degradation. Process socio-hydrology can benefit from the exploring the patterns of historical co-evolution of coupled human-water systems as a way to discovering the organizing principles that may underpin their co-evolution. As a self-organized entity, the human-water system in a river basin would evolve into certain steady states over a sufficiently long time but then could also experience sudden shifts due to internal or external disturbances that exceed system thresholds. In this study, we discuss three steady states (also called stages in the social sciences, including natural, human exploitation and recovery stages) and transitions between these during the past 1500 years in the Tarim River Basin of Western China, which a rich history of civilization including its place in the famous Silk Road that connected China to Europe. Specifically, during the natural stage with a sound environment that existed before the 19th century, shifts in the ecohydrological regime were mainly caused by environmental changes such river channel migration and climate change. During the human exploitation stages in the 5th and again in the 19th-20th centuries, however, humans gradually became the main drivers for system evolution, during which the basin experienced rapid population growth, fast socio-economic development and intense human activities. By the 1970s, after 200 years of colonization, the Tarim River Basin evolved into a new regime with vulnerable ecosystem and water system, and suffered from serious water shortages and desertification. Human society then began to take a critical look into the effects of their activities and reappraise the impact of human development on the ecohydrological system, which eventually led the basin into a treatment and recovery stage. Since then, the basin has shown a reverse trend of regime shift towards healing of the environmental damage that was inflicted in the previous stage of human development. In this paper we analyze the recasting effect of human activities on the water system and provide explanations on how human activities influence the co-evolution of human-water system from a broader perspective.

Motivational Shifts in Aging Monkeys and the Origins of Social Selectivity.

PubMed

Almeling, Laura; Hammerschmidt, Kurt; Sennhenn-Reulen, Holger; Freund, Alexandra M; Fischer, Julia

2016-07-11

As humans age, they become more selective regarding their personal goals [1] and social partners [2]. Whereas the selectivity in goals has been attributed to losses in resources (e.g., physical strength) [3], the increasing focus on emotionally meaningful partners is, according to socioemotional selectivity theory, driven by the awareness of one's decreasing future lifetime [2]. Similar to humans, aging monkeys show physical losses [4] and reductions in social activity [2, 5-7]. To disentangle a general resource loss and the awareness of decreasing time, we combined field experiments with behavioral observations in a large age-heterogeneous population of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) at La Forêt des Singes. Novel object tests revealed a loss of interest in the nonsocial environment in early adulthood, which was modulated by the availability of a food reward. Experiments using vocal and visual representations of social partners indicated that monkeys maintained an interest in social stimuli and a preferential interest in friends and socially important individuals into old age. Old females engaged in fewer social interactions, although other group members continued to invest in relationships with them. Consequently, reductions in sociality were not due to a decrease in social interest. In conclusion, some of the motivational shifts observed in aging humans, particularly the increasing focus on social over nonsocial stimuli, may occur in the absence of a limited time perspective and are most likely deeply rooted in primate evolution. Our findings highlight the value of nonhuman primates as valuable models for understanding human aging [8, 9]. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How social learning adds up to a culture: from birdsong to human public opinion.

PubMed

Tchernichovski, Ofer; Feher, Olga; Fimiarz, Daniel; Conley, Dalton

2017-01-01

Distributed social learning may occur at many temporal and spatial scales, but it rarely adds up to a stable culture. Cultures vary in stability and diversity (polymorphism), ranging from chaotic or drifting cultures, through cumulative polymorphic cultures, to stable monolithic cultures with high conformity levels. What features can sustain polymorphism, preventing cultures from collapsing into either chaotic or highly conforming states? We investigate this question by integrating studies across two quite separate disciplines: the emergence of song cultures in birds, and the spread of public opinion and social conventions in humans. In songbirds, the learning process has been studied in great detail, while in human studies the structure of social networks has been experimentally manipulated on large scales. In both cases, the manner in which communication signals are compressed and filtered - either during learning or while traveling through the social network - can affect culture polymorphism and stability. We suggest a simple mechanism of a shifting balance between converging and diverging social forces to explain these effects. Understanding social forces that shape cultural evolution might be useful for designing agile communication systems, which are stable and polymorphic enough to promote gradual changes in institutional behavior. © 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Social bonds affect anti-predator behaviour in a tolerant species of macaque, Macaca nigra

PubMed Central

Micheletta, Jérôme; Waller, Bridget M.; Panggur, Maria R.; Neumann, Christof; Duboscq, Julie; Agil, Muhammad; Engelhardt, Antje

2012-01-01

Enduring positive social bonds between individuals are crucial for humans' health and well being. Similar bonds can be found in a wide range of taxa, revealing the evolutionary origins of humans' social bonds. Evidence suggests that these strong social bonds can function to buffer the negative effects of living in groups, but it is not known whether they also function to minimize predation risk. Here, we show that crested macaques (Macaca nigra) react more strongly to playbacks of recruitment alarm calls (i.e. calls signalling the presence of a predator and eliciting cooperative mobbing behaviour) if they were produced by an individual with whom they share a strong social bond. Dominance relationships between caller and listener had no effect on the reaction of the listener. Thus, strong social bonds may improve the coordination and efficiency of cooperative defence against predators, and therefore increase chances of survival. This result broadens our understanding of the evolution and function of social bonds by highlighting their importance in the anti-predator context. PMID:22859593

Designing the future: NBIC technologies and human performance enhancement.

PubMed

Canton, James

2004-05-01

Never before has any civilization had the unique opportunity to enhance human performance on the scale that we will face in the near future. The convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) is creating a set of powerful tools that have the potential to significantly enhance human performance as well as transform society, science, economics, and human evolution. As the NBIC convergence becomes more understood, the possibility that we may be able to enhance human performance in the three domains of therapy, augmentation, and designed evolution will become anticipated and even expected. In addition, NBIC convergence represents entirely new challenges for scientists, policymakers, and business leaders who will have, for the first time, vast new and powerful tools to shape markets, societies, and lifestyles. The emergence of NBIC convergence will challenge us in new ways to balance risk and return, threat and opportunity, and social responsibility and competitive advantage as we step into the 21st century.

Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders.

PubMed

Nunn, Charles L; Samson, David R; Krystal, Andrew D

2016-01-01

Sleep is essential to cognitive function and health in humans, yet the ultimate reasons for sleep-i.e. 'why' sleep evolved-remain mysterious. We integrate findings from human sleep studies, the ethnographic record, and the ecology and evolution of mammalian sleep to better understand sleep along the human lineage and in the modern world. Compared to other primates, sleep in great apes has undergone substantial evolutionary change, with all great apes building a sleeping platform or 'nest'. Further evolutionary change characterizes human sleep, with humans having the shortest sleep duration, yet the highest proportion of rapid eye movement sleep among primates. These changes likely reflect that our ancestors experienced fitness benefits from being active for a greater portion of the 24-h cycle than other primates, potentially related to advantages arising from learning, socializing and defending against predators and hostile conspecifics. Perspectives from evolutionary medicine have implications for understanding sleep disorders; we consider these perspectives in the context of insomnia, narcolepsy, seasonal affective disorder, circadian rhythm disorders and sleep apnea. We also identify how human sleep today differs from sleep through most of human evolution, and the implications of these changes for global health and health disparities. More generally, our review highlights the importance of phylogenetic comparisons in understanding human health, including well-known links between sleep, cognitive performance and health in humans. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.

Modeling rises and falls in money addicted social hierarchies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dybiec, Bartłomiej; Mitarai, Namiko; Sneppen, Kim

2014-08-01

The emergence of large communities is inherently associated with the creation of social structures. Connections between individuals are indispensable for cooperative action of agents building social groups. Moreover, social groups usually evolve and their structure changes over time. Consequently, an underlying network connecting individuals is not static, reflecting an ongoing adaptation to new conditions. The evolution of social connections is influenced by the relative position (hierarchy) of individuals building the system as well as by the availability of resources. We explore this aspect of human ambition by modeling the interplay of social networking and an uneven distribution of external resources. The model naturally generates social hierarchies. Remarkably, this social structure exhibits a rise-and-fall behavior. A well pronounced quasi-periodic dynamics, which is closely associated with the dissipation of resources that are needed to sustain the social links, is revealed.

Reading wild minds: A computational assay of Theory of Mind sophistication across seven primate species

PubMed Central

Devaine, Marie; San-Galli, Aurore; Trapanese, Cinzia; Bardino, Giulia; Hano, Christelle; Saint Jalme, Michel; Bouret, Sebastien

2017-01-01

Theory of Mind (ToM), i.e. the ability to understand others' mental states, endows humans with highly adaptive social skills such as teaching or deceiving. Candidate evolutionary explanations have been proposed for the unique sophistication of human ToM among primates. For example, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis states that the increasing complexity of social networks may have induced a demand for sophisticated ToM. This type of scenario ignores neurocognitive constraints that may eventually be crucial limiting factors for ToM evolution. In contradistinction, the cognitive scaffolding hypothesis asserts that a species' opportunity to develop sophisticated ToM is mostly determined by its general cognitive capacity (on which ToM is scaffolded). However, the actual relationships between ToM sophistication and either brain volume (a proxy for general cognitive capacity) or social group size (a proxy for social network complexity) are unclear. Here, we let 39 individuals sampled from seven non-human primate species (lemurs, macaques, mangabeys, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) engage in simple dyadic games against artificial ToM players (via a familiar human caregiver). Using computational analyses of primates' choice sequences, we found that the probability of exhibiting a ToM-compatible learning style is mainly driven by species' brain volume (rather than by social group size). Moreover, primates' social cognitive sophistication culminates in a precursor form of ToM, which still falls short of human fully-developed ToM abilities. PMID:29112973

Reading wild minds: A computational assay of Theory of Mind sophistication across seven primate species.

PubMed

Devaine, Marie; San-Galli, Aurore; Trapanese, Cinzia; Bardino, Giulia; Hano, Christelle; Saint Jalme, Michel; Bouret, Sebastien; Masi, Shelly; Daunizeau, Jean

2017-11-01

Theory of Mind (ToM), i.e. the ability to understand others' mental states, endows humans with highly adaptive social skills such as teaching or deceiving. Candidate evolutionary explanations have been proposed for the unique sophistication of human ToM among primates. For example, the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis states that the increasing complexity of social networks may have induced a demand for sophisticated ToM. This type of scenario ignores neurocognitive constraints that may eventually be crucial limiting factors for ToM evolution. In contradistinction, the cognitive scaffolding hypothesis asserts that a species' opportunity to develop sophisticated ToM is mostly determined by its general cognitive capacity (on which ToM is scaffolded). However, the actual relationships between ToM sophistication and either brain volume (a proxy for general cognitive capacity) or social group size (a proxy for social network complexity) are unclear. Here, we let 39 individuals sampled from seven non-human primate species (lemurs, macaques, mangabeys, orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees) engage in simple dyadic games against artificial ToM players (via a familiar human caregiver). Using computational analyses of primates' choice sequences, we found that the probability of exhibiting a ToM-compatible learning style is mainly driven by species' brain volume (rather than by social group size). Moreover, primates' social cognitive sophistication culminates in a precursor form of ToM, which still falls short of human fully-developed ToM abilities.

Grist and mills: on the cultural origins of cultural learning

PubMed Central

Heyes, Cecilia

2012-01-01

Cumulative cultural evolution is what ‘makes us odd’; our capacity to learn facts and techniques from others, and to refine them over generations, plays a major role in making human minds and lives radically different from those of other animals. In this article, I discuss cognitive processes that are known collectively as ‘cultural learning’ because they enable cumulative cultural evolution. These cognitive processes include reading, social learning, imitation, teaching, social motivation and theory of mind. Taking the first of these three types of cultural learning as examples, I ask whether and to what extent these cognitive processes have been adapted genetically or culturally to enable cumulative cultural evolution. I find that recent empirical work in comparative psychology, developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience provides surprisingly little evidence of genetic adaptation, and ample evidence of cultural adaptation. This raises the possibility that it is not only ‘grist’ but also ‘mills’ that are culturally inherited; through social interaction in the course of development, we not only acquire facts about the world and how to deal with it (grist), we also build the cognitive processes that make ‘fact inheritance’ possible (mills). PMID:22734061

Neuronal Populations in the Basolateral Nuclei of the Amygdala Are Differentially Increased in Humans Compared With Apes: A Stereological Study

PubMed Central

Barger, Nicole; Stefanacci, Lisa; Schumann, Cynthia M.; Sherwood, Chet C.; Annese, Jacopo; Allman, John M.; Buckwalter, Joseph A.; Hof, Patrick R.; Semendeferi, Katerina

2016-01-01

In human and nonhuman primates, the amygdala is known to play critical roles in emotional and social behavior. Anatomically, individual amygdaloid nuclei are connected with many neural systems that are either differentially expanded or conserved over the course of primate evolution. To address amygdala evolution in humans and our closest living relatives, the apes, we used design-based stereological methods to obtain neuron counts for the amygdala and each of four major amygdaloid nuclei (the lateral, basal, accessory basal, and central nuclei) in humans, all great ape species, lesser apes, and one monkey species. Our goal was to determine whether there were significant differences in the number or percent of neurons distributed to individual nuclei among species. Additionally, regression analyses were performed on independent contrast data to determine whether any individual species deviated from allometric trends. There were two major findings. In humans, the lateral nucleus contained the highest number of neurons in the amygdala, whereas in apes the basal nucleus contained the highest number of neurons. Additionally, the human lateral nucleus contained 59% more neurons than predicted by allometric regressions on nonhuman primate data. Based on the largest sample ever analyzed in a comparative study of the hominoid amygdala, our findings suggest that an emphasis on the lateral nucleus is the main characteristic of amygdala specialization over the course of human evolution. PMID:22473387

Social Performance Cues Induce Behavioral Flexibility in Humans

PubMed Central

Toelch, Ulf; Bruce, Matthew J.; Meeus, Marius T. H.; Reader, Simon M.

2011-01-01

Behavioral flexibility allows individuals to react to environmental changes, but changing established behavior carries costs, with unknown benefits. Individuals may thus modify their behavioral flexibility according to the prevailing circumstances. Social information provided by the performance level of others provides one possible cue to assess the potential benefits of changing behavior, since out-performance in similar circumstances indicates that novel behaviors (innovations) are potentially useful. We demonstrate that social performance cues, in the form of previous players’ scores in a problem-solving computer game, influence behavioral flexibility. Participants viewed only performance indicators, not the innovative behavior of others. While performance cues (high, low, or no scores) had little effect on innovation discovery rates, participants that viewed high scores increased their utilization of innovations, allowing them to exploit the virtual environment more effectively than players viewing low or no scores. Perceived conspecific performance can thus shape human decisions to adopt novel traits, even when the traits employed cannot be copied. This simple mechanism, social performance feedback, could be a driver of both the facultative adoption of innovations and cumulative cultural evolution, processes critical to human success. PMID:21811477

Socio-hydrologic perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and water in the Tarim River basin, Western China: the Taiji-Tire model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Y.; Tian, F.; Hu, H.; Sivapalan, M.

2014-04-01

This paper presents a historical socio-hydrological analysis of the Tarim River basin (TRB), Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in Western China, from the time of the opening of the Silk Road to the present. The analysis is aimed at exploring the historical co-evolution of coupled human-water systems and at identifying common patterns or organizing principles underpinning socio-hydrological systems (SHS). As a self-organized entity, the evolution of the human-water system in the Tarim Basin reached stable states for long periods of time, but then was punctuated by sudden shifts due to internal or external disturbances. In this study, we discuss three stable periods (i.e., natural, human exploitation, and degradation and recovery) and the transitions in between during the past 2000 years. During the "natural" stage that existed pre-18th century, with small-scale human society and sound environment, evolution of the SHS was mainly driven by natural environmental changes such as river channel migration and climate change. During the human exploitation stage, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, it experienced rapid population growth, massive land reclamation and fast socio-economic development, and humans became the principal players of system evolution. By the 1970s, the Tarim Basin had evolved into a new regime with a vulnerable eco-hydrological system seemingly populated beyond its carrying capacity, and a human society that began to suffer from serious water shortages, land salinization and desertification. With intensified deterioration of river health and increased recognition of unsustainability of traditional development patterns, human intervention and recovery measures have since been adopted. As a result, the basin has shown a reverse regime shift towards some healing of the environmental damage. Based on our analysis within TRB and a common theory of social development, four general types of SHSs are defined according to their characteristic spatio-temporal variations of historical co-evolution, including primitive agricultural, traditional agricultural, industrial agricultural, and urban SHSs. These co-evolutionary changes have been explained in the paper in terms of the Taiji-Tire model, a refinement of a special concept in Chinese philosophy, relating to the co-evolution of a system because of interactions among its components.

Rhythmic displays of female gibbons offer insight into the origin of dance

PubMed Central

Fan, Peng-Fei; Ma, Chang-Yong; Garber, Paul A.; Zhang, Wen; Fei, Han-Lan; Xiao, Wen

2016-01-01

Dance is a universal art form practiced by all human societies and has many functions including sexual attraction, social cohesion, and the therapeutic release of energy. Dance also has been reported in a small number of non-human primate species, in particular apes. However, its function has not been systematically evaluated. We observed 357 intentional, rhythmic, and nonverbal dance displays performed by four adult female cao vit gibbons (Nomascus nasutus) residing in four polygynous groups during 3000 h of observation in Bangliang, Guangxi, China. Females used dance to solicit copulations, as well as to promote a social bond with the group’s lone adult male. In addition, this display appears to represent a form of non-aggressive competition among adult females living in the same group. We found that a female who had a weaker social relationship with the breeding male increased her social and sexual access to the male by an increase in dancing frequency. Given that gibbons dance in various behavioral contexts, and appears to serve several important social and sexual functions, a greater understanding of this form of gestural communication offers an instructive model for examining the origin and evolution of dance in humans and other apes. PMID:27687686

Rhythmic displays of female gibbons offer insight into the origin of dance.

PubMed

Fan, Peng-Fei; Ma, Chang-Yong; Garber, Paul A; Zhang, Wen; Fei, Han-Lan; Xiao, Wen

2016-09-30

Dance is a universal art form practiced by all human societies and has many functions including sexual attraction, social cohesion, and the therapeutic release of energy. Dance also has been reported in a small number of non-human primate species, in particular apes. However, its function has not been systematically evaluated. We observed 357 intentional, rhythmic, and nonverbal dance displays performed by four adult female cao vit gibbons (Nomascus nasutus) residing in four polygynous groups during 3000 h of observation in Bangliang, Guangxi, China. Females used dance to solicit copulations, as well as to promote a social bond with the group's lone adult male. In addition, this display appears to represent a form of non-aggressive competition among adult females living in the same group. We found that a female who had a weaker social relationship with the breeding male increased her social and sexual access to the male by an increase in dancing frequency. Given that gibbons dance in various behavioral contexts, and appears to serve several important social and sexual functions, a greater understanding of this form of gestural communication offers an instructive model for examining the origin and evolution of dance in humans and other apes.

Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality.

PubMed

Honing, Henkjan; ten Cate, Carel; Peretz, Isabelle; Trehub, Sandra E

2015-03-19

Musicality can be defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by biology and cognition. Music, by contrast, can be defined as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality. One critical challenge is to delineate the constituent elements of musicality. What biological and cognitive mechanisms are essential for perceiving, appreciating and making music? Progress in understanding the evolution of music cognition depends upon adequate characterization of the constituent mechanisms of musicality and the extent to which they are present in non-human species. We argue for the importance of identifying these mechanisms and delineating their functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective means of studying them in human and non-human animals. It is virtually impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole, but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity is an excellent starting point for a research programme aimed at illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an autonomous trait. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Without it no music: cognition, biology and evolution of musicality

PubMed Central

Honing, Henkjan; ten Cate, Carel; Peretz, Isabelle; Trehub, Sandra E.

2015-01-01

Musicality can be defined as a natural, spontaneously developing trait based on and constrained by biology and cognition. Music, by contrast, can be defined as a social and cultural construct based on that very musicality. One critical challenge is to delineate the constituent elements of musicality. What biological and cognitive mechanisms are essential for perceiving, appreciating and making music? Progress in understanding the evolution of music cognition depends upon adequate characterization of the constituent mechanisms of musicality and the extent to which they are present in non-human species. We argue for the importance of identifying these mechanisms and delineating their functions and developmental course, as well as suggesting effective means of studying them in human and non-human animals. It is virtually impossible to underpin the evolutionary role of musicality as a whole, but a multicomponent perspective on musicality that emphasizes its constituent capacities, development and neural cognitive specificity is an excellent starting point for a research programme aimed at illuminating the origins and evolution of musical behaviour as an autonomous trait. PMID:25646511

Precursors to language: Social cognition and pragmatic inference in primates.

PubMed

Seyfarth, Robert M; Cheney, Dorothy L

2017-02-01

Despite their differences, human language and the vocal communication of nonhuman primates share many features. Both constitute forms of coordinated activity, rely on many shared neural mechanisms, and involve discrete, combinatorial cognition that includes rich pragmatic inference. These common features suggest that during evolution the ancestors of all modern primates faced similar social problems and responded with similar systems of communication and cognition. When language later evolved from this common foundation, many of its distinctive features were already present.

Beyond the Paleolithic prescription: incorporating diversity and flexibility in the study of human diet evolution.

PubMed

Turner, Bethany L; Thompson, Amanda L

2013-08-01

Evolutionary paradigms of human health and nutrition center on the evolutionary discordance or "mismatch" model in which human bodies, reflecting adaptations established in the Paleolithic era, are ill-suited to modern industrialized diets, resulting in rapidly increasing rates of chronic metabolic disease. Though this model remains useful, its utility in explaining the evolution of human dietary tendencies is limited. The assumption that human diets are mismatched to the evolved biology of humans implies that the human diet is instinctual or genetically determined and rooted in the Paleolithic era. This review looks at current research indicating that human eating habits are learned primarily through behavioral, social, and physiological mechanisms that start in utero and extend throughout the life course. Adaptations that appear to be strongly genetic likely reflect Neolithic, rather than Paleolithic, adaptations and are significantly influenced by human niche-constructing behavior. Several examples are used to conclude that incorporating a broader understanding of both the evolved mechanisms by which humans learn and imprint eating habits and the reciprocal effects of those habits on physiology would provide useful tools for structuring more lasting nutrition interventions. © 2013 International Life Sciences Institute.

Primate social attention: Species differences and effects of individual experience in humans, great apes, and macaques

PubMed Central

Shepherd, Stephen V.; Hirata, Satoshi; Call, Josep

2018-01-01

When viewing social scenes, humans and nonhuman primates focus on particular features, such as the models’ eyes, mouth, and action targets. Previous studies reported that such viewing patterns vary significantly across individuals in humans, and also across closely-related primate species. However, the nature of these individual and species differences remains unclear, particularly among nonhuman primates. In large samples of human and nonhuman primates, we examined species differences and the effects of experience on patterns of gaze toward social movies. Experiment 1 examined the species differences across rhesus macaques, nonhuman apes (bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans), and humans while they viewed movies of various animals’ species-typical behaviors. We found that each species had distinct viewing patterns of the models’ faces, eyes, mouths, and action targets. Experiment 2 tested the effect of individuals’ experience on chimpanzee and human viewing patterns. We presented movies depicting natural behaviors of chimpanzees to three groups of chimpanzees (individuals from a zoo, a sanctuary, and a research institute) differing in their early social and physical experiences. We also presented the same movies to human adults and children differing in their expertise with chimpanzees (experts vs. novices) or movie-viewing generally (adults vs. preschoolers). Individuals varied within each species in their patterns of gaze toward models’ faces, eyes, mouths, and action targets depending on their unique individual experiences. We thus found that the viewing patterns for social stimuli are both individual- and species-specific in these closely-related primates. Such individual/species-specificities are likely related to both individual experience and species-typical temperament, suggesting that primate individuals acquire their unique attentional biases through both ontogeny and evolution. Such unique attentional biases may help them learn efficiently about their particular social environments. PMID:29474416

Primate social attention: Species differences and effects of individual experience in humans, great apes, and macaques.

PubMed

Kano, Fumihiro; Shepherd, Stephen V; Hirata, Satoshi; Call, Josep

2018-01-01

When viewing social scenes, humans and nonhuman primates focus on particular features, such as the models' eyes, mouth, and action targets. Previous studies reported that such viewing patterns vary significantly across individuals in humans, and also across closely-related primate species. However, the nature of these individual and species differences remains unclear, particularly among nonhuman primates. In large samples of human and nonhuman primates, we examined species differences and the effects of experience on patterns of gaze toward social movies. Experiment 1 examined the species differences across rhesus macaques, nonhuman apes (bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans), and humans while they viewed movies of various animals' species-typical behaviors. We found that each species had distinct viewing patterns of the models' faces, eyes, mouths, and action targets. Experiment 2 tested the effect of individuals' experience on chimpanzee and human viewing patterns. We presented movies depicting natural behaviors of chimpanzees to three groups of chimpanzees (individuals from a zoo, a sanctuary, and a research institute) differing in their early social and physical experiences. We also presented the same movies to human adults and children differing in their expertise with chimpanzees (experts vs. novices) or movie-viewing generally (adults vs. preschoolers). Individuals varied within each species in their patterns of gaze toward models' faces, eyes, mouths, and action targets depending on their unique individual experiences. We thus found that the viewing patterns for social stimuli are both individual- and species-specific in these closely-related primates. Such individual/species-specificities are likely related to both individual experience and species-typical temperament, suggesting that primate individuals acquire their unique attentional biases through both ontogeny and evolution. Such unique attentional biases may help them learn efficiently about their particular social environments.

It is not always tickling: distinct cerebral responses during perception of different laughter types.

PubMed

Szameitat, Diana P; Kreifelts, Benjamin; Alter, Kai; Szameitat, André J; Sterr, Annette; Grodd, Wolfgang; Wildgruber, Dirk

2010-12-01

Laughter is highly relevant for social interaction in human beings and non-human primates. In humans as well as in non-human primates laughter can be induced by tickling. Human laughter, however, has further diversified and encompasses emotional laughter types with various communicative functions, e.g. joyful and taunting laughter. Here, it was evaluated if this evolutionary diversification of ecological functions is associated with distinct cerebral responses underlying laughter perception. Functional MRI revealed a double-dissociation of cerebral responses during perception of tickling laughter and emotional laughter (joy and taunt) with higher activations in the anterior rostral medial frontal cortex (arMFC) when emotional laughter was perceived, and stronger responses in the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) during appreciation of tickling laughter. Enhanced activation of the arMFC for emotional laughter presumably reflects increasing demands on social cognition processes arising from the greater social salience of these laughter types. Activation increase in the STG for tickling laughter may be linked to the higher acoustic complexity of this laughter type. The observed dissociation of cerebral responses for emotional laughter and tickling laughter was independent of task-directed focusing of attention. These findings support the postulated diversification of human laughter in the course of evolution from an unequivocal play signal to laughter with distinct emotional contents subserving complex social functions. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Social variables exert selective pressures in the evolution and form of primate mimetic musculature.

PubMed

Burrows, Anne M; Li, Ly; Waller, Bridget M; Micheletta, Jerome

2016-04-01

Mammals use their faces in social interactions more so than any other vertebrates. Primates are an extreme among most mammals in their complex, direct, lifelong social interactions and their frequent use of facial displays is a means of proximate visual communication with conspecifics. The available repertoire of facial displays is primarily controlled by mimetic musculature, the muscles that move the face. The form of these muscles is, in turn, limited by and influenced by phylogenetic inertia but here we use examples, both morphological and physiological, to illustrate the influence that social variables may exert on the evolution and form of mimetic musculature among primates. Ecomorphology is concerned with the adaptive responses of morphology to various ecological variables such as diet, foliage density, predation pressures, and time of day activity. We present evidence that social variables also exert selective pressures on morphology, specifically using mimetic muscles among primates as an example. Social variables include group size, dominance 'style', and mating systems. We present two case studies to illustrate the potential influence of social behavior on adaptive morphology of mimetic musculature in primates: (1) gross morphology of the mimetic muscles around the external ear in closely related species of macaque (Macaca mulatta and Macaca nigra) characterized by varying dominance styles and (2) comparative physiology of the orbicularis oris muscle among select ape species. This muscle is used in both facial displays/expressions and in vocalizations/human speech. We present qualitative observations of myosin fiber-type distribution in this muscle of siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), and human to demonstrate the potential influence of visual and auditory communication on muscle physiology. In sum, ecomorphologists should be aware of social selective pressures as well as ecological ones, and that observed morphology might reflect a compromise between the demands of the physical and the social environments. © 2016 Anatomical Society.

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine.

PubMed

Gurven, Michael; Stieglitz, Jonathan; Trumble, Benjamin; Blackwell, Aaron D; Beheim, Bret; Davis, Helen; Hooper, Paul; Kaplan, Hillard

2017-04-01

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project, an integrated bio-behavioral study of the human life course, is designed to test competing hypotheses of human life-history evolution. One aim is to understand the bidirectional connections between life history and social behavior in a high-fertility, kin-based context lacking amenities of modern urban life (e.g. sanitation, banks, electricity). Another aim is to understand how a high pathogen burden influences health and well-being during development and adulthood. A third aim addresses how modernization shapes human life histories and sociality. Here we outline the project's goals, history, and main findings since its inception in 2002. We reflect on the implications of current findings and highlight the need for more coordinated ethnographic and biomedical study of contemporary nonindustrial populations to address broad questions that can situate evolutionary anthropology in a key position within the social and life sciences. © 2017 The Authors Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Common polymorphism in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with human social recognition skills

PubMed Central

Skuse, David H.; Lori, Adriana; Cubells, Joseph F.; Lee, Irene; Conneely, Karen N.; Puura, Kaija; Lehtimäki, Terho; Binder, Elisabeth B.; Young, Larry J.

2014-01-01

The neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin are evolutionarily conserved regulators of social perception and behavior. Evidence is building that they are critically involved in the development of social recognition skills within rodent species, primates, and humans. We investigated whether common polymorphisms in the genes encoding the oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptors influence social memory for faces. Our sample comprised 198 families, from the United Kingdom and Finland, in whom a single child had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Previous research has shown that impaired social perception, characteristic of autism, extends to the first-degree relatives of autistic individuals, implying heritable risk. Assessments of face recognition memory, discrimination of facial emotions, and direction of gaze detection were standardized for age (7–60 y) and sex. A common SNP in the oxytocin receptor (rs237887) was strongly associated with recognition memory in combined probands, parents, and siblings after correction for multiple comparisons. Homozygotes for the ancestral A allele had impairments in the range −0.6 to −1.15 SD scores, irrespective of their diagnostic status. Our findings imply that a critical role for the oxytocin system in social recognition has been conserved across perceptual boundaries through evolution, from olfaction in rodents to visual memory in humans. PMID:24367110

Common polymorphism in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with human social recognition skills.

PubMed

Skuse, David H; Lori, Adriana; Cubells, Joseph F; Lee, Irene; Conneely, Karen N; Puura, Kaija; Lehtimäki, Terho; Binder, Elisabeth B; Young, Larry J

2014-02-04

The neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin are evolutionarily conserved regulators of social perception and behavior. Evidence is building that they are critically involved in the development of social recognition skills within rodent species, primates, and humans. We investigated whether common polymorphisms in the genes encoding the oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptors influence social memory for faces. Our sample comprised 198 families, from the United Kingdom and Finland, in whom a single child had been diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Previous research has shown that impaired social perception, characteristic of autism, extends to the first-degree relatives of autistic individuals, implying heritable risk. Assessments of face recognition memory, discrimination of facial emotions, and direction of gaze detection were standardized for age (7-60 y) and sex. A common SNP in the oxytocin receptor (rs237887) was strongly associated with recognition memory in combined probands, parents, and siblings after correction for multiple comparisons. Homozygotes for the ancestral A allele had impairments in the range -0.6 to -1.15 SD scores, irrespective of their diagnostic status. Our findings imply that a critical role for the oxytocin system in social recognition has been conserved across perceptual boundaries through evolution, from olfaction in rodents to visual memory in humans.

The burden of proof for a cultural group selection account.

PubMed

Barclay, Pat; Krupp, Daniel Brian

2016-01-01

Richerson et al. establish cultural group selection as a plausible force in human social evolution. However, they do not demonstrate its causal precedence for any trait, let alone its "essentialness." To do so, they must show that a particular group trait was caused by cultural transmission, and directly caused differences in group fitness.

Malay Digital Folklore: Using Multimedia to Educate Children through Storytelling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abidin, Mohd Izani Zainal; Razak, Aishah Abd.

2003-01-01

In the early centuries of human evolution, the information to express cultures, social contents, ideas, values, and the society itself were primarily developed by means of expression. This information was represented in the form of classical, signs, figures, traditional manuscripts and performing arts. On the other hand, it becomes less important…

How Cultural Evolutionary Theory Can Inform Social Psychology and Vice Versa

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mesoudi, Alex

2009-01-01

Cultural evolutionary theory is an interdisciplinary field in which human culture is viewed as a Darwinian process of variation, competition, and inheritance, and the tools, methods, and theories developed by evolutionary biologists to study genetic evolution are adapted to study cultural change. It is argued here that an integration of the…

Community evolution mining and analysis in social network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Hongtao; Tian, Yuan; Liu, Xueyan; Jian, Jie

2017-03-01

With the development of digital and network technology, various social platforms emerge. These social platforms have greatly facilitated access to information, attracting more and more users. They use these social platforms every day to work, study and communicate, so every moment social platforms are generating massive amounts of data. These data can often be modeled as complex networks, making large-scale social network analysis possible. In this paper, the existing evolution classification model of community has been improved based on community evolution relationship over time in dynamic social network, and the Evolution-Tree structure is proposed which can show the whole life cycle of the community more clearly. The comparative test result shows that the improved model can excavate the evolution relationship of the community well.

From fish to fashion: experimental and theoretical insights into the evolution of culture

PubMed Central

Laland, K. N.; Atton, N.; Webster, M. M.

2011-01-01

Recent years have witnessed a re-evaluation of the cognitive capabilities of fishes, including with respect to social learning. Indeed, some of the best experimental evidence for animal traditions can be found in fishes. Laboratory experimental studies reveal that many fishes acquire dietary, food site and mating preferences, predator recognition and avoidance behaviour, and learn pathways, through copying1 other fishes. Concentrating on foraging behaviour, we will present the findings of laboratory experiments that reveal social learning, behavioural innovation, the diffusion of novel behaviour through populations and traditional use of food sites. Further studies reveal surprisingly complex social learning strategies deployed by sticklebacks. We will go on to place these observations of fish in a phylogenetic context, describing in which respects the learning and traditionality of fish are similar to, and differ from, that observed in other animals. We end by drawing on theoretical insights to suggest processes that may have played important roles in the evolution of the human cultural capability. PMID:21357218

Oxytocin, testosterone, and human social cognition.

PubMed

Crespi, Bernard J

2016-05-01

I describe an integrative social-evolutionary model for the adaptive significance of the human oxytocinergic system. The model is based on a role for this hormone in the generation and maintenance of social familiarity and affiliation across five homologous, functionally similar, and sequentially co-opted contexts: mothers with offspring, female and male mates, kin groups, individuals with reciprocity partners, and individuals within cooperating and competing social groups defined by culture. In each situation, oxytocin motivates, mediates and rewards the cognitive and behavioural processes that underlie the formation and dynamics of a more or less stable social group, and promotes a relationship between two or more individuals. Such relationships may be positive (eliciting neurological reward, reducing anxiety and thus indicating fitness-enhancing effects), or negative (increasing anxiety and distress, and thus motivating attempts to alleviate a problematic, fitness-reducing social situation). I also present evidence that testosterone exhibits opposite effects from oxytocin on diverse aspects of cognition and behaviour, most generally by favouring self-oriented, asocial and antisocial behaviours. I apply this model for effects of oxytocin and testosterone to understanding human psychological disorders centrally involving social behaviour. Reduced oxytocin and higher testosterone levels have been associated with under-developed social cognition, especially in autism. By contrast, some combination of oxytocin increased above normal levels, and lower testosterone, has been reported in a notable number of studies of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and, in some cases, higher oxytocin involves maladaptively 'hyper-developed' social cognition in these conditions. This pattern of findings suggests that human social cognition and behaviour are structured, in part, by joint and opposing effects of oxytocin and testosterone, and that extremes of such joint effects partially mediate risks and phenotypes of autism and psychotic-affective conditions. These considerations have direct implications for the development of therapies for alleviating disorders of social cognition, and for understanding how such disorders are associated with the evolution of human cognitive-affective architecture. © 2015 Cambridge Philosophical Society.

Perceived consequences of evolution: College students perceive negative personal and social impact in evolutionary theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brem, Sarah K.; Ranney, Michael; Schindel, Jennifer

2003-03-01

Evolutionary science has consequences for individuals and society, ranging from the way we interpret human behavior to our notions of spirituality and the purpose of our existence. Popular portrayals of evolution depict a paradoxical theory, a source of knowledge and human connections, but also a threat to our humanity and freedom. Using quantitative and qualitative methodology, we examined how college-educated adults (n = 135) from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds perceive the impact of evolutionary theory on individuals and society. We identified a continuum of perspectives, ranging from strong creationist to strong evolutionist. Using the model of knowledge as an ecology (Demastes, Good, & Peebles, Science Education, 79, 637-666, 1995; Nardi & O'Day, Information ecologies: Using technology with heart, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999), we examined the relationships among participants' beliefs, their perceptions regarding the social and personal impact of evolutionary theory, their prior exposure to and knowledge of evolutionary theory, and their opinions regarding the teaching of evolution. Evolutionists and creationists differed in their prior exposure to evolutionary theory, and their opinions about some aspects of teaching, but showed striking similarities regarding perceived impact. All groups viewed the consequences of accepting evolutionary principles in a way that might be considered undesirable: increased selfishness and racism, decreased spirituality, and a decreased sense of purpose and self-determination. From a science education perspective, this one-sided interpretation is troublesome because it runs counter to the available evidence and theories in evolutionary science, and we consider ways of fostering more balanced presentation and appraisal of evolutionary theory.

Hydrofutures and Hydromorphology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lall, U.

2006-12-01

Hydromorphology refers to the science of hydrologic evolution. It represents a synthesis of planetary and social sciences that collectively determine the spatial and temporal evolution of planetary water. At present human actions directly or indirectly play a major role in determining hydrofutures. Man's role in changing water trajectories is now clear at both local and planetary scales. Changing climate leads to changing ecology and changing water patterns. Changing water conditions may in turn regulate (limit anthropogenic climate change) or adversely impact (e.g., runaway greenhouse) climate, as well as human habitation and water use patterns. This talk will address the problem of the prediction of future hydrologic conditions in the different media and reservoirs of the planet, from the integrated perspective indicated above. Key examples of the mechanisms of hydrologic change, that relate to climate and ecological dyanmics, and to human activity are identified as well. A theoretical framework for researching this multi-attribute dynamical system from a water centric perspective is advocated as a critical need for planetary science and human welfare.

Coevolution of cultural intelligence, extended life history, sociality, and brain size in primates

PubMed Central

Street, Sally E.; Navarrete, Ana F.; Laland, Kevin N.

2017-01-01

Explanations for primate brain expansion and the evolution of human cognition and culture remain contentious despite extensive research. While multiple comparative analyses have investigated variation in brain size across primate species, very few have addressed why primates vary in how much they use social learning. Here, we evaluate the hypothesis that the enhanced reliance on socially transmitted behavior observed in some primates has coevolved with enlarged brains, complex sociality, and extended lifespans. Using recently developed phylogenetic comparative methods we show that, across primate species, a measure of social learning proclivity increases with absolute and relative brain volume, longevity (specifically reproductive lifespan), and social group size, correcting for research effort. We also confirm relationships of absolute and relative brain volume with longevity (both juvenile period and reproductive lifespan) and social group size, although longevity is generally the stronger predictor. Relationships between social learning, brain volume, and longevity remain when controlling for maternal investment and are therefore not simply explained as a by-product of the generally slower life history expected for larger brained species. Our findings suggest that both brain expansion and high reliance on culturally transmitted behavior coevolved with sociality and extended lifespan in primates. This coevolution is consistent with the hypothesis that the evolution of large brains, sociality, and long lifespans has promoted reliance on culture, with reliance on culture in turn driving further increases in brain volume, cognitive abilities, and lifespans in some primate lineages. PMID:28739950

Evolution of helping and harming in heterogeneous groups.

PubMed

Rodrigues, António M M; Gardner, Andy

2013-08-01

Social groups are often composed of individuals who differ in many respects. Theoretical studies on the evolution of helping and harming behaviors have largely focused upon genetic differences between individuals. However, nongenetic variation between group members is widespread in natural populations, and may mediate differences in individuals' social behavior. Here, we develop a framework to study how variation in individual quality mediates the evolution of unconditional and conditional social traits. We investigate the scope for the evolution of social traits that are conditional on the quality of the actor and/or recipients. We find that asymmetries in individual quality can lead to the evolution of plastic traits with different individuals expressing helping and harming traits within the same group. In this context, population viscosity can mediate the evolution of social traits, and local competition can promote both helping and harming behaviors. Furthermore, asymmetries in individual quality can lead to the evolution of competition-like traits between clonal individuals. Overall, we highlight the importance of asymmetries in individual quality, including differences in reproductive value and the ability to engage in successful social interactions, in mediating the evolution of helping and harming behaviors. © 2013 The Author(s). Evolution © 2013 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

The evolution of fairness in a biological market.

PubMed

André, Jean-Baptiste; Baumard, Nicolas

2011-05-01

Human beings universally express a concern for the fairness of social interactions, and it remains an open question that which ultimate factors led to the evolution of this preference. Here, we present a model accounting for the evolution of fairness on the basis of individual selection alone. We consider a simple social interaction based on the Dictator Game. Two individuals, a "proposer" and a "responder," have an opportunity to split a resource. When they have no choice but to interact together, the most powerful (here the proposer) reaps all the profits and fairness cannot evolve. Partner choice is the key lever to overcome this difficulty. Rather than just two individuals, we consider a population composed of two classes of individuals (either proposers or responders), and we allow the responders to choose their partner. In such a "biological market," fairness evolves as an "equilibrium price," resulting from an ecological equivalent of the law of supply and demand. If a class is disadvantaged by the chosen resource partition (i.e., if it frequently receives less than half of the resource), it is outcompeted by the other one, and automatically becomes rarer. This rarity grants it an advantage on the market, which yields in turn to the evolution of a more favorable partition. Splitting the resource into two identical halves, or more generally in a way that equalizes the payoffs of the two classes, is then the only evolutionarily stable outcome. Beyond human fairness, this mechanism also opens up new ways of explaining the distribution of benefits in many mutualistic interactions. No Claim to original U.S. government works.

Colloquium paper: adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence.

PubMed

Cosmides, Leda; Barrett, H Clark; Tooby, John

2010-05-11

Blank-slate theories of human intelligence propose that reasoning is carried out by general-purpose operations applied uniformly across contents. An evolutionary approach implies a radically different model of human intelligence. The task demands of different adaptive problems select for functionally specialized problem-solving strategies, unleashing massive increases in problem-solving power for ancestrally recurrent adaptive problems. Because exchange can evolve only if cooperators can detect cheaters, we hypothesized that the human mind would be equipped with a neurocognitive system specialized for reasoning about social exchange. Whereas humans perform poorly when asked to detect violations of most conditional rules, we predicted and found a dramatic spike in performance when the rule specifies an exchange and violations correspond to cheating. According to critics, people's uncanny accuracy at detecting violations of social exchange rules does not reflect a cheater detection mechanism, but extends instead to all rules regulating when actions are permitted (deontic conditionals). Here we report experimental tests that falsify these theories by demonstrating that deontic rules as a class do not elicit the search for violations. We show that the cheater detection system functions with pinpoint accuracy, searching for violations of social exchange rules only when these are likely to reveal the presence of someone who intends to cheat. It does not search for violations of social exchange rules when these are accidental, when they do not benefit the violator, or when the situation would make cheating difficult.

Adaptive specializations, social exchange, and the evolution of human intelligence

PubMed Central

Cosmides, Leda; Barrett, H. Clark; Tooby, John

2010-01-01

Blank-slate theories of human intelligence propose that reasoning is carried out by general-purpose operations applied uniformly across contents. An evolutionary approach implies a radically different model of human intelligence. The task demands of different adaptive problems select for functionally specialized problem-solving strategies, unleashing massive increases in problem-solving power for ancestrally recurrent adaptive problems. Because exchange can evolve only if cooperators can detect cheaters, we hypothesized that the human mind would be equipped with a neurocognitive system specialized for reasoning about social exchange. Whereas humans perform poorly when asked to detect violations of most conditional rules, we predicted and found a dramatic spike in performance when the rule specifies an exchange and violations correspond to cheating. According to critics, people's uncanny accuracy at detecting violations of social exchange rules does not reflect a cheater detection mechanism, but extends instead to all rules regulating when actions are permitted (deontic conditionals). Here we report experimental tests that falsify these theories by demonstrating that deontic rules as a class do not elicit the search for violations. We show that the cheater detection system functions with pinpoint accuracy, searching for violations of social exchange rules only when these are likely to reveal the presence of someone who intends to cheat. It does not search for violations of social exchange rules when these are accidental, when they do not benefit the violator, or when the situation would make cheating difficult. PMID:20445099

Holistic Darwinism: the new evolutionary paradigm and some implications for political science.

PubMed

Corning, Peter A

2008-03-01

Holistic Darwinism is a candidate name for a major paradigm shift that is currently underway in evolutionary biology and related disciplines. Important developments include (1) a growing appreciation for the fact that evolution is a multilevel process, from genes to ecosystems, and that interdependent coevolution is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature; (2) a revitalization of group selection theory, which was banned (prematurely) from evolutionary biology over 30 years ago (groups may in fact be important evolutionary units); (3) a growing respect for the fact that the genome is not a "bean bag" (in biologist Ernst Mayr's caricature), much less a gladiatorial arena for competing selfish genes, but a complex, interdependent, cooperating system; (4) an increased recognition that symbiosis is an important phenomenon in nature and that symbiogenesis is a major source of innovation in evolution; (5) an array of new, more advanced game theory models, which support the growing evidence that cooperation is commonplace in nature and not a rare exception; (6) new research and theoretical work that stresses the role of nurture in evolution, including developmental processes, phenotypic plasticity, social information transfer (culture), and especially the role of behavioral innovations as pacemakers of evolutionary change (e.g., niche construction theory, which is concerned with the active role of organisms in shaping the evolutionary process, and gene-culture coevolution theory, which relates especially to the dynamics of human evolution); (7) and, not least, a broad effort to account for the evolution of biological complexity--from major transition theory to the "Synergism Hypothesis." Here I will briefly review these developments and will present a case for the proposition that this paradigm shift has profound implications for the social sciences, including specifically political theory, economic theory, and political science as a discipline. Interdependent superorganisms, it turns out, have played a major role in evolution--from eukaryotes to complex human societies.

A comparison of biological and cultural evolution.

PubMed

Portin, Petter

2015-03-01

This review begins with a definition of biological evolution and a description of its general principles. This is followed by a presentation of the biological basis of culture, specifically the concept of social selection. Further, conditions for cultural evolution are proposed, including a suggestion for language being the cultural replicator corresponding to the concept of the gene in biological evolution. Principles of cultural evolution are put forward and compared to the principles of biological evolution. Special emphasis is laid on the principle of selection in cultural evolution, including presentation of the concept of cultural fitness. The importance of language as a necessary condition for cultural evolution is stressed. Subsequently, prime differences between biological and cultural evolution are presented, followed by a discussion on interaction of our genome and our culture. The review aims at contributing to the present discussion concerning the modern development of the general theory of evolution, for example by giving a tentative formulation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for cultural evolution, and proposing that human creativity and mind reading or theory of mind are motors specific for it. The paper ends with the notion of the still ongoing coevolution of genes and culture.

Fast Distributed Dynamics of Semantic Networks via Social Media.

PubMed

Carrillo, Facundo; Cecchi, Guillermo A; Sigman, Mariano; Slezak, Diego Fernández

2015-01-01

We investigate the dynamics of semantic organization using social media, a collective expression of human thought. We propose a novel, time-dependent semantic similarity measure (TSS), based on the social network Twitter. We show that TSS is consistent with static measures of similarity but provides high temporal resolution for the identification of real-world events and induced changes in the distributed structure of semantic relationships across the entire lexicon. Using TSS, we measured the evolution of a concept and its movement along the semantic neighborhood, driven by specific news/events. Finally, we showed that particular events may trigger a temporary reorganization of elements in the semantic network.

Fast Distributed Dynamics of Semantic Networks via Social Media

PubMed Central

Carrillo, Facundo; Cecchi, Guillermo A.; Sigman, Mariano; Fernández Slezak, Diego

2015-01-01

We investigate the dynamics of semantic organization using social media, a collective expression of human thought. We propose a novel, time-dependent semantic similarity measure (TSS), based on the social network Twitter. We show that TSS is consistent with static measures of similarity but provides high temporal resolution for the identification of real-world events and induced changes in the distributed structure of semantic relationships across the entire lexicon. Using TSS, we measured the evolution of a concept and its movement along the semantic neighborhood, driven by specific news/events. Finally, we showed that particular events may trigger a temporary reorganization of elements in the semantic network. PMID:26074953

Conceptualizing the autism spectrum in terms of natural selection and behavioral ecology: the solitary forager hypothesis.

PubMed

Reser, Jared Edward

2011-05-21

This article reviews etiological and comparative evidence supporting the hypothesis that some genes associated with the autism spectrum were naturally selected and represent the adaptive benefits of being cognitively suited for solitary foraging. People on the autism spectrum are conceptualized here as ecologically competent individuals that could have been adept at learning and implementing hunting and gathering skills in the ancestral environment. Upon independence from their mothers, individuals on the autism spectrum may have been psychologically predisposed toward a different life-history strategy, common among mammals and even some primates, to hunt and gather primarily on their own. Many of the behavioral and cognitive tendencies that autistic individuals exhibit are viewed here as adaptations that would have complemented a solitary lifestyle. For example, the obsessive, repetitive and systemizing tendencies in autism, which can be mistakenly applied toward activities such as block stacking today, may have been focused by hunger and thirst toward successful food procurement in the ancestral past. Both solitary mammals and autistic individuals are low on measures of gregariousness, socialization, direct gazing, eye contact, facial expression, facial recognition, emotional engagement, affiliative need and other social behaviors. The evolution of the neurological tendencies in solitary species that predispose them toward being introverted and reclusive may hold important clues for the evolution of the autism spectrum and the natural selection of autism genes. Solitary animals are thought to eschew unnecessary social contact as part of a foraging strategy often due to scarcity and wide dispersal of food in their native environments. It is thought that the human ancestral environment was often nutritionally sparse as well, and this may have driven human parties to periodically disband. Inconsistencies in group size must have led to inconsistencies in the manner in which natural selection fashioned the social minds of humans, which in turn may well be responsible for the large variation in social abilities seen in human populations. This article emphasizes that individuals on the autism spectrum may have only been partially solitary, that natural selection may have only favored subclinical autistic traits and that the most severe cases of autism may be due to assortative mating.

Possible evolutionary and developmental mechanisms of mental time travel (and implications for autism).

PubMed

Allman, Melissa J; Mareschal, Denis

2016-04-01

Through an interdisciplinary perspective integrating behavior, neurobiology and evolution, we present a cognitive framework underpinning the development of ' time in mind ' in animals (phylogeny) and humans (ontogeny). We distinguish between conscious processing of events immediately available (in the present) to those that are hypothetical (in the past or future). The former is present in animals and neonates, whereas the latter emerges later in phylogeny and ontogeny (around 4 years of age in humans) and is related to the development of episodic memory (expanded working memory, complex actions, social-cognitive abilities). We suggest that forms of temporal representation that rely upon current bodily sensation across time, space, and action (through embodied interoceptive and motor systems) may be critical causal factors for the evolution of mental time travel.

Neuronal populations in the basolateral nuclei of the amygdala are differentially increased in humans compared with apes: a stereological study.

PubMed

Barger, Nicole; Stefanacci, Lisa; Schumann, Cynthia M; Sherwood, Chet C; Annese, Jacopo; Allman, John M; Buckwalter, Joseph A; Hof, Patrick R; Semendeferi, Katerina

2012-09-01

In human and nonhuman primates, the amygdala is known to play critical roles in emotional and social behavior. Anatomically, individual amygdaloid nuclei are connected with many neural systems that are either differentially expanded or conserved over the course of primate evolution. To address amygdala evolution in humans and our closest living relatives, the apes, we used design-based stereological methods to obtain neuron counts for the amygdala and each of four major amygdaloid nuclei (the lateral, basal, accessory basal, and central nuclei) in humans, all great ape species, lesser apes, and one monkey species. Our goal was to determine whether there were significant differences in the number or percent of neurons distributed to individual nuclei among species. Additionally, regression analyses were performed on independent contrast data to determine whether any individual species deviated from allometric trends. There were two major findings. In humans, the lateral nucleus contained the highest number of neurons in the amygdala, whereas in apes the basal nucleus contained the highest number of neurons. Additionally, the human lateral nucleus contained 59% more neurons than predicted by allometric regressions on nonhuman primate data. Based on the largest sample ever analyzed in a comparative study of the hominoid amygdala, our findings suggest that an emphasis on the lateral nucleus is the main characteristic of amygdala specialization over the course of human evolution. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Evolutionary accounts of human behavioural diversity

PubMed Central

Brown, Gillian R.; Dickins, Thomas E.; Sear, Rebecca; Laland, Kevin N.

2011-01-01

Human beings persist in an extraordinary range of ecological settings, in the process exhibiting enormous behavioural diversity, both within and between populations. People vary in their social, mating and parental behaviour and have diverse and elaborate beliefs, traditions, norms and institutions. The aim of this theme issue is to ask whether, and how, evolutionary theory can help us to understand this diversity. In this introductory article, we provide a background to the debate surrounding how best to understand behavioural diversity using evolutionary models of human behaviour. In particular, we examine how diversity has been viewed by the main subdisciplines within the human evolutionary behavioural sciences, focusing in particular on the human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology and cultural evolution approaches. In addition to differences in focus and methodology, these subdisciplines have traditionally varied in the emphasis placed on human universals, ecological factors and socially learned behaviour, and on how they have addressed the issue of genetic variation. We reaffirm that evolutionary theory provides an essential framework for understanding behavioural diversity within and between human populations, but argue that greater integration between the subfields is critical to developing a satisfactory understanding of diversity. PMID:21199836

Donors to charity gain in both indirect reciprocity and political reputation.

PubMed Central

Milinski, Manfred; Semmann, Dirk; Krambeck, Hans-Jürgen

2002-01-01

Darwinian evolution can explain human cooperative behaviour among non-kin by either direct or indirect reciprocity. In the latter case one does not expect a return for an altruistic act from the recipient as with direct reciprocity, but from another member of the social group. However, the widespread human behaviour of donating to poor people outside the social group, for example, to charity organizations, that are unlikely to reciprocate indirectly and thus are equivalent to defectors in the game is still an evolutionary puzzle. Here we show experimentally that donations made in public to a well-known relief organization resulted both in increased income (that the donors received from the members of their group) and in enhanced political reputation (they were elected to represent the interests of their group). Donations may thus function as an honest signal for one's social reliability. PMID:12028769

Social Learning and Culture in Child and Chimpanzee.

PubMed

Whiten, Andrew

2017-01-03

A few decades ago, we knew next to nothing about the behavior of our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, but long-term field studies have since revealed an undreamed-of richness in the diversity of their cultural traditions across Africa. These discoveries have been complemented by a substantial suite of experimental studies, now bridging to the wild through field experiments. These field and experimental studies, particularly those in which direct chimpanzee-child comparisons have been made, delineate a growing set of commonalities between the phenomena of social learning and culture in the lives of chimpanzees and humans. These commonalities in social learning inform our understanding of the evolutionary roots of the cultural propensities the species share. At the same time, such comparisons throw into clearer relief the unique features of the distinctive human capacity for cumulative cultural evolution, and new research has begun to probe the key psychological attributes that may explain it.

Major Hurdles for the Evolution of Sociality.

PubMed

Korb, Judith; Heinze, Jürgen

2016-01-01

Why do most animals live solitarily, while complex social life is restricted to a few cooperatively breeding vertebrates and social insects? Here, we synthesize concepts and theories in social evolution and discuss its underlying ecological causes. Social evolution can be partitioned into (a) formation of stable social groups, (b) evolution of helping, and (c) transition to a new evolutionary level. Stable social groups rarely evolve due to competition over food and/or reproduction. Food competition is overcome in social insects with central-place foraging or bonanza-type food resources, whereas competition over reproduction commonly occurs because staying individuals are rarely sterile. Hence, the evolution of helping is shaped by direct and indirect fitness options and helping is only altruism if it reduces the helper's direct fitness. The helper's capability to gain direct fitness also creates within-colony conflict. This prevents transition to a new evolutionary level.

Incorporating the Philosophical Dimension in Technology Education: A Case Study from Greece

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsirigotis, Georgios; Papadourakis, George M.; Karasavoglou, Anastasios; Hope, Erica

2010-01-01

Science and technology constitute very important parameters in social evolution. The unprecedented rapidity of their development since the last century, in combination with the absence of a philosophical approach and the presence in some cases of criminal usage, poses a danger for humanity and for the planet. In contrast to the classical…

Evolution of a Human Ecology Curriculum from Home Economics: A Proposal for High Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lunneborg, Patricia W.

Proposed is the development of an ecology curriculum at the secondary school level by home economics instructors in conjunction with teachers in biology, health, social science, etc. To combat the decline in enrollment in home economics and the complaint of irrelevance of traditional cooking and sewing courses, home economics teachers are urged to…

Quality Education for Social Development and Human Well-Being

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moradi Sheykhjan, Tohid

2015-01-01

Education as a phenomenon is rather complex which makes it difficult to define its quality. Definitions of quality must be open to change and evolution based on information, changing contexts, and new understandings of the nature of education's challenges. The main objective of the paper is to find out the significance of quality education for…

[Neurochemistry of impulsiveness and aggression].

PubMed

Vetulani, Jerzy

2013-01-01

Aggression is the most frequent social reaction among animals and men, and plays an important role in survival of the fittest. The change of social conditions in the course of development of human civilisation rendered some forms of aggression counter-adaptive, but the neurobiological mechanism of expression of aggression have not fundamentally changed in the last stages of human evolution. The two different kinds of aggression: emotional, serving mainly as a threat, and rational, predatory, serving for the attainment of goal in the most effective way, have different anatomical and neurobiological background and reciprocally inhibit each other. Aggression is modulated by several neurotransmitter and hormonal systems, of which the key role is seemingly played by testosterone, a hormone involved in domination behaviour, and serotonin, whose deficit results in increased impulsiveness.

Cultural hitchhiking and competition between patrilineal kin groups explain the post-Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck.

PubMed

Zeng, Tian Chen; Aw, Alan J; Feldman, Marcus W

2018-05-25

In human populations, changes in genetic variation are driven not only by genetic processes, but can also arise from cultural or social changes. An abrupt population bottleneck specific to human males has been inferred across several Old World (Africa, Europe, Asia) populations 5000-7000 BP. Here, bringing together anthropological theory, recent population genomic studies and mathematical models, we propose a sociocultural hypothesis, involving the formation of patrilineal kin groups and intergroup competition among these groups. Our analysis shows that this sociocultural hypothesis can explain the inference of a population bottleneck. We also show that our hypothesis is consistent with current findings from the archaeogenetics of Old World Eurasia, and is important for conceptions of cultural and social evolution in prehistory.

Comparison of the social systems of primates and feral horses: data from a newly established horse research site on Serra D'Arga, northern Portugal.

PubMed

Ringhofer, Monamie; Inoue, Sota; Mendonça, Renata S; Pereira, Carlos; Matsuzawa, Tetsuro; Hirata, Satoshi; Yamamoto, Shinya

2017-10-01

Horses are phylogenetically distant from primates, but considerable behavioral links exist between the two. The sociality of horses, characterized by group stability, is similar to that of primates, but different from that of many other ungulates. Although horses and primates are good models for exploring the evolution of societies in human and non-human animals, fewer studies have been conducted on the social system of horses than primates. Here, we investigated the social system of feral horses, particularly the determinant factors of single-male/multi-male group dichotomy, in light of hypotheses derived from studies of primate societies. Socioecological data from 26 groups comprising 208 feral horses on Serra D'Arga, northern Portugal suggest that these primate-based hypotheses cannot adequately explain the social system of horses. In view of the sympatric existence of multi- and single-male groups, and the frequent intergroup transfers and promiscuous mating of females with males of different groups, male-female relationships of horses appear to differ from those of polygynous primates.

The Nature of Culture: an eight-grade model for the evolution and expansion of cultural capacities in hominins and other animals.

PubMed

Haidle, Miriam Noël; Bolus, Michael; Collard, Mark; Conard, Nicholas; Garofoli, Duilio; Lombard, Marlize; Nowell, April; Tennie, Claudio; Whiten, Andrew

2015-07-20

Tracing the evolution of human culture through time is arguably one of the most controversial and complex scholarly endeavors, and a broad evolutionary analysis of how symbolic, linguistic, and cultural capacities emerged and developed in our species is lacking. Here we present a model that, in broad terms, aims to explain the evolution and portray the expansion of human cultural capacities (the EECC model), that can be used as a point of departure for further multidisciplinary discussion and more detailed investigation. The EECC model is designed to be flexible, and can be refined to accommodate future archaeological, paleoanthropological, genetic or evolutionary psychology/behavioral analyses and discoveries. Our proposed concept of cultural behavior differentiates between empirically traceable behavioral performances and behavioral capacities that are theoretical constructs. Based largely on archaeological data (the 'black box' that most directly opens up hominin cultural evolution), and on the extension of observable problem-solution distances, we identify eight grades of cultural capacity. Each of these grades is considered within evolutionary-biological and historical-social trajectories. Importantly, the model does not imply an inevitable progression, but focuses on expansion of cultural capacities based on the integration of earlier achievements. We conclude that there is not a single cultural capacity or a single set of abilities that enabled human culture; rather, several grades of cultural capacity in animals and hominins expanded during our evolution to shape who we are today.

[The moral behaviour in human an non-human primates].

PubMed

Rubia Vila, Francisco José

2004-01-01

The well-known ethologist and Nobel Price Konrad Lorenz said that, according to the evolution, the human mental capacities, and therefore the morality, ought to have had forerunner in the animals which have preceded us: he call them , i.e. forerunners of our reason. Recently, the social life of non human primates has been intensely studied with the conclusions that there are rules which can be considered as rudiments of a moral behaviour. The so-called , for instance, can be an advantage for others, but at the expense of those who practise it and this can be interpreted as a moral behaviour.

The Role of Ontogeny in the Evolution of Human Cooperation.

PubMed

Tomasello, Michael; Gonzalez-Cabrera, Ivan

2017-09-01

To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al. (2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673-92) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28-48), following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the key was early human infants' attempts to solicit care and attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context. Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our composite account accepts Hrdy's and Hawkes's contention that the extremely early emergence of human infants' cooperative skills suggests an important role for cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was transformed during evolution both by infants' cooperative skills "migrating up" in age and by adults' cooperative skills "migrating down" in age.

Mind the Gap: Appropriate Evolutionary Perspectives Toward the Integration of the Sciences and Humanities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heywood, Leslie L.; Garcia, Justin R.; Wilson, David Sloan

2010-05-01

Although Darwinism has gained a foothold in the social sciences, in the humanities, with a few exceptions, it is still largely rejected—not, as some would claim, because humanists are all radical poststructuralists who deny that material reality exists, but rather because, with notable exceptions, Darwinists who work within the humanities have adopted a trenchant “us against them,” in-group/out-group mentality that has done a good deal more harm than good. In order for evolution to be effectively taught as part of a humanistic approach to literature and art, a more productive, truly “two way” approach is necessary, and must do more than impose the scientific method on the humanities. When this kind of imposition occurs, the humanities are treated only as subject matter, thereby discounting historical and interpretive research that is invaluable to scientists and claims they might make in these areas. This paper claims that for evolution to function as a paradigm with true explanatory power across disciplines, scientifically oriented evolutionists need training in humanistic methodologies just as much as humanistically oriented evolutionists need training in the scientific method. Evolution, in this context, becomes not the paradigm that can explain everything from a scientific point of view but rather the beginnings of a conversation about lower and upper level questions, and how these questions might inform and enrich each other’s research.

A Coupled Modeling Framework of the Co-evolution of Humans and Water: Case Study of Tarim River Basin, Western China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, D.; Tian, F.; Lin, M.; Sivapalan, M.

2014-12-01

The complex interactions and feedbacks between humans and water are very essential issues but are poorly understood in the newly proposed discipline of socio-hydrology (Sivapalan et al., 2012). An exploratory model with the appropriate level of simplification can be valuable to improve our understanding of the co-evolution and self-organization of socio-hydrological systems driven by interactions and feedbacks operating at different scales. In this study, a simple coupled modeling framework for socio-hydrology co-evolution is developed for the Tarim River Basin in Western China, and is used to illustrate the explanatory power of such a model. The study area is the mainstream of the Tarim River, which is divided into two modeling units. The socio-hydrological system is composed of four parts, i.e., social sub-system, economic sub-system, ecological sub-system, and hydrological sub-system. In each modeling unit, four coupled ordinary differential equations are used to simulate the dynamics of the social sub-system represented by human population, the economic sub-system represented by irrigated crop area, the ecological sub-system represented by natural vegetation cover and the hydrological sub-system represented by stream discharge. The coupling and feedback processes of the four dominant sub-systems (and correspondingly four state variables) are integrated into several internal system characteristics interactively and jointly determined by themselves and by other coupled systems. For example, the stream discharge is coupled to the irrigated crop area by the colonization rate and mortality rate of the irrigated crop area in the upper reach and the irrigated area is coupled to stream discharge through irrigation water consumption. The co-evolution of the Tarim socio-hydrological system is then analyzed within this modeling framework to gain insights into the overall system dynamics and its sensitivity to the external drivers and internal system variables. In the modeling framework, the state of each subsystem is holistically described by one state variable and the framework is flexible enough to comprise more processes and constitutive relationships if they are needed to illustrate the interaction and feedback mechanisms of the human-water system.

Archeological insights into hominin cognitive evolution.

PubMed

Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L

2016-07-01

How did the human mind evolve? How and when did we come to think in the ways we do? The last thirty years have seen an explosion in research related to the brain and cognition. This research has encompassed a range of biological and social sciences, from epigenetics and cognitive neuroscience to social and developmental psychology. Following naturally on this efflorescence has been a heightened interest in the evolution of the brain and cognition. Evolutionary scholars, including paleoanthropologists, have deployed the standard array of evolutionary methods. Ethological and experimental evidence has added significantly to our understanding of nonhuman brains and cognition, especially those of nonhuman primates. Studies of fossil brains through endocasts and sophisticated imaging techniques have revealed evolutionary changes in gross neural anatomy. Psychologists have also gotten into the game through application of reverse engineering to experimentally based descriptions of cognitive functions. For hominin evolution, there is another rich source of evidence of cognition, the archeological record. Using the methods of Paleolithic archeology and the theories and models of cognitive science, evolutionary cognitive archeology documents developments in the hominin mind that would otherwise be inaccessible. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Collective action and the collaborative brain

PubMed Central

Gavrilets, Sergey

2015-01-01

Humans are unique both in their cognitive abilities and in the extent of cooperation in large groups of unrelated individuals. How our species evolved high intelligence in spite of various costs of having a large brain is perplexing. Equally puzzling is how our ancestors managed to overcome the collective action problem and evolve strong innate preferences for cooperative behaviour. Here, I theoretically study the evolution of social-cognitive competencies as driven by selection emerging from the need to produce public goods in games against nature or in direct competition with other groups. I use collaborative ability in collective actions as a proxy for social-cognitive competencies. My results suggest that collaborative ability is more likely to evolve first by between-group conflicts and then later be utilized and improved in games against nature. If collaborative abilities remain low, the species is predicted to become genetically dimorphic with a small proportion of individuals contributing to public goods and the rest free-riding. Evolution of collaborative ability creates conditions for the subsequent evolution of collaborative communication and cultural learning. PMID:25551149

Illuminating the dark matter of social neuroscience: Considering the problem of social interaction from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives.

PubMed

Przyrembel, Marisa; Smallwood, Jonathan; Pauen, Michael; Singer, Tania

2012-01-01

Successful human social interaction depends on our capacity to understand other people's mental states and to anticipate how they will react to our actions. Despite its importance to the human condition, the exact mechanisms underlying our ability to understand another's actions, feelings, and thoughts are still a matter of conjecture. Here, we consider this problem from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives. In a critical review, we demonstrate that attempts to draw parallels across these complementary disciplines is premature: The second-person perspective does not map directly to Interaction or Simulation theories, online social cognition, or shared neural network accounts underlying action observation or empathy. Nor does the third-person perspective map onto Theory-Theory (TT), offline social cognition, or the neural networks that support Theory of Mind (ToM). Moreover, we argue that important qualities of social interaction emerge through the reciprocal interplay of two independent agents whose unpredictable behavior requires that models of their partner's internal state be continually updated. This analysis draws attention to the need for paradigms in social neuroscience that allow two individuals to interact in a spontaneous and natural manner and to adapt their behavior and cognitions in a response contingent fashion due to the inherent unpredictability in another person's behavior. Even if such paradigms were implemented, it is possible that the specific neural correlates supporting such reciprocal interaction would not reflect computation unique to social interaction but rather the use of basic cognitive and emotional processes combined in a unique manner. Finally, we argue that given the crucial role of social interaction in human evolution, ontogeny, and every-day social life, a more theoretically and methodologically nuanced approach to the study of real social interaction will nevertheless help the field of social cognition to evolve.

Evolution of cooperation under social pressure in multiplex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pereda, María

2016-09-01

In this work, we aim to contribute to the understanding of human prosocial behavior by studying the influence that a particular form of social pressure, "being watched," has on the evolution of cooperative behavior. We study how cooperation emerges in multiplex complex topologies by analyzing a particular bidirectionally coupled dynamics on top of a two-layer multiplex network (duplex). The coupled dynamics appears between the prisoner's dilemma game in a network and a threshold cascade model in the other. The threshold model is intended to abstract the behavior of a network of vigilant nodes that impose the pressure of being observed altering hence the temptation to defect of the dilemma. Cooperation or defection in the game also affects the state of a node of being vigilant. We analyze these processes on different duplex networks structures and assess the influence of the topology, average degree and correlated multiplexity, on the outcome of cooperation. Interestingly, we find that the social pressure of vigilance may impact cooperation positively or negatively, depending on the duplex structure, specifically the degree correlations between layers is determinant. Our results give further quantitative insights in the promotion of cooperation under social pressure.

The magnitude of innovation and its evolution in social animals.

PubMed

Arbilly, Michal; Laland, Kevin N

2017-02-08

Innovative behaviour in animals, ranging from invertebrates to humans, is increasingly recognized as an important topic for investigation by behavioural researchers. However, what constitutes an innovation remains controversial, and difficult to quantify. Drawing on a broad definition whereby any behaviour with a new component to it is an innovation, we propose a quantitative measure, which we call the magnitude of innovation , to describe the extent to which an innovative behaviour is novel. This allows us to distinguish between innovations that are a slight change to existing behaviours (low magnitude), and innovations that are substantially different (high magnitude). Using mathematical modelling and evolutionary computer simulations, we explored how aspects of social interaction, cognition and natural selection affect the frequency and magnitude of innovation. We show that high-magnitude innovations are likely to arise regularly even if the frequency of innovation is low, as long as this frequency is relatively constant, and that the selectivity of social learning and the existence of social rewards, such as prestige and royalties, are crucial for innovative behaviour to evolve. We suggest that consideration of the magnitude of innovation may prove a useful tool in the study of the evolution of cognition and of culture. © 2017 The Author(s).

The magnitude of innovation and its evolution in social animals

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Innovative behaviour in animals, ranging from invertebrates to humans, is increasingly recognized as an important topic for investigation by behavioural researchers. However, what constitutes an innovation remains controversial, and difficult to quantify. Drawing on a broad definition whereby any behaviour with a new component to it is an innovation, we propose a quantitative measure, which we call the magnitude of innovation, to describe the extent to which an innovative behaviour is novel. This allows us to distinguish between innovations that are a slight change to existing behaviours (low magnitude), and innovations that are substantially different (high magnitude). Using mathematical modelling and evolutionary computer simulations, we explored how aspects of social interaction, cognition and natural selection affect the frequency and magnitude of innovation. We show that high-magnitude innovations are likely to arise regularly even if the frequency of innovation is low, as long as this frequency is relatively constant, and that the selectivity of social learning and the existence of social rewards, such as prestige and royalties, are crucial for innovative behaviour to evolve. We suggest that consideration of the magnitude of innovation may prove a useful tool in the study of the evolution of cognition and of culture. PMID:28179515

Evolution of cooperation under social pressure in multiplex networks.

PubMed

Pereda, María

2016-09-01

In this work, we aim to contribute to the understanding of human prosocial behavior by studying the influence that a particular form of social pressure, "being watched," has on the evolution of cooperative behavior. We study how cooperation emerges in multiplex complex topologies by analyzing a particular bidirectionally coupled dynamics on top of a two-layer multiplex network (duplex). The coupled dynamics appears between the prisoner's dilemma game in a network and a threshold cascade model in the other. The threshold model is intended to abstract the behavior of a network of vigilant nodes that impose the pressure of being observed altering hence the temptation to defect of the dilemma. Cooperation or defection in the game also affects the state of a node of being vigilant. We analyze these processes on different duplex networks structures and assess the influence of the topology, average degree and correlated multiplexity, on the outcome of cooperation. Interestingly, we find that the social pressure of vigilance may impact cooperation positively or negatively, depending on the duplex structure, specifically the degree correlations between layers is determinant. Our results give further quantitative insights in the promotion of cooperation under social pressure.

Is sociality required for the evolution of communicative complexity? Evidence weighed against alternative hypotheses in diverse taxonomic groups

PubMed Central

Ord, Terry J.; Garcia-Porta, Joan

2012-01-01

Complex social communication is expected to evolve whenever animals engage in many and varied social interactions; that is, sociality should promote communicative complexity. Yet, informal comparisons among phylogenetically independent taxonomic groups seem to cast doubt on the putative role of social factors in the evolution of complex communication. Here, we provide a formal test of the sociality hypothesis alongside alternative explanations for the evolution of communicative complexity. We compiled data documenting variations in signal complexity among closely related species for several case study groups—ants, frogs, lizards and birds—and used new phylogenetic methods to investigate the factors underlying communication evolution. Social factors were only implicated in the evolution of complex visual signals in lizards. Ecology, and to some degree allometry, were most likely explanations for complexity in the vocal signals of frogs (ecology) and birds (ecology and allometry). There was some evidence for adaptive evolution in the pheromone complexity of ants, although no compelling selection pressure was identified. For most taxa, phylogenetic null models were consistently ranked above adaptive models and, for some taxa, signal complexity seems to have accumulated in species via incremental or random changes over long periods of evolutionary time. Becoming social presumably leads to the origin of social communication in animals, but its subsequent influence on the trajectory of signal evolution has been neither clear-cut nor general among taxonomic groups. PMID:22641820

Evolution of individual versus social learning on social networks

PubMed Central

Tamura, Kohei; Kobayashi, Yutaka; Ihara, Yasuo

2015-01-01

A number of studies have investigated the roles played by individual and social learning in cultural phenomena and the relative advantages of the two learning strategies in variable environments. Because social learning involves the acquisition of behaviours from others, its utility depends on the availability of ‘cultural models’ exhibiting adaptive behaviours. This indicates that social networks play an essential role in the evolution of learning. However, possible effects of social structure on the evolution of learning have not been fully explored. Here, we develop a mathematical model to explore the evolutionary dynamics of learning strategies on social networks. We first derive the condition under which social learners (SLs) are selectively favoured over individual learners in a broad range of social network. We then obtain an analytical approximation of the long-term average frequency of SLs in homogeneous networks, from which we specify the condition, in terms of three relatedness measures, for social structure to facilitate the long-term evolution of social learning. Finally, we evaluate our approximation by Monte Carlo simulations in complete graphs, regular random graphs and scale-free networks. We formally show that whether social structure favours the evolution of social learning is determined by the relative magnitudes of two effects of social structure: localization in competition, by which competition between learning strategies is evaded, and localization in cultural transmission, which slows down the spread of adaptive traits. In addition, our estimates of the relatedness measures suggest that social structure disfavours the evolution of social learning when selection is weak. PMID:25631568

Evolution of individual versus social learning on social networks.

PubMed

Tamura, Kohei; Kobayashi, Yutaka; Ihara, Yasuo

2015-03-06

A number of studies have investigated the roles played by individual and social learning in cultural phenomena and the relative advantages of the two learning strategies in variable environments. Because social learning involves the acquisition of behaviours from others, its utility depends on the availability of 'cultural models' exhibiting adaptive behaviours. This indicates that social networks play an essential role in the evolution of learning. However, possible effects of social structure on the evolution of learning have not been fully explored. Here, we develop a mathematical model to explore the evolutionary dynamics of learning strategies on social networks. We first derive the condition under which social learners (SLs) are selectively favoured over individual learners in a broad range of social network. We then obtain an analytical approximation of the long-term average frequency of SLs in homogeneous networks, from which we specify the condition, in terms of three relatedness measures, for social structure to facilitate the long-term evolution of social learning. Finally, we evaluate our approximation by Monte Carlo simulations in complete graphs, regular random graphs and scale-free networks. We formally show that whether social structure favours the evolution of social learning is determined by the relative magnitudes of two effects of social structure: localization in competition, by which competition between learning strategies is evaded, and localization in cultural transmission, which slows down the spread of adaptive traits. In addition, our estimates of the relatedness measures suggest that social structure disfavours the evolution of social learning when selection is weak. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Culture in great apes: using intricate complexity in feeding skills to trace the evolutionary origin of human technical prowess.

PubMed

Byrne, Richard W

2007-04-29

Geographical cataloguing of traits, as used in human ethnography, has led to the description of 'culture' in some non-human great apes. Culture, in these terms, is detected as a pattern of local ignorance resulting from environmental constraints on knowledge transmission. However, in many cases, the geographical variations may alternatively be explained by ecology. Social transmission of information can reliably be identified in many other animal species, by experiment or distinctive patterns in distribution; but the excitement of detecting culture in great apes derives from the possibility of understanding the evolution of cumulative technological culture in humans. Given this interest, I argue that great ape research should concentrate on technically complex behaviour patterns that are ubiquitous within a local population; in these cases, a wholly non-social ontogeny is highly unlikely. From this perspective, cultural transmission has an important role in the elaborate feeding skills of all species of great ape, in conveying the 'gist' or organization of skills. In contrast, social learning is unlikely to be responsible for local stylistic differences, which are apt to reflect sensitive adaptations to ecology.

Old World Monkeys Compare to Apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

PubMed Central

Schmitt, Vanessa; Pankau, Birte; Fischer, Julia

2012-01-01

Understanding the evolution of intelligence rests on comparative analyses of brain sizes as well as the assessment of cognitive skills of different species in relation to potential selective pressures such as environmental conditions and social organization. Because of the strong interest in human cognition, much previous work has focused on the comparison of the cognitive skills of human toddlers to those of our closest living relatives, i.e. apes. Such analyses revealed that apes and children have relatively similar competencies in the physical domain, while human children excel in the socio-cognitive domain; in particular in terms of attention sharing, cooperation, and mental state attribution. To develop a full understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of primate intelligence, however, comparative data for monkeys are needed. We tested 18 Old World monkeys (long-tailed macaques and olive baboons) in the so-called Primate Cognition Test Battery (PCTB) (Herrmann et al. 2007, Science). Surprisingly, our tests revealed largely comparable results between Old World monkeys and the Great apes. Single comparisons showed that chimpanzees performed only better than the macaques in experiments on spatial understanding and tool use, but in none of the socio-cognitive tasks. These results question the clear-cut relationship between cognitive performance and brain size and – prima facie – support the view of an accelerated evolution of social intelligence in humans. One limitation, however, is that the initial experiments were devised to tap into human specific skills in the first place, thus potentially underestimating both true nonhuman primate competencies as well as species differences. PMID:22485130

The formation of fire residues associated with hunter-gatherers in humid tropical environments: A geo-ethnoarchaeological perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Friesem, David E.; Lavi, Noa; Madella, Marco; Boaretto, Elisabetta; Ajithparsad, P.; French, Charles

2017-09-01

Tropical forests have been an important human habitat and played a significant role in early human dispersal and evolution. Likewise, the use of fire, besides being one of the exceptional characteristics of humans, serves as a marker for human evolution. While the use of fire by prehistoric hunter-gatherers is relatively well documented in arid and temperate environments, the archaeological evidence in humid tropical environment is to date very limited. We first review the archaeological evidence for hunter-gatherer use of fire in humid tropical environments and suggest that better understanding of formation processes is required. We present a geo-ethnoarchaeological study from South India, involving ethnography, excavations and laboratory-based analyses in order to build a new framework to study fire residues in humid tropical forests associated with hunter-gatherer's use of fire. Ethnographic observations point to a dynamic and ephemeral use of hearths. Hearths location were dictated by the social and ever-changing social dynamics of the site. The hearths deposited small amount of residues which were later swept on a daily basis, re-depositing ash and charcoal in waste areas and leaving only a microscopic signal in the original location. Particular acidic conditions and intensive biological activity within tropical sediments result in the complete dissolution of ash and bones while favouring the preservation of charcoal and phytoliths. Consequently, the identification of fire residues in humid tropical forests and the reconstruction of the human use of fire must involve multi-proxy microscopic analysis to detect its micro-signatures.

Ultrasonic vocalizations in mouse models for speech and socio-cognitive disorders: insights into the evolution of vocal communication

PubMed Central

Fischer, J; Hammerschmidt, K

2011-01-01

Comparative analyses used to reconstruct the evolution of traits associated with the human language faculty, including its socio-cognitive underpinnings, highlight the importance of evolutionary constraints limiting vocal learning in non-human primates. After a brief overview of this field of research and the neural basis of primate vocalizations, we review studies that have addressed the genetic basis of usage and structure of ultrasonic communication in mice, with a focus on the gene FOXP2 involved in specific language impairments and neuroligin genes (NL-3 and NL-4) involved in autism spectrum disorders. Knockout of FoxP2 leads to reduced vocal behavior and eventually premature death. Introducing the human variant of FoxP2 protein into mice, in contrast, results in shifts in frequency and modulation of pup ultrasonic vocalizations. Knockout of NL-3 and NL-4 in mice diminishes social behavior and vocalizations. Although such studies may provide insights into the molecular and neural basis of social and communicative behavior, the structure of mouse vocalizations is largely innate, limiting the suitability of the mouse model to study human speech, a learned mode of production. Although knockout or replacement of single genes has perceptible effects on behavior, these genes are part of larger networks whose functions remain poorly understood. In humans, for instance, deficiencies in NL-4 can lead to a broad spectrum of disorders, suggesting that further factors (experiential and/or genetic) contribute to the variation in clinical symptoms. The precise nature as well as the interaction of these factors is yet to be determined. PMID:20579107

The ideomotor recycling theory for tool use, language, and foresight.

PubMed

Badets, Arnaud; Osiurak, François

2017-02-01

The present theoretical framework highlights a common action-perception mechanism for tool use, spoken language, and foresight capacity. On the one hand, it has been suggested that human language and the capacity to envision the future (i.e. foresight) have, from an evolutionary viewpoint, developed mutually along with the pressure of tool use. This co-evolution has afforded humans an evident survival advantage in the animal kingdom because language can help to refine the representation of future scenarios, which in turn can help to encourage or discourage engagement in appropriate and efficient behaviours. On the other hand, recent assumptions regarding the evolution of the brain have capitalized on the concept of "neuronal recycling". In the domain of cognitive neuroscience, neuronal recycling means that during evolution, some neuronal areas and cognitive functions have been recycled to manage new environmental and social constraints. In the present article, we propose that the co-evolution of tool use, language, and foresight represents a suitable example of such functional recycling throughout a well-defined common action-perception mechanism, i.e. the ideomotor mechanism. This ideomotor account is discussed in light of different future ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspectives.

Exploring social structure effect on language evolution based on a computational model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gong, Tao; Minett, James; Wang, William

2008-06-01

A compositionality-regularity coevolution model is adopted to explore the effect of social structure on language emergence and maintenance. Based on this model, we explore language evolution in three experiments, and discuss the role of a popular agent in language evolution, the relationship between mutual understanding and social hierarchy, and the effect of inter-community communications and that of simple linguistic features on convergence of communal languages in two communities. This work embodies several important interactions during social learning, and introduces a new approach that manipulates individuals' probabilities to participate in social interactions to study the effect of social structure. We hope it will stimulate further theoretical and empirical explorations on language evolution in a social environment.

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place.

PubMed

Davies, Oliver

2016-01-01

New data is emerging from evolutionary anthropology and the neuroscience of social cognition on our species-specific hyper-cooperation (HC). This paper attempts an integration of third-person archaeological and second-person, neuroscientific perspectives on the structure of HC, through a post-Ricoeurian development in hermeneutical phenomenology. We argue for the relatively late evolution of advanced linguistic consciousness (ALC) (Hiscock in Biological Theory 9:27-41, 2014), as a reflexive system based on the 'in-between' or 'cognitive system' as reported by Vogeley et al. (in: Interdisziplinäre anthropologie, Heidelberg, Springer, 2014) of face-to-face social cognition, as well as tool use. The possibility of a positive or negative tension between the more recent ALC and the more ancient, pre-thematic, self-organizing 'in-between' frames an 'internal' niche construction. This indexes the internal structure of HC as 'convergence', where complex, engaged, social reasoning in ALC mirrors the cognitive structure of the pre-thematic 'in-between', extending the bio-energy of our social cognition, through reflexive amplification, in the production of 'social place' as 'humanized space'. If individual word/phrase acquisition, in contextual actuality, is the distinctive feature of human language (Hurford in European Reviews 12:551-565, 2004), then human language is a hyperbolic, species-wide training in particularized co-location, developing consciousness of a shared world. The humanization of space and production of HC, through co-location, requires the 'disarming' of language as a medium of control, and a foregrounding of the materiality of the sign. The production of 'hyper-place' as solidarity beyond the face-to-face, typical of world religions, becomes possible where internal niche construction as convergence with the 'in-between' (world in us) combines with religious cosmologies reflecting an external 'cosmic' niche construction (world outside us).

The evolution of face processing in primates

PubMed Central

Parr, Lisa A.

2011-01-01

The ability to recognize faces is an important socio-cognitive skill that is associated with a number of cognitive specializations in humans. While numerous studies have examined the presence of these specializations in non-human primates, species where face recognition would confer distinct advantages in social situations, results have been mixed. The majority of studies in chimpanzees support homologous face-processing mechanisms with humans, but results from monkey studies appear largely dependent on the type of testing methods used. Studies that employ passive viewing paradigms, like the visual paired comparison task, report evidence of similarities between monkeys and humans, but tasks that use more stringent, operant response tasks, like the matching-to-sample task, often report species differences. Moreover, the data suggest that monkeys may be less sensitive than chimpanzees and humans to the precise spacing of facial features, in addition to the surface-based cues reflected in those features, information that is critical for the representation of individual identity. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the available data from face-processing tasks in non-human primates with the goal of understanding the evolution of this complex cognitive skill. PMID:21536559

Loneliness Across Phylogeny and a Call for Comparative Studies and Animal Models

PubMed Central

Cacioppo, John T.; Cacioppo, Stephanie; Cole, Steven W.; Capitanio, John P.; Goossens, Luc; Boomsma, Dorret I.

2016-01-01

Loneliness typically refers to the feelings of distress and dysphoria resulting from a discrepancy between a person’s desired and achieved levels of social relations, and there is now considerable evidence that loneliness is a risk factor for poor psychological and physical health. Loneliness has traditionally been conceptualized as a uniquely human phenomenon. However, over millions of years of evolution, efficient and manifold neural, hormonal, and molecular mechanisms have evolved for promoting companionship and mutual protection/assistance and for organizing adaptive responses when there is a significant discrepancy between the preferred and realized levels of social connection. We review evidence suggesting that loneliness is not a uniquely human phenomenon, but, instead, as a scientific construct, it represents a generally adaptive predisposition that can be found across phylogeny. Central to this argument is the premise that the brain is the key organ of social connections and processes. Comparative studies and animal models, particularly when integrated with human studies, have much to contribute to the understanding of loneliness and its underlying principles, mechanisms, consequences, and potential treatments. PMID:25910390

From "Import" to "Import-Export" Oriented Internationalization: The Impact of National Policy on Scholarly Publication in China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feng, Haiying; Beckett, Gulbahar H.; Huang, Dawang

2013-01-01

This article examines the evolution of national research policy in China over the past three decades and its recent shift in emphasis from "import" to "import-export" oriented internationalization. Based on a policy review and interviews with three groups of academics--six journal editors in the humanities and social sciences,…

The Evolution of Covert Signaling.

PubMed

Smaldino, Paul E; Flamson, Thomas J; McElreath, Richard

2018-03-20

Human sociality depends upon the benefits of mutual aid and extensive communication. However, diverse norms and preferences complicate mutual aid, and ambiguity in meaning hinders communication. Here we demonstrate that these two problems can work together to enhance cooperation through the strategic use of deliberately ambiguous signals: covert signaling. Covert signaling is the transmission of information that is accurately received by its intended audience but obscured when perceived by others. Such signals may allow coordination and enhanced cooperation while also avoiding the alienation or hostile reactions of individuals with different preferences. Although the empirical literature has identified potential mechanisms of covert signaling, such as encryption in humor, there is to date no formal theory of its dynamics. We introduce a novel mathematical model to assess when a covert signaling strategy will evolve, as well as how receiver attitudes coevolve with covert signals. Covert signaling plausibly serves an important function in facilitating within-group cooperative assortment by allowing individuals to pair up with similar group members when possible and to get along with dissimilar ones when necessary. This mechanism has broad implications for theories of signaling and cooperation, humor, social identity, political psychology, and the evolution of human cultural complexity.

Evolution of neuroarchitecture, multi-level analyses and calibrative reductionism

PubMed Central

Berntson, Gary G.; Norman, Greg J.; Hawkley, Louise C.; Cacioppo, John T.

2012-01-01

Evolution has sculpted the incredibly complex human nervous system, among the most complex functions of which extend beyond the individual to an intricate social structure. Although these functions are deterministic, those determinants are legion, heavily interacting and dependent on a specific evolutionary trajectory. That trajectory was directed by the adaptive significance of quasi-random genetic variations, but was also influenced by chance and caprice. With a different evolutionary pathway, the same neural elements could subserve functions distinctly different from what they do in extant human brains. Consequently, the properties of higher level neural networks cannot be derived readily from the properties of the lower level constituent elements, without studying these elements in the aggregate. Thus, a multi-level approach to integrative neuroscience may offer an optimal strategy. Moreover, the process of calibrative reductionism, by which concepts and understandings from one level of organization or analysis can mutually inform and ‘calibrate’ those from other levels (both higher and lower), may represent a viable approach to the application of reductionism in science. This is especially relevant in social neuroscience, where the basic subject matter of interest is defined by interacting organisms across diverse environments. PMID:23386961

Ritual, emotion, and sacred symbols : The evolution of religion as an adaptive complex.

PubMed

Alcorta, Candace S; Sosis, Richard

2005-12-01

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We propose neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an "experience expectant" developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space.

A hypothesis on the biological origins and social evolution of music and dance.

PubMed

Wang, Tianyan

2015-01-01

The origins of music and musical emotions is still an enigma, here I propose a comprehensive hypothesis on the origins and evolution of music, dance, and speech from a biological and sociological perspective. I suggest that every pitch interval between neighboring notes in music represents corresponding movement pattern through interpreting the Doppler effect of sound, which not only provides a possible explanation for the transposition invariance of music, but also integrates music and dance into a common form-rhythmic movements. Accordingly, investigating the origins of music poses the question: why do humans appreciate rhythmic movements? I suggest that human appreciation of rhythmic movements and rhythmic events developed from the natural selection of organisms adapting to the internal and external rhythmic environments. The perception and production of, as well as synchronization with external and internal rhythms are so vital for an organism's survival and reproduction, that animals have a rhythm-related reward and emotion (RRRE) system. The RRRE system enables the appreciation of rhythmic movements and events, and is integral to the origination of music, dance and speech. The first type of rewards and emotions (rhythm-related rewards and emotions, RRREs) are evoked by music and dance, and have biological and social functions, which in turn, promote the evolution of music, dance and speech. These functions also evoke a second type of rewards and emotions, which I name society-related rewards and emotions (SRREs). The neural circuits of RRREs and SRREs develop in species formation and personal growth, with congenital and acquired characteristics, respectively, namely music is the combination of nature and culture. This hypothesis provides probable selection pressures and outlines the evolution of music, dance, and speech. The links between the Doppler effect and the RRREs and SRREs can be empirically tested, making the current hypothesis scientifically concrete.

The effect of cultural interaction on cumulative cultural evolution.

PubMed

Nakahashi, Wataru

2014-07-07

Cultural transmission and cultural evolution are important for animals, especially for humans. I developed a new analytical model of cultural evolution, in which each newborn learns cultural traits from multiple individuals (exemplars) in parental generation, individually explores around learned cultural traits, judges the utility of known cultural traits, and adopts a mature cultural trait. Cultural evolutionary speed increases when individuals explore a wider range of cultural traits, accurately judge the skill level of cultural traits (strong direct bias), do not strongly conform to the population mean, increase the exploration range according to the variety of socially learned cultural traits (condition dependent exploration), and make smaller errors in social learning. Number of exemplars, population size, similarity of cultural traits between exemplars, and one-to-many transmission have little effect on cultural evolutionary speed. I also investigated how cultural interaction between two populations with different mean skill levels affects their cultural evolution. A population sometimes increases in skill level more if it encounters a less skilled population than if it does not encounter anyone. A less skilled population sometimes exceeds a more skilled population in skill level by cultural interaction between both populations. The appropriateness of this analytical method is confirmed by individual-based simulations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trade-off between learning and exploitation: the Pareto-optimal versus evolutionarily stable learning schedule in cumulative cultural evolution.

PubMed

Wakano, Joe Yuichiro; Miura, Chiaki

2014-02-01

Inheritance of culture is achieved by social learning and improvement is achieved by individual learning. To realize cumulative cultural evolution, social and individual learning should be performed in this order in one's life. However, it is not clear whether such a learning schedule can evolve by the maximization of individual fitness. Here we study optimal allocation of lifetime to learning and exploitation in a two-stage life history model under a constant environment. We show that the learning schedule by which high cultural level is achieved through cumulative cultural evolution is unlikely to evolve as a result of the maximization of individual fitness, if there exists a trade-off between the time spent in learning and the time spent in exploiting the knowledge that has been learned in earlier stages of one's life. Collapse of a fully developed culture is predicted by a game-theoretical analysis where individuals behave selfishly, e.g., less learning and more exploiting. The present study suggests that such factors as group selection, the ability of learning-while-working ("on the job training"), or environmental fluctuation might be important in the realization of rapid and cumulative cultural evolution that is observed in humans. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Biologist Edwin Grant Conklin and the idea of the religious direction of human evolution in the early 1920s.

PubMed

Pavuk, Alexander

2017-01-01

Edwin Grant Conklin, renowned US embryologist and evolutionary popularizer, publicly advocated a social vision of evolution that intertwined science and modernist Protestant theology in the early 1920s. The moral prestige of professional science in American culture - along with Conklin's own elite scientific status - diverted attention from the frequency with which his work crossed boundaries between natural science, religion and philosophy. Writing for broad audiences, Conklin was one of the most significant of the religious and modernist biological scientists whose rhetoric went well beyond simply claiming that certain kinds of religion were amenable to evolutionary science; he instead incorporated religion itself into evolution's broadest workings. A sampling of Conklin's widely-resonant discourse suggests that there was substantially more to the religion-evolution story in the 1920s US than many creationist-centred narratives of the era imply.

MyGeneFriends: A Social Network Linking Genes, Genetic Diseases, and Researchers

PubMed Central

Allot, Alexis; Chennen, Kirsley; Nevers, Yannis; Poidevin, Laetitia; Kress, Arnaud; Ripp, Raymond; Thompson, Julie Dawn; Poch, Olivier

2017-01-01

Background The constant and massive increase of biological data offers unprecedented opportunities to decipher the function and evolution of genes and their roles in human diseases. However, the multiplicity of sources and flow of data mean that efficient access to useful information and knowledge production has become a major challenge. This challenge can be addressed by taking inspiration from Web 2.0 and particularly social networks, which are at the forefront of big data exploration and human-data interaction. Objective MyGeneFriends is a Web platform inspired by social networks, devoted to genetic disease analysis, and organized around three types of proactive agents: genes, humans, and genetic diseases. The aim of this study was to improve exploration and exploitation of biological, postgenomic era big data. Methods MyGeneFriends leverages conventions popularized by top social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), such as networks of friends, profile pages, friendship recommendations, affinity scores, news feeds, content recommendation, and data visualization. Results MyGeneFriends provides simple and intuitive interactions with data through evaluation and visualization of connections (friendships) between genes, humans, and diseases. The platform suggests new friends and publications and allows agents to follow the activity of their friends. It dynamically personalizes information depending on the user’s specific interests and provides an efficient way to share information with collaborators. Furthermore, the user’s behavior itself generates new information that constitutes an added value integrated in the network, which can be used to discover new connections between biological agents. Conclusions We have developed MyGeneFriends, a Web platform leveraging conventions from popular social networks to redefine the relationship between humans and biological big data and improve human processing of biomedical data. MyGeneFriends is available at lbgi.fr/mygenefriends. PMID:28623182

Social Semantics for an Effective Enterprise

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Berndt, Sarah; Doane, Mike

2012-01-01

An evolution of the Semantic Web, the Social Semantic Web (s2w), facilitates knowledge sharing with "useful information based on human contributions, which gets better as more people participate." The s2w reaches beyond the search box to move us from a collection of hyperlinked facts, to meaningful, real time context. When focused through the lens of Enterprise Search, the Social Semantic Web facilitates the fluid transition of meaningful business information from the source to the user. It is the confluence of human thought and computer processing structured with the iterative application of taxonomies, folksonomies, ontologies, and metadata schemas. The importance and nuances of human interaction are often deemphasized when focusing on automatic generation of semantic markup, which results in dissatisfied users and unrealized return on investment. Users consistently qualify the value of information sets through the act of selection, making them the de facto stakeholders of the Social Semantic Web. Employers are the ultimate beneficiaries of s2w utilization with a better informed, more decisive workforce; one not achieved with an IT miracle technology, but by improved human-computer interactions. Johnson Space Center Taxonomist Sarah Berndt and Mike Doane, principal owner of Term Management, LLC discuss the planning, development, and maintenance stages for components of a semantic system while emphasizing the necessity of a Social Semantic Web for the Enterprise. Identification of risks and variables associated with layering the successful implementation of a semantic system are also modeled.

Social evolution. Genomic signatures of evolutionary transitions from solitary to group living.

PubMed

Kapheim, Karen M; Pan, Hailin; Li, Cai; Salzberg, Steven L; Puiu, Daniela; Magoc, Tanja; Robertson, Hugh M; Hudson, Matthew E; Venkat, Aarti; Fischman, Brielle J; Hernandez, Alvaro; Yandell, Mark; Ence, Daniel; Holt, Carson; Yocum, George D; Kemp, William P; Bosch, Jordi; Waterhouse, Robert M; Zdobnov, Evgeny M; Stolle, Eckart; Kraus, F Bernhard; Helbing, Sophie; Moritz, Robin F A; Glastad, Karl M; Hunt, Brendan G; Goodisman, Michael A D; Hauser, Frank; Grimmelikhuijzen, Cornelis J P; Pinheiro, Daniel Guariz; Nunes, Francis Morais Franco; Soares, Michelle Prioli Miranda; Tanaka, Érica Donato; Simões, Zilá Luz Paulino; Hartfelder, Klaus; Evans, Jay D; Barribeau, Seth M; Johnson, Reed M; Massey, Jonathan H; Southey, Bruce R; Hasselmann, Martin; Hamacher, Daniel; Biewer, Matthias; Kent, Clement F; Zayed, Amro; Blatti, Charles; Sinha, Saurabh; Johnston, J Spencer; Hanrahan, Shawn J; Kocher, Sarah D; Wang, Jun; Robinson, Gene E; Zhang, Guojie

2015-06-05

The evolution of eusociality is one of the major transitions in evolution, but the underlying genomic changes are unknown. We compared the genomes of 10 bee species that vary in social complexity, representing multiple independent transitions in social evolution, and report three major findings. First, many important genes show evidence of neutral evolution as a consequence of relaxed selection with increasing social complexity. Second, there is no single road map to eusociality; independent evolutionary transitions in sociality have independent genetic underpinnings. Third, though clearly independent in detail, these transitions do have similar general features, including an increase in constrained protein evolution accompanied by increases in the potential for gene regulation and decreases in diversity and abundance of transposable elements. Eusociality may arise through different mechanisms each time, but would likely always involve an increase in the complexity of gene networks. Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

[Evolution of worker's health in the social security medical examination in Brazil].

PubMed

Pinto Júnior, Afrânio Gomes; Braga, Ana Maria Cheble Bahia; Roselli-Cruz, Amadeu

2012-10-01

In order to analyze the practice of the social security medical examination starting from the introduction of the worker's health paradigms, data was gathered on the granting of social security disability benefits to assess worker illness based on notification of work-related accidents in the cement industries of Rio de Janeiro. From 2007 to 2009 there was only one notification, which involved a worker handling toxic waste instead of the energy matrix. However, the analysis revealed sources and mechanisms of illness overlooked in the social security medical examination, which is still focused on the one-cause-only logic of occupational medicine. To achieve the worker's health paradigms, changes are required to alter the way of conducting the social security medical examination, by re-establishing partnerships, training human resources, adopting epidemiological indicators, as well as setting and assessing social security goals that transcend the mere granting of disability benefits.

Structural power and the evolution of collective fairness in social networks.

PubMed

Santos, Fernando P; Pacheco, Jorge M; Paiva, Ana; Santos, Francisco C

2017-01-01

From work contracts and group buying platforms to political coalitions and international climate and economical summits, often individuals assemble in groups that must collectively reach decisions that may favor each part unequally. Here we quantify to which extent our network ties promote the evolution of collective fairness in group interactions, modeled by means of Multiplayer Ultimatum Games (MUG). We show that a single topological feature of social networks-which we call structural power-has a profound impact on the tendency of individuals to take decisions that favor each part equally. Increased fair outcomes are attained whenever structural power is high, such that the networks that tie individuals allow them to meet the same partners in different groups, thus providing the opportunity to strongly influence each other. On the other hand, the absence of such close peer-influence relationships dismisses any positive effect created by the network. Interestingly, we show that increasing the structural power of a network leads to the appearance of well-defined modules-as found in human social networks that often exhibit community structure-providing an interaction environment that maximizes collective fairness.

Aspen Global Change Institute: 25 Years of Interdisciplinary Global Change Science

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Meehl, Gerald A.; Moss, Richard

Global environmental changes such as climate change result from the interaction of human and natural systems. Research to understand these changes and options for addressing them requires the physical, environmental, and social sciences, as well as engineering and other applied fields. In this essay, we describe how the Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) has provided leadership in global change science over the past 25 years—in particular how it has contributed to the integration of the natural and social sciences needed to research the drivers of change, Earth system response, natural and human system impacts, and options for risk management. Wemore » illustrate the ways the history of AGCI has been intertwined with the evolution of global change science as it has become an increasingly interdisciplinary endeavor.« less

Socio-hydrological perspectives of the co-evolution of humans and groundwater in Cangzhou, North China Plain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Songjun; Tian, Fuqiang; Liu, Ye; Duan, Xianhui

2017-07-01

This paper presents a historical analysis from socio-hydrological perspectives of the coupled human-groundwater system of the Cangzhou region in the North China Plain (NCP). The history of the pendulum swing for water allocation between the economic development and aquifer environmental health of the system is divided into five eras (i.e., natural, exploitation, degradation and restoration, drought-triggered deterioration, and returning to equilibrium). The system's evolution was interpreted using the Taiji-Tire model. Over-exploitation was considered as the main cause of aquifer depletion, and the groundwater utilization pattern was affected by the varying groundwater table. The aquifer depletion enhanced community sensitivity toward environmental issues, and upgraded the social productive force for restoration. The evolution of the system was substantially impacted by two droughts. The drought in 1965 induced the system from natural conditions to groundwater exploiting. The drought from 1997 to 2002 resulted in a surge in further groundwater abstraction and dramatic aquifer deterioration, and community sensitivity increased rapidly and induced the social productive force to a tipping point. From then on, the system returns to equilibrium through new policies and water-saving technologies. Along with the establishment of a strict water resource management strategy and the launch of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, further restoration of groundwater environment was implemented. However, a comprehensive and coordinated drought management plan should be devised to avoid irreversible change in the system.

Modification of feeding circuits in the evolution of social behavior.

PubMed

Fischer, Eva K; O'Connell, Lauren A

2017-01-01

Adaptive trade-offs between foraging and social behavior intuitively explain many aspects of individual decision-making. Given the intimate connection between social behavior and feeding/foraging at the behavioral level, we propose that social behaviors are linked to foraging on a mechanistic level, and that modifications of feeding circuits are crucial in the evolution of complex social behaviors. In this Review, we first highlight the overlap between mechanisms underlying foraging and parental care and then expand this argument to consider the manipulation of feeding-related pathways in the evolution of other complex social behaviors. We include examples from diverse taxa to highlight that the independent evolution of complex social behaviors is a variation on the theme of feeding circuit modification. © 2017. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Evolution of the societal value of water resources for economic development versus environmental sustainability in Australia from 1843 to 2011

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Y.; Wei, J., , Dr; Western, A. W.

2017-12-01

The scale of human activity in the last 200 years has reached a point where our actions are affecting the global biophysical environment to such a degree and at such a speed that irreversible effects are being observed. Societal values are generally seen as leading to changes in human decisions and actions, but have not been addressed adequately in current water management, which is blind to changes in the social drivers for, or societal responses to, management decisions. This paper describes the evolution of societal value of water resources in Australia over a period of 169 years. These values were classified into two groups: supporting economic development versus supporting environmental sustainability. The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper was used as the main data source to track the changes in the societal value of water resources. Content analysis was used to create a description of the evolution of these societal values. Mathematical regression analysis, in combination of transition theory, was used to determine the stages of transition of the societal value, and the co-evolved social-ecological framework was used to explain how the evolution of societal values interacted with water management policies/practices and droughts. Key findings included that the transition of the societal value of water resources fitted the sigmoid curve - a conceptual S curve for the transition of social systems. Also, the transition of societal value of water resources in Australia went through three stages: (1) pre-development (1900s-1960s), when the societal value of water resources was dominated by economic development; (2) take-off (1962-1980), when the societal value of water resources reflected the increasing awareness of the environment due to the outbreak of pollution events; (3) acceleration (1981-2011), when the environment-oriented societal value of water resources combined with the Millennium Drought to trigger a package of policy initiatives and management practices towards sustainable water resource use. Our results show that the transition of the societal value has not yet reached stabilization, which may stabilize, backlash or lead to system breakdown in future. The approach developed in this study provides a roadmap for the development of new disciplines across social and natural science.

Vocal learning in the functionally referential food grunts of chimpanzees.

PubMed

Watson, Stuart K; Townsend, Simon W; Schel, Anne M; Wilke, Claudia; Wallace, Emma K; Cheng, Leveda; West, Victoria; Slocombe, Katie E

2015-02-16

One standout feature of human language is our ability to reference external objects and events with socially learned symbols, or words. Exploring the phylogenetic origins of this capacity is therefore key to a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of language. While non-human primates can produce vocalizations that refer to external objects in the environment, it is generally accepted that their acoustic structure is fixed and a product of arousal states. Indeed, it has been argued that the apparent lack of flexible control over the structure of referential vocalizations represents a key discontinuity with language. Here, we demonstrate vocal learning in the acoustic structure of referential food grunts in captive chimpanzees. We found that, following the integration of two groups of adult chimpanzees, the acoustic structure of referential food grunts produced for a specific food converged over 3 years. Acoustic convergence arose independently of preference for the food, and social network analyses indicated this only occurred after strong affiliative relationships were established between the original subgroups. We argue that these data represent the first evidence of non-human animals actively modifying and socially learning the structure of a meaningful referential vocalization from conspecifics. Our findings indicate that primate referential call structure is not simply determined by arousal and that the socially learned nature of referential words in humans likely has ancient evolutionary origins. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Reasserting the primacy of human needs to reclaim the 'lost half' of sustainable development.

PubMed

Everard, Mark; Longhurst, James W S

2018-04-15

The concept of sustainable development evolved from growing awareness of the interdependence of social and economic progress with the limits of the supporting natural environment, becoming progressively integrated into global agreements and transposition into local regulatory and implementation frameworks. We argue that transposition of the concept into regulation and supporting tools reduced the focus to minimal environmental and social standards, perceived as imposing constraints rather than opportunities for innovation to meet human needs. The aspirational 'half' of the concept of sustainable development specifically addressing human needs was thus lost in transposing high ideals into regulatory instruments. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) restore focus on interlinked human needs, stimulating innovation of products and processes to satisfy them. Through three case studies - PVC water pipes, river quality management in England, and UK local air quality management - we explore the current operationalisation of the concept in diverse settings, using the SDG framework to highlight the broader societal purposes central to sustainable development. Partnerships involving civil society support evolution of regulatory instruments and their implementation, optimising social and ecological benefits thereby serving more human needs. Restoring the visionary 'lost half' of sustainable development - meeting human needs in sustainable ways - creates incentives for innovation and partnership; an innovation framework rather than a perceived constraint. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

[Characteristics of autonomic status in employees working with computers].

PubMed

Vlasova, E M; Zaĭtseva, N V; Maliutina, N N

2011-01-01

Human evolution is accompanied by "sensible thoughts" spread to all spheres of occupational activities. One can hardly find an industrial enterprise without computers. In contemporary industry, health care in conditions of humans and computers interaction and evaluation of harm in computer users remain topical. Social and occupational environment is not always comfortable for human body. Changes is occupational conditions, with wide use of computer technologies, decrease role of manual labour and increase role of intellectual work from the one hand, but from the other hand, chasing economic profit alters individual "comfort zone" due to constant psychoemotional stress and causes "burnout". Being healthy in constant stress is impossible.

Altruism: Its characteristics and evolution

PubMed Central

Darlington, P. J.

1978-01-01

Altruism is a group phenomenon in which some genes or individuals, which must be presumed to be selfish, benefit others at cost to themselves. The presumption of selfishness and the fact of altruism are reconciled by kin-group selection and by reciprocal altruism. Kin-group selection is clearly visible only in special cases; its role even among social insects may be overestimated; it is probably usually inhibited by competition. However, reciprocal altruism is ubiquitous. All altruism is: (i) potentially reciprocal; (ii) potentially profitable to altruists as well as to recipients; (iii) environmentally determined, usually by position of individuals in group or environmental situations; and (iv) a net-gain lottery. These generalizations are illustrated by four idealized cases; the difficulty of applying them to real cases is illustrated by alarm-calling in groups of birds. Although altruism is a group phenomenon, it evolves by individual selection, by processes equivalent to co-evolutions. Its evolution is: (i) opposed by competition; (ii) costly, complex, and slow, and tending to produce an imprecise flexible altruism rather than a precisely detailed one; and (iii) supplemented by group selection (differential extinction of groups). That altruism in human beings conforms to these generalizations is a good working hypothesis. However, analysis does not “take the altruism out of (human) altruism.” Humans do not calculate it, but behave altruistically because they have human altruistic emotions. PMID:272654

Sleep intensity and the evolution of human cognition.

PubMed

Samson, David R; Nunn, Charles L

2015-01-01

Over the past four decades, scientists have made substantial progress in understanding the evolution of sleep patterns across the Tree of Life. Remarkably, the specifics of sleep along the human lineage have been slow to emerge. This is surprising, given our unique mental and behavioral capacity and the importance of sleep for individual cognitive performance. One view is that our species' sleep architecture is in accord with patterns documented in other mammals. We promote an alternative view, that human sleep is highly derived relative to that of other primates. Based on new and existing evidence, we specifically propose that humans are more efficient in their sleep patterns than are other primates, and that human sleep is shorter, deeper, and exhibits a higher proportion of REM than expected. Thus, we propose the sleep intensity hypothesis: Early humans experienced selective pressure to fulfill sleep needs in the shortest time possible. Several factors likely served as selective pressures for more efficient sleep, including increased predation risk in terrestrial environments, threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction. Less sleep would enable longer active periods in which to acquire and transmit new skills and knowledge, while deeper sleep may be critical for the consolidation of those skills, leading to enhanced cognitive abilities in early humans. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Embodied niche construction in the hominin lineage: semiotic structure and sustained attention in human embodied cognition

PubMed Central

Stutz, Aaron J.

2014-01-01

Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and affective somatic states. Thus, private cognitive signs would be defined, not only by their learned and perceived extrasomatic referents, but also by their associations to iconically represented somatic states. This evolutionary modification of animal associative learning is suggested to be adaptive in ecological niches occupied by long-lived, large-bodied ape species, facilitating memory construction and recall in highly varied foraging and social contexts, while sustaining selective attention during goal-directed behavioral sequences. The embodied niche construction (ENC) hypothesis of human evolution posits that in the early hominin lineage, natural selection further modified the ancestral ape semiotic adaptations, favoring the recursive structuration of concise iconic narratives of embodied interaction with the environment. PMID:25136323

Embodied niche construction in the hominin lineage: semiotic structure and sustained attention in human embodied cognition.

PubMed

Stutz, Aaron J

2014-01-01

Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and affective somatic states. Thus, private cognitive signs would be defined, not only by their learned and perceived extrasomatic referents, but also by their associations to iconically represented somatic states. This evolutionary modification of animal associative learning is suggested to be adaptive in ecological niches occupied by long-lived, large-bodied ape species, facilitating memory construction and recall in highly varied foraging and social contexts, while sustaining selective attention during goal-directed behavioral sequences. The embodied niche construction (ENC) hypothesis of human evolution posits that in the early hominin lineage, natural selection further modified the ancestral ape semiotic adaptations, favoring the recursive structuration of concise iconic narratives of embodied interaction with the environment.

Shining evolutionary light on human sleep and sleep disorders

PubMed Central

Nunn, Charles L.; Samson, David R.; Krystal, Andrew D.

2016-01-01

Sleep is essential to cognitive function and health in humans, yet the ultimate reasons for sleep—i.e. ‘why’ sleep evolved—remain mysterious. We integrate findings from human sleep studies, the ethnographic record, and the ecology and evolution of mammalian sleep to better understand sleep along the human lineage and in the modern world. Compared to other primates, sleep in great apes has undergone substantial evolutionary change, with all great apes building a sleeping platform or ‘nest’. Further evolutionary change characterizes human sleep, with humans having the shortest sleep duration, yet the highest proportion of rapid eye movement sleep among primates. These changes likely reflect that our ancestors experienced fitness benefits from being active for a greater portion of the 24-h cycle than other primates, potentially related to advantages arising from learning, socializing and defending against predators and hostile conspecifics. Perspectives from evolutionary medicine have implications for understanding sleep disorders; we consider these perspectives in the context of insomnia, narcolepsy, seasonal affective disorder, circadian rhythm disorders and sleep apnea. We also identify how human sleep today differs from sleep through most of human evolution, and the implications of these changes for global health and health disparities. More generally, our review highlights the importance of phylogenetic comparisons in understanding human health, including well-known links between sleep, cognitive performance and health in humans. PMID:27470330

Social cognition on the Internet: testing constraints on social network size

PubMed Central

Dunbar, R. I. M.

2012-01-01

The social brain hypothesis (an explanation for the evolution of brain size in primates) predicts that humans typically cannot maintain more than 150 relationships at any one time. The constraint is partly cognitive (ultimately determined by some aspect of brain volume) and partly one of time. Friendships (but not necessarily kin relationships) are maintained by investing time in them, and failure to do so results in an inexorable deterioration in the quality of a relationship. The Internet, and in particular the rise of social networking sites (SNSs), raises the possibility that digital media might allow us to circumvent some or all of these constraints. This allows us to test the importance of these constraints in limiting human sociality. Although the recency of SNSs means that there have been relatively few studies, those that are available suggest that, in general, the ability to broadcast to many individuals at once, and the possibilities this provides in terms of continuously updating our understanding of network members’ behaviour and thoughts, do not allow larger networks to be maintained. This may be because only relatively weak quality relationships can be maintained without face-to-face interaction. PMID:22734062

Social cognition on the Internet: testing constraints on social network size.

PubMed

Dunbar, R I M

2012-08-05

The social brain hypothesis (an explanation for the evolution of brain size in primates) predicts that humans typically cannot maintain more than 150 relationships at any one time. The constraint is partly cognitive (ultimately determined by some aspect of brain volume) and partly one of time. Friendships (but not necessarily kin relationships) are maintained by investing time in them, and failure to do so results in an inexorable deterioration in the quality of a relationship. The Internet, and in particular the rise of social networking sites (SNSs), raises the possibility that digital media might allow us to circumvent some or all of these constraints. This allows us to test the importance of these constraints in limiting human sociality. Although the recency of SNSs means that there have been relatively few studies, those that are available suggest that, in general, the ability to broadcast to many individuals at once, and the possibilities this provides in terms of continuously updating our understanding of network members' behaviour and thoughts, do not allow larger networks to be maintained. This may be because only relatively weak quality relationships can be maintained without face-to-face interaction.

The interactive evolution of human communication systems.

PubMed

Fay, Nicolas; Garrod, Simon; Roberts, Leo; Swoboda, Nik

2010-04-01

This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants' horizontal, pair-wise interactions led "bottom up" to the creation of an effective and efficient shared sign system in the community condition. Furthermore, the community-evolved sign systems were as effective and efficient as the local sign systems developed by isolated pairs. Finally, and as predicted by a social collaboration account, and not by an iterated learning account, interaction was critical to the creation of shared sign systems, with different isolated pairs establishing different local sign systems and different communities establishing different global sign systems. Copyright © 2010 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

An evolutionary behaviorist perspective on orgasm

PubMed Central

Fleischman, Diana S.

2016-01-01

Evolutionary explanations for sexual behavior and orgasm most often posit facilitating reproduction as the primary function (i.e. greater rate of fertilization). Other reproductive benefits of sexual pleasure and orgasm such as improved bonding of parents have also been discussed but not thoroughly. Although sex is known to be highly reinforcing, behaviorist principles are rarely invoked alongside evolutionary psychology in order to account for human sexual and social behavior. In this paper, I will argue that intense sexual pleasure, especially orgasm, can be understood as a primary reinforcer shaped by evolution to reinforce behavior that facilitates reproductive success (i.e. conception through copulation). Next, I will describe an evolutionary account of social shaping. In particular, I will focus on how humans evolved to use orgasm and sexual arousal to shape the social behavior and emotional states of others through both classical and operant conditioning and through both reproductive and non-reproductive forms of sexual behavior. Finally, I will describe how orgasm is a signal of sensitivity to reinforcement that is itself reinforcing. PMID:27799083

Competence and the Evolutionary Origins of Status and Power in Humans.

PubMed

Chapais, Bernard

2015-06-01

In this paper I propose an evolutionary model of human status that expands upon an earlier model proposed by Henrich and Gil-White Evolution and Human Behavior, 22,165-196 (2001). According to their model, there are two systems of status attainment in humans-"two ways to the top": the dominance route, which involves physical intimidation, a psychology of fear and hubristic pride, and provides coercive power, and the prestige route, which involves skills and knowledge (competence), a psychology of attraction to experts and authentic pride, and translates mainly into influence. The two systems would have evolved in response to different selective pressures, with attraction to experts serving a social learning function and coinciding with the evolution of cumulative culture. In this paper I argue that (1) the only one way to the top is competence because dominance itself involves competence and confers prestige, so there is no such thing as pure dominance status; (2) dominance in primates has two components: a competitive one involving physical coercion and a cooperative one involving competence-based attraction to high-ranking individuals (proto-prestige); (3) competence grants the same general type of power (dependence-based) in humans and other primates; (4) the attractiveness of high rank in primates is homologous with the admiration of experts in humans; (5) upon the evolution of cumulative culture, the attractiveness of high rank was co-opted to generate status differentials in a vast number of culturally generated domains of activity. I also discuss, in this perspective, the origins of hubristic pride, authentic pride, and nonauthoritarian leadership.

The evolution of social monogamy in mammals.

PubMed

Lukas, D; Clutton-Brock, T H

2013-08-02

The evolution of social monogamy has intrigued biologists for over a century. Here, we show that the ancestral condition for all mammalian groups is of solitary individuals and that social monogamy is derived almost exclusively from this social system. The evolution of social monogamy does not appear to have been associated with a high risk of male infanticide, and paternal care is a consequence rather than a cause of social monogamy. Social monogamy has evolved in nonhuman mammals where breeding females are intolerant of each other and female density is low, suggesting that it represents a mating strategy that has developed where males are unable to defend access to multiple females.

Biological aspects of social bonding and the roots of human violence.

PubMed

Pedersen, Cort A

2004-12-01

The brain systems that motivate humans to form emotional bonds with others probably first evolved to mobilize the high-quality maternal care necessary for reproductive success in placental mammals. In these species, the helplessness of infants at birth and their dependence upon nutrition secreted from their mothers' bodies (milk) and parental body heat to stay warm required the evolution of a new motivational system in the brain to stimulate avid and sustained mothering behavior. Other types of social bonds that emerged subsequently in placental mammals, in particular monogamous bonds between breeding pairs, appear to have evolved from motivational brain systems that stimulate maternal behavior. This chapter focuses on aspects of the evolution and neurobiology of maternal and pair bonding and associated behavioral changes that may provide insights into the origins of human violence. The roles of the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin as well as the neurotransmitter dopamine will be emphasized. Maternal and pair bonding are accompanied by increased aggressiveness toward perceived threats to the object of attachment as well as diminished fear and anxiety in stressful situations. The sustained closeness with mother required for the survival of infant mammals opened a new evolutionary niche in which aspects of the mother's care became increasingly important in regulating development in offspring. The quantity and quality of maternal care received during infancy determines adult social competence, ability to cope with stress, aggressiveness, and even preference for addictive substances. Indeed, the development of neurochemical systems within the brain that regulate mothering, aggression, and other types of social behavior, such as the oxytocin and vasopressin systems, are strongly affected by parental nurturing received during infancy. Evidence will be reviewed that the neural circuitry and neurochemistry implicated in studies of lower mammals also facilitate primate/human interpersonal bonding. It is hypothesized that neural bonding systems may also be important for the development in individuals of loyalty to the social group and its culture. Neglect and abuse during early life may cause bonding systems to develop abnormally and compromise capacity for rewarding interpersonal relationships and commitment to societal and cultural values later in life. Other means of stimulating reward pathways in the brain, such as drugs, sex, aggression, and intimidating others, could become relatively more attractive and less constrained by concern about violating trusting relationships. The ability to modify behavior based on negative experiences may be impaired. Unmet needs for social bonding and acceptance early in life might increase the emotional allure of groups (gangs, sects) with violent and authoritarian values and leadership. Social neurobiology has the potential to provide new strategies for treating and preventing violence and associated social dysfunction.

Flash flooding: Toward an Interdisciplinary and Integrated Strategy for Disaster Reduction in a Global Environmental Change Perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruin, Isabelle

2014-05-01

How do people answer to heavy precipitation and flood warnings? How do they adapt their daily schedule and activity to the fast evolution of the environmental circumstances? More generally, how do social processes interact with physical ones? Such questions address the dynamical interactions between hydro-meteorological variables, human perception and representation of the environment, and actual individual and social behavioral responses. It also poses the question of scales and hierarchy issues through seamless interactions between smaller and larger scales. These questions are relevant for both social and physical scientists. They are more and more pertinently addressed in the Global Environmental Change perspective through the concepts of Coupled Human And Natural Systems (CHANS), resilience or panarchy developped in the context of interdisciplinary collaborations. Nevertheless those concepts are complex and not easy to handle, specially when facing with operational goals. One of the main difficulty to advance these integrated approaches is the access to empirical data informing the processes at various scales. In fact, if physical and social processes are well studied by distinct disciplines, they are rarely jointly explored within similar spatial and temporal resolutions. Such coupled observation and analysis poses methodological challenges, specially when dealing with responses to short-fuse and extreme weather events. In fact, if such coupled approach is quite common to study large scale phenomenon like global change (for instance using historical data on green house gaz emissions and the evolution of temperatures worldwide), it is rarer for studing smaller nested sets of scales of human-nature systems where finer resolution data are sparse. Another problem arise from the need to produce comparable analysis on different case studies where social, physical and even cultural contexts may be diverse. Generic and robust framework for data collection, modeling and analysis are needed to allow cross comparison and deeper understanding of the processes accross scales. This presentation will address these issues based on concrete exemples from empirical studies on past flash flooding events across Europe and USA.

Chimpanzee Alarm Call Production Meets Key Criteria for Intentionality

PubMed Central

Schel, Anne Marijke; Townsend, Simon W.; Machanda, Zarin; Zuberbühler, Klaus; Slocombe, Katie E.

2013-01-01

Determining the intentionality of primate communication is critical to understanding the evolution of human language. Although intentional signalling has been claimed for some great ape gestural signals, comparable evidence is currently lacking for their vocal signals. We presented wild chimpanzees with a python model and found that two of three alarm call types exhibited characteristics previously used to argue for intentionality in gestural communication. These alarm calls were: (i) socially directed and given to the arrival of friends, (ii) associated with visual monitoring of the audience and gaze alternations, and (iii) goal directed, as calling only stopped when recipients were safe from the predator. Our results demonstrate that certain vocalisations of our closest living relatives qualify as intentional signals, in a directly comparable way to many great ape gestures. We conclude that our results undermine a central argument of gestural theories of language evolution and instead support a multimodal origin of human language. PMID:24146908

Social Brain Hypothesis: Vocal and Gesture Networks of Wild Chimpanzees

PubMed Central

Roberts, Sam G. B.; Roberts, Anna I.

2016-01-01

A key driver of brain evolution in primates and humans is the cognitive demands arising from managing social relationships. In primates, grooming plays a key role in maintaining these relationships, but the time that can be devoted to grooming is inherently limited. Communication may act as an additional, more time-efficient bonding mechanism to grooming, but how patterns of communication are related to patterns of sociality is still poorly understood. We used social network analysis to examine the associations between close proximity (duration of time spent within 10 m per hour spent in the same party), grooming, vocal communication, and gestural communication (duration of time and frequency of behavior per hour spent within 10 m) in wild chimpanzees. This study examined hypotheses formulated a priori and the results were not corrected for multiple testing. Chimpanzees had differentiated social relationships, with focal chimpanzees maintaining some level of proximity to almost all group members, but directing gestures at and grooming with a smaller number of preferred social partners. Pairs of chimpanzees that had high levels of close proximity had higher rates of grooming. Importantly, higher rates of gestural communication were also positively associated with levels of proximity, and specifically gestures associated with affiliation (greeting, gesture to mutually groom) were related to proximity. Synchronized low-intensity pant-hoots were also positively related to proximity in pairs of chimpanzees. Further, there were differences in the size of individual chimpanzees' proximity networks—the number of social relationships they maintained with others. Focal chimpanzees with larger proximity networks had a higher rate of both synchronized low- intensity pant-hoots and synchronized high-intensity pant-hoots. These results suggest that in addition to grooming, both gestures and synchronized vocalizations may play key roles in allowing chimpanzees to manage a large and differentiated set of social relationships. Gestures may be important in reducing the aggression arising from being in close proximity to others, allowing for proximity to be maintained for longer and facilitating grooming. Vocalizations may allow chimpanzees to communicate with a larger number of recipients than gestures and the synchronized nature of the pant-hoot calls may facilitate social bonding of more numerous social relationships. As group sizes increased through human evolution, both gestures and synchronized vocalizations may have played important roles in bonding social relationships in a more time-efficient manner than grooming. PMID:27933005

Disentangling the Correlated Evolution of Monogamy and Cooperation.

PubMed

Dillard, Jacqueline R; Westneat, David F

2016-07-01

Lifetime genetic monogamy, by increasing sibling relatedness, has been proposed as an important causal factor in the evolution of altruism. Monogamy, however, could influence the subsequent evolution of cooperation in other ways. We present several alternative, non-mutually exclusive, evolutionary processes that could explain the correlated evolution of monogamy and cooperation. Our analysis of these possibilities reveals that many ecological or social factors can affect all three variables of Hamilton's Rule simultaneously, thus calling for a more holistic, systems-level approach to studying the evolution of social traits. This perspective reveals novel dimensions to coevolutionary relationships and provides solutions for assigning causality in complex cases of correlated social trait evolution, such as the sequential evolution of monogamy and cooperation. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cognitive ornithology: the evolution of avian intelligence

PubMed Central

Emery, Nathan J

2005-01-01

Comparative psychologists interested in the evolution of intelligence have focused their attention on social primates, whereas birds tend to be used as models of associative learning. However, corvids and parrots, which have forebrains relatively the same size as apes, live in complex social groups and have a long developmental period before becoming independent, have demonstrated ape-like intelligence. Although, ornithologists have documented thousands of hours observing birds in their natural habitat, they have focused their attention on avian behaviour and ecology, rather than intelligence. This review discusses recent studies of avian cognition contrasting two different approaches; the anthropocentric approach and the adaptive specialization approach. It is argued that the most productive method is to combine the two approaches. This is discussed with respects to recent investigations of two supposedly unique aspects of human cognition; episodic memory and theory of mind. In reviewing the evidence for avian intelligence, corvids and parrots appear to be cognitively superior to other birds and in many cases even apes. This suggests that complex cognition has evolved in species with very different brains through a process of convergent evolution rather than shared ancestry, although the notion that birds and mammals may share common neural connectivity patterns is discussed. PMID:16553307

Sociological Study on the Transformation of Fertility and Childbearing Concept in Iran

PubMed Central

Behjati-Ardakani, Zohreh; Navabakhsh, Mehrdad; Hosseini, Seyed Hassan

2017-01-01

Fertility and childbearing, in addition to the biological aspects, has always been regarded as a social phenomenon and, therefore, to understand the incident, values and beliefs, norms, and in short, the culture of any society should be scrutinized. Since the concept, condition, and value of childbearing is associated with cultural, social, political and economic dimensions, it has undergone various transformations during passage of time from past to present. The sociological approach of the current study investigated the evolution of the concept and value of fertility and childbearing in light of historical, social, cultural and economic upheavals. This study shows that the methods of rationalizing and legitimizing decisions about fertility and childbearing are defined and specified in the context of society. The rational for selecting the decisions is intermingled with social, cultural, economic, and political evolutions of the society like modernization, urbanization and the level of development in human communities. Today, fertility, childbearing and the number of children are not only connected with the interpretations of the individuals about the conditions and micro and macro subjective and objective factors surrounding them, but they are also linked with factors such as family income, the amount of time parents allocate to their children, quality of child nurturing and other family variables. PMID:28377894

The evolution of primate general and cultural intelligence

PubMed Central

Reader, Simon M.; Hager, Yfke; Laland, Kevin N.

2011-01-01

There are consistent individual differences in human intelligence, attributable to a single ‘general intelligence’ factor, g. The evolutionary basis of g and its links to social learning and culture remain controversial. Conflicting hypotheses regard primate cognition as divided into specialized, independently evolving modules versus a single general process. To assess how processes underlying culture relate to one another and other cognitive capacities, we compiled ecologically relevant cognitive measures from multiple domains, namely reported incidences of behavioural innovation, social learning, tool use, extractive foraging and tactical deception, in 62 primate species. All exhibited strong positive associations in principal component and factor analyses, after statistically controlling for multiple potential confounds. This highly correlated composite of cognitive traits suggests social, technical and ecological abilities have coevolved in primates, indicative of an across-species general intelligence that includes elements of cultural intelligence. Our composite species-level measure of general intelligence, ‘primate gS’, covaried with both brain volume and captive learning performance measures. Our findings question the independence of cognitive traits and do not support ‘massive modularity’ in primate cognition, nor an exclusively social model of primate intelligence. High general intelligence has independently evolved at least four times, with convergent evolution in capuchins, baboons, macaques and great apes. PMID:21357224

Evolution and social epidemiology.

PubMed

Nishi, Akihiro

2015-11-01

Evolutionary biology, which aims to explain the dynamic process of shaping the diversity of life, has not yet significantly affected thinking in social epidemiology. Current challenges in social epidemiology include understanding how social exposures can affect our biology, explaining the dynamics of society and health, and designing better interventions that are mindful of the impact of exposures during critical periods. I review how evolutionary concepts and tools, such as fitness gradient in cultural evolution, evolutionary game theory, and contemporary evolution in cancer, can provide helpful insights regarding social epidemiology. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Quantitative genetic versions of Hamilton's rule with empirical applications

PubMed Central

McGlothlin, Joel W.; Wolf, Jason B.; Brodie, Edmund D.; Moore, Allen J.

2014-01-01

Hamilton's theory of inclusive fitness revolutionized our understanding of the evolution of social interactions. Surprisingly, an incorporation of Hamilton's perspective into the quantitative genetic theory of phenotypic evolution has been slow, despite the popularity of quantitative genetics in evolutionary studies. Here, we discuss several versions of Hamilton's rule for social evolution from a quantitative genetic perspective, emphasizing its utility in empirical applications. Although evolutionary quantitative genetics offers methods to measure each of the critical parameters of Hamilton's rule, empirical work has lagged behind theory. In particular, we lack studies of selection on altruistic traits in the wild. Fitness costs and benefits of altruism can be estimated using a simple extension of phenotypic selection analysis that incorporates the traits of social interactants. We also discuss the importance of considering the genetic influence of the social environment, or indirect genetic effects (IGEs), in the context of Hamilton's rule. Research in social evolution has generated an extensive body of empirical work focusing—with good reason—almost solely on relatedness. We argue that quantifying the roles of social and non-social components of selection and IGEs, in addition to relatedness, is now timely and should provide unique additional insights into social evolution. PMID:24686930

Imagination in human social cognition, autism, and psychotic-affective conditions.

PubMed

Crespi, Bernard; Leach, Emma; Dinsdale, Natalie; Mokkonen, Mikael; Hurd, Peter

2016-05-01

Complex human social cognition has evolved in concert with risks for psychiatric disorders. Recently, autism and psychotic-affective conditions (mainly schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression) have been posited as psychological 'opposites' with regard to social-cognitive phenotypes. Imagination, considered as 'forming new ideas, mental images, or concepts', represents a central facet of human social evolution and cognition. Previous studies have documented reduced imagination in autism, and increased imagination in association with psychotic-affective conditions, yet these sets of findings have yet to be considered together, or evaluated in the context of the diametric model. We first review studies of the components, manifestations, and neural correlates of imagination in autism and psychotic-affective conditions. Next, we use data on dimensional autism in healthy populations to test the hypotheses that: (1) imagination represents the facet of autism that best accounts for its strongly male-biased sex ratio, and (2) higher genetic risk of schizophrenia is associated with higher imagination, in accordance with the predictions of the diametric model. The first hypothesis was supported by a systematic review and meta-analysis showing that Imagination exhibits the strongest male bias of all Autism Quotient (AQ) subscales, in non-clinical populations. The second hypothesis was supported, for males, by associations between schizophrenia genetic risk scores, derived from a set of single-nucleotide polymorphisms, and the AQ Imagination subscale. Considered together, these findings indicate that imagination, especially social imagination as embodied in the default mode human brain network, mediates risk and diametric dimensional phenotypes of autism and psychotic-affective conditions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Research on social communication network evolution based on topology potential distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Dongjie; Jiang, Jian; Li, Deyi; Zhang, Haisu; Chen, Guisheng

2011-12-01

Aiming at the problem of social communication network evolution, first, topology potential is introduced to measure the local influence among nodes in networks. Second, from the perspective of topology potential distribution the method of network evolution description based on topology potential distribution is presented, which takes the artificial intelligence with uncertainty as basic theory and local influence among nodes as essentiality. Then, a social communication network is constructed by enron email dataset, the method presented is used to analyze the characteristic of the social communication network evolution and some useful conclusions are got, implying that the method is effective, which shows that topology potential distribution can effectively describe the characteristic of sociology and detect the local changes in social communication network.

[Evolution of human brain and intelligence].

PubMed

Lakatos, László; Janka, Zoltán

2008-07-30

The biological evolution, including human evolution is mainly driven by environmental changes. Accidental genetic modifications and their innovative results make the successful adaptation possible. As we know the human evolution started 7-8 million years ago in the African savannah, where upright position and bipedalism were significantly advantageous. The main drive of improving manual actions and tool making could be to obtain more food. Our ancestor got more meat due to more successful hunting, resulting in more caloric intake, more protein and essential fatty acid in the meal. The nervous system uses disproportionally high level of energy, so better quality of food was a basic condition for the evolution of huge human brain. The size of human brain was tripled during 3.5 million years, it increased from the average of 450 cm3 of Australopithecinae to the average of 1350 cm3 of Homo sapiens. A genetic change in the system controlling gene expression could happen about 200 000 years ago, which influenced the development of nervous system, the sensorimotor function and learning ability for motor processes. The appearance and stabilisation of FOXP2 gene structure as feature of modern man coincided with the first presence and quick spread of Homo sapiens on the whole Earth. This genetic modification made opportunity for human language, as the basis of abrupt evolution of human intelligence. The brain region being responsible for human language is the left planum temporale, which is much larger in left hemisphere. This shows the most typical human brain asymmetry. In this case the anatomical asymmetry means a clearly defined functional asymmetry as well, where the brain hemispheres act differently. The preference in using hands, the lateralised using of tools resulted in the brain asymmetry, which is the precondition of human language and intelligence. However, it cannot be held anymore, that only humans make tools, because our closest relatives, the chimpanzees are able not only to use, but also to make tools, and they can be taught how to produce quite difficult ones. Some brain characteristics connected to human consciousness and intelligence, like brain asymmetry, the "consciousness" or "theory of mind" based on mirror neurons are surprisingly present in monkeys. Nevertheless, the human intelligence is extremely flexible and different, while the animal intelligence is specialised, producing one thing at high level. Based on recent knowledge the level of intelligence is related anatomically to the number of cortical neurons and physiologically to the speed of conductivity of neural pathways, the latter being dependent on the degree of myelinisation. The improvement of cognitive functions including language is driver by the need of more effective communication requiring less energy, the need of social dominance, the competitive advantages within smaller groups and species or against other species, which improves the opportunity for obtaining food. Better mental skills give also sexual dominance, which is beneficial for stabilising "cleverness" genes. The evolutionary history of human consciousness emphasises its adaptive survival helping nature. The evolution of language was the basic condition of conscious thinking as a qualitative change, which fundamentally differentiate us from all other creatures.

Mosaicism may explain the evolution of social characters in haplodiploid Hymenoptera with female workers.

PubMed

Morpurgo, Giorgio; Babudri, Nora; Fioretti, Bernard; Catacuzzeno, Luigi

2010-12-01

The role of haplodiploidy in the evolution of eusocial insects and why in Hymenoptera males do not perform any work is presently unknown. We show here that within-colony conflict caused by the coexistence of individuals of the same caste expressing the same character in different ways can be fundamental in the evolution of social characters in species that have already reached the eusocial condition. Mosaic colonies, composed by individuals expressing either the wild-type or a mutant phenotype, inevitably occurs during the evolution of advantageous social traits in insects. We simulated the evolution of an advantageous social trait increasing colony fitness in haplodiploid and diplodiploid species considering all possible conditions, i.e. dominance/recessivity of the allele determining the new social character, sex of the castes, and influence of mosaicism on the colony fitness. When mosaicism lowered colony fitness below that of the colony homogeneous for the wild type allele, the fixation of an advantageous social character was possible only in haplodiploids with female castes. When mosaicism caused smaller reductions in colony fitness, reaching frequencies of 90% was much faster in haplodiploids with female castes and dominant mutations. Our results suggest that the evolution of social characters is easier in haplodiploid than in diplodiploid species, provided that workers are females.

Biological Races in Humans

PubMed Central

Templeton, Alan R.

2013-01-01

Races may exist in humans in a cultural sense, but biological concepts of race are needed to access their reality in a non-species-specific manner and to see if cultural categories correspond to biological categories within humans. Modern biological concepts of race can be implemented objectively with molecular genetic data through hypothesis-testing. Genetic data sets are used to see if biological races exist in humans and in our closest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. Using the two most commonly used biological concepts of race, chimpanzees are indeed subdivided into races but humans are not. Adaptive traits, such as skin color, have frequently been used to define races in humans, but such adaptive traits reflect the underlying environmental factor to which they are adaptive and not overall genetic differentiation, and different adaptive traits define discordant groups. There are no objective criteria for choosing one adaptive trait over another to define race. As a consequence, adaptive traits do not define races in humans. Much of the recent scientific literature on human evolution portrays human populations as separate branches on an evolutionary tree. A tree-like structure among humans has been falsified whenever tested, so this practice is scientifically indefensible. It is also socially irresponsible as these pictorial representations of human evolution have more impact on the general public than nuanced phrases in the text of a scientific paper. Humans have much genetic diversity, but the vast majority of this diversity reflects individual uniqueness and not race. PMID:23684745

Social molecular pathways and the evolution of bee societies

PubMed Central

Bloch, Guy; Grozinger, Christina M.

2011-01-01

Bees provide an excellent model with which to study the neuronal and molecular modifications associated with the evolution of sociality because relatively closely related species differ profoundly in social behaviour, from solitary to highly social. The recent development of powerful genomic tools and resources has set the stage for studying the social behaviour of bees in molecular terms. We review ‘ground plan’ and ‘genetic toolkit’ models which hypothesize that discrete pathways or sets of genes that regulate fundamental behavioural and physiological processes in solitary species have been co-opted to regulate complex social behaviours in social species. We further develop these models and propose that these conserved pathways and genes may be incorporated into ‘social pathways’, which consist of relatively independent modules involved in social signal detection, integration and processing within the nervous and endocrine systems, and subsequent behavioural outputs. Modifications within modules or in their connections result in the evolution of novel behavioural patterns. We describe how the evolution of pheromonal regulation of social pathways may lead to the expression of behaviour under new social contexts, and review plasticity in circadian rhythms as an example for a social pathway with a modular structure. PMID:21690132

Human comment dynamics in on-line social systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Ye; Zhou, Changsong; Chen, Maoying; Xiao, Jinghua; Kurths, Jürgen

2010-12-01

Human comment is studied using data from ‘tianya’ which is one of the most popular on-line social systems in China. We found that the time interval between two consecutive comments on the same topic, called inter-event time, follows a power-law distribution. This result shows that there is no characteristic decay time on a topic. It allows for very long periods without comments that separate bursts of intensive comments. Furthermore, the frequency of a different ID commenting on a topic also follows a power-law distribution. It indicates that there are some “hubs” in the topic who lead the direction of the public opinion. Based on the personal comments habit, a model is introduced to explain these phenomena. The numerical simulations of the model fit well with the empirical results. Our findings are helpful for discovering regular patterns of human behavior in on-line society and the evolution of the public opinion on the virtual as well as real society.

Illuminating the dark matter of social neuroscience: Considering the problem of social interaction from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives

PubMed Central

Przyrembel, Marisa; Smallwood, Jonathan; Pauen, Michael; Singer, Tania

2012-01-01

Successful human social interaction depends on our capacity to understand other people's mental states and to anticipate how they will react to our actions. Despite its importance to the human condition, the exact mechanisms underlying our ability to understand another's actions, feelings, and thoughts are still a matter of conjecture. Here, we consider this problem from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives. In a critical review, we demonstrate that attempts to draw parallels across these complementary disciplines is premature: The second-person perspective does not map directly to Interaction or Simulation theories, online social cognition, or shared neural network accounts underlying action observation or empathy. Nor does the third-person perspective map onto Theory-Theory (TT), offline social cognition, or the neural networks that support Theory of Mind (ToM). Moreover, we argue that important qualities of social interaction emerge through the reciprocal interplay of two independent agents whose unpredictable behavior requires that models of their partner's internal state be continually updated. This analysis draws attention to the need for paradigms in social neuroscience that allow two individuals to interact in a spontaneous and natural manner and to adapt their behavior and cognitions in a response contingent fashion due to the inherent unpredictability in another person's behavior. Even if such paradigms were implemented, it is possible that the specific neural correlates supporting such reciprocal interaction would not reflect computation unique to social interaction but rather the use of basic cognitive and emotional processes combined in a unique manner. Finally, we argue that given the crucial role of social interaction in human evolution, ontogeny, and every-day social life, a more theoretically and methodologically nuanced approach to the study of real social interaction will nevertheless help the field of social cognition to evolve. PMID:22737120

Costs for switching partners reduce network dynamics but not cooperative behaviour

PubMed Central

Bednarik, Peter; Fehl, Katrin; Semmann, Dirk

2014-01-01

Social networks represent the structuring of interactions between group members. Above all, many interactions are profoundly cooperative in humans and other animals. In accordance with this natural observation, theoretical work demonstrates that certain network structures favour the evolution of cooperation. Yet, recent experimental evidence suggests that static networks do not enhance cooperative behaviour in humans. By contrast, dynamic networks do foster cooperation. However, costs associated with dynamism such as time or resource investments in finding and establishing new partnerships have been neglected so far. Here, we show that human participants are much less likely to break links when costs arise for building new links. Especially, when costs were high, the network was nearly static. Surprisingly, cooperation levels in Prisoner's Dilemma games were not affected by reduced dynamism in social networks. We conclude that the mere potential to quit collaborations is sufficient in humans to reach high levels of cooperative behaviour. Effects of self-structuring processes or assortment on the network played a minor role: participants simply adjusted their cooperative behaviour in response to the threats of losing a partner or of being expelled. PMID:25122233

A mutualistic approach to morality: the evolution of fairness by partner choice.

PubMed

Baumard, Nicolas; André, Jean-Baptiste; Sperber, Dan

2013-02-01

What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate “how” question or as an ultimate “why” question. The “how” question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The “why” question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants’ distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant’s rights on the resources to be distributed.

Web Spam, Social Propaganda and the Evolution of Search Engine Rankings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Metaxas, Panagiotis Takis

Search Engines have greatly influenced the way we experience the web. Since the early days of the web, users have been relying on them to get informed and make decisions. When the web was relatively small, web directories were built and maintained using human experts to screen and categorize pages according to their characteristics. By the mid 1990's, however, it was apparent that the human expert model of categorizing web pages does not scale. The first search engines appeared and they have been evolving ever since, taking over the role that web directories used to play.

Good Samaritans in Networks: An Experiment on How Networks Influence Egalitarian Sharing and the Evolution of Inequality

PubMed Central

Chiang, Yen-Sheng

2015-01-01

The fact that the more resourceful people are sharing with the poor to mitigate inequality—egalitarian sharing—is well documented in the behavioral science research. How inequality evolves as a result of egalitarian sharing is determined by the structure of “who gives whom”. While most prior experimental research investigates allocation of resources in dyads and groups, the paper extends the research of egalitarian sharing to networks for a more generalized structure of social interaction. An agent-based model is proposed to predict how actors, linked in networks, share their incomes with neighbors. A laboratory experiment with human subjects further shows that income distributions evolve to different states in different network topologies. Inequality is significantly reduced in networks where the very rich and the very poor are connected so that income discrepancy is salient enough to motivate the rich to share their incomes with the poor. The study suggests that social networks make a difference in how egalitarian sharing influences the evolution of inequality. PMID:26061642

Crime and madness at the opposite shores of the Adriatic: moral insanity in Italian and Croatian psychiatric discourses.

PubMed

D'Alessio, Vanni; Čeč, Filip; Karge, Heike

2017-12-01

In the 19th century, fervid debates arose in the young psychiatric science about how to deal with and to scientifically categorize human behaviour which was perceived as dangerous to society, and as criminal. There were two concepts that stood out in these transnationally held discussions; namely moral insanity and later on, psychopathy. Following recent approaches in the cultural and social history of psychiatry, we understand moral insanity and psychopathy as social constructs, which are determined by the evolution in psychiatric knowledge, and also by laws, codes and social norms of particular historical timeframes. Our task is to discuss the evolution and adoption of these concepts in two linguistically different, but still historically profoundly entangled regions, namely in Italian and Croatian psychiatric discourses at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century. Our analysis of two of the most important medical and psychiatric journals of the time shows that psychiatric debates on antisocial and criminal behaviour were in numerous ways entangled and shaped by the way the two societies scientifically, legally, and institutionally struggled over the question of how to detect and control the mentally incapacitated criminal offender.

Invasion fitness for gene-culture co-evolution in family-structured populations and an application to cumulative culture under vertical transmission.

PubMed

Mullon, Charles; Lehmann, Laurent

2017-08-01

Human evolution depends on the co-evolution between genetically determined behaviors and socially transmitted information. Although vertical transmission of cultural information from parent to offspring is common in hominins, its effects on cumulative cultural evolution are not fully understood. Here, we investigate gene-culture co-evolution in a family-structured population by studying the invasion fitness of a mutant allele that influences a deterministic level of cultural information (e.g., amount of knowledge or skill) to which diploid carriers of the mutant are exposed in subsequent generations. We show that the selection gradient on such a mutant, and the concomitant level of cultural information it generates, can be evaluated analytically under the assumption that the cultural dynamic has a single attractor point, thereby making gene-culture co-evolution in family-structured populations with multigenerational effects mathematically tractable. We apply our result to study how genetically determined phenotypes of individual and social learning co-evolve with the level of adaptive information they generate under vertical transmission. We find that vertical transmission increases adaptive information due to kin selection effects, but when information is transmitted as efficiently between family members as between unrelated individuals, this increase is moderate in diploids. By contrast, we show that the way resource allocation into learning trades off with allocation into reproduction (the "learning-reproduction trade-off") significantly influences levels of adaptive information. We also show that vertical transmission prevents evolutionary branching and may therefore play a qualitative role in gene-culture co-evolutionary dynamics. More generally, our analysis of selection suggests that vertical transmission can significantly increase levels of adaptive information under the biologically plausible condition that information transmission between relatives is more efficient than between unrelated individuals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Endless forms: human behavioural diversity and evolved universals.

PubMed

Smith, Eric Alden

2011-02-12

Human populations have extraordinary capabilities for generating behavioural diversity without corresponding genetic diversity or change. These capabilities and their consequences can be grouped into three categories: strategic (or cognitive), ecological and cultural-evolutionary. Strategic aspects include: (i) a propensity to employ complex conditional strategies, some certainly genetically evolved but others owing to directed invention or to cultural evolution; (ii) situations in which fitness payoffs (or utilities) are frequency-dependent, so that there is no one best strategy; and (iii) the prevalence of multiple equilibria, with history or minor variations in starting conditions (path dependence) playing a crucial role. Ecological aspects refer to the fact that social behaviour and cultural institutions evolve in diverse niches, producing various adaptive radiations and local adaptations. Although environmental change can drive behavioural change, in humans, it is common for behavioural change (especially technological innovation) to drive environmental change (i.e. niche construction). Evolutionary aspects refer to the fact that human capacities for innovation and cultural transmission lead to diversification and cumulative cultural evolution; critical here is institutional design, in which relatively small shifts in incentive structure can produce very different aggregate outcomes. In effect, institutional design can reshape strategic games, bringing us full circle.

The human socio-cognitive niche and its evolutionary origins.

PubMed

Whiten, Andrew; Erdal, David

2012-08-05

Hominin evolution took a remarkable pathway, as the foraging strategy extended to large mammalian prey already hunted by a guild of specialist carnivores. How was this possible for a moderately sized ape lacking the formidable anatomical adaptations of these competing 'professional hunters'? The long-standing answer that this was achieved through the elaboration of a new 'cognitive niche' reliant on intelligence and technology is compelling, yet insufficient. Here we present evidence from a diversity of sources supporting the hypothesis that a fuller answer lies in the evolution of a new socio-cognitive niche, the principal components of which include forms of cooperation, egalitarianism, mindreading (also known as 'theory of mind'), language and cultural transmission, that go far beyond the most comparable phenomena in other primates. This cognitive and behavioural complex allows a human hunter-gatherer band to function as a unique and highly competitive predatory organism. Each of these core components of the socio-cognitive niche is distinctive to humans, but primate research has increasingly identified related capacities that permit inferences about significant ancestral cognitive foundations to the five pillars of the human social cognitive niche listed earlier. The principal focus of the present study was to review and integrate this range of recent comparative discoveries.

Molecular variation in AVP and AVPR1a in New World monkeys (Primates, Platyrrhini): evolution and implications for social monogamy.

PubMed

Ren, Dongren; Chin, Kelvin R; French, Jeffrey A

2014-01-01

The neurohypophysial hormone arginine vasopressin (AVP) plays important roles in fluid regulation and vascular resistance. Differences in AVP receptor expression, particularly mediated through variation in the noncoding promoter region of the primary receptor for AVP (AVPR1a), may play a role in social phenotypes, particularly social monogamy, in rodents and humans. Among primates, social monogamy is rare, but is common among New World monkeys (NWM). AVP is a nonapeptide and generally conserved among eutherian mammals, although a recent paper demonstrated that some NWM species possess a novel form of the related neuropeptide hormone, oxytocin. We therefore characterized variation in the AVP and AVPR1a genes in 22 species representing every genus in the three major platyrrhine families (Cebidae, Atelidae and Pitheciidae). For AVP, a total of 16 synonymous substitutions were detected in 15 NWM species. No non-synonymous substitutions were noted, hence, AVP is conserved in NWM. By contrast, relative to the human AVPR1a, 66 predicted amino acids (AA) substitutions were identified in NWM. The AVPR1a N-terminus (ligand binding domain), third intracellular (G-protein binding domain), and C-terminus were variable among species. Complex evolution of AVPR1a is also apparent in NWM. A molecular phylogenetic tree inferred from AVPR1a coding sequences revealed some consensus taxonomic separation by families, but also a mixed group composed of genera from all three families. The overall dN/dS ratio of AVPR1a was 0.11, but signals of positive selection in distinct AVPR1a regions were observed, including the N-terminus, in which we identified six potential positive selection sites. AA substitutions at positions 241, 319, 399 and 409 occurred uniquely in marmosets and tamarins. Our results enhance the appreciation of genetic diversity in the mammalian AVP/AVPR1a system, and set the stage for molecular modeling of the neurohypophyseal hormones and social behavior in primates.

Molecular Variation in AVP and AVPR1a in New World Monkeys (Primates, Platyrrhini): Evolution and Implications for Social Monogamy

PubMed Central

Ren, Dongren; Chin, Kelvin R.; French, Jeffrey A.

2014-01-01

The neurohypophysial hormone arginine vasopressin (AVP) plays important roles in fluid regulation and vascular resistance. Differences in AVP receptor expression, particularly mediated through variation in the noncoding promoter region of the primary receptor for AVP (AVPR1a), may play a role in social phenotypes, particularly social monogamy, in rodents and humans. Among primates, social monogamy is rare, but is common among New World monkeys (NWM). AVP is a nonapeptide and generally conserved among eutherian mammals, although a recent paper demonstrated that some NWM species possess a novel form of the related neuropeptide hormone, oxytocin. We therefore characterized variation in the AVP and AVPR1a genes in 22 species representing every genus in the three major platyrrhine families (Cebidae, Atelidae and Pitheciidae). For AVP, a total of 16 synonymous substitutions were detected in 15 NWM species. No non-synonymous substitutions were noted, hence, AVP is conserved in NWM. By contrast, relative to the human AVPR1a, 66 predicted amino acids (AA) substitutions were identified in NWM. The AVPR1a N-terminus (ligand binding domain), third intracellular (G-protein binding domain), and C-terminus were variable among species. Complex evolution of AVPR1a is also apparent in NWM. A molecular phylogenetic tree inferred from AVPR1a coding sequences revealed some consensus taxonomic separation by families, but also a mixed group composed of genera from all three families. The overall dN/dS ratio of AVPR1a was 0.11, but signals of positive selection in distinct AVPR1a regions were observed, including the N-terminus, in which we identified six potential positive selection sites. AA substitutions at positions 241, 319, 399 and 409 occurred uniquely in marmosets and tamarins. Our results enhance the appreciation of genetic diversity in the mammalian AVP/AVPR1a system, and set the stage for molecular modeling of the neurohypophyseal hormones and social behavior in primates. PMID:25360668

Entropy of dynamical social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Kun; Karsai, Marton; Bianconi, Ginestra

2012-02-01

Dynamical social networks are evolving rapidly and are highly adaptive. Characterizing the information encoded in social networks is essential to gain insight into the structure, evolution, adaptability and dynamics. Recently entropy measures have been used to quantify the information in email correspondence, static networks and mobility patterns. Nevertheless, we still lack methods to quantify the information encoded in time-varying dynamical social networks. In this talk we present a model to quantify the entropy of dynamical social networks and use this model to analyze the data of phone-call communication. We show evidence that the entropy of the phone-call interaction network changes according to circadian rhythms. Moreover we show that social networks are extremely adaptive and are modified by the use of technologies such as mobile phone communication. Indeed the statistics of duration of phone-call is described by a Weibull distribution and is significantly different from the distribution of duration of face-to-face interactions in a conference. Finally we investigate how much the entropy of dynamical social networks changes in realistic models of phone-call or face-to face interactions characterizing in this way different type human social behavior.

Integrating Geomorphic and Social Dynamics in the Analysis of Anthropogenic Landforms: Examining Landscape Evolution of Terrain Modified by Agricultural Terracing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glaubius, J.; Maerker, M.

2016-12-01

Anthropogenic landforms, such as mines and agricultural terraces, are impacted by both geomorphic and social processes at varying intensities through time. In the case of agricultural terraces, decisions regarding terrace maintenance are intertwined with land use, such as when terraced fields are abandoned. Furthermore, terrace maintenance and land use decisions, either jointly or separately, may be in response to geomorphic processes, as well as geomorphic feedbacks. Previous studies of these complex geomorphic systems considered agricultural terraces as static features or analyzed only the geomorphic response to landowner decisions. Such research is appropriate for short-term or binary landscape scenarios (e.g. the impact of maintained vs. abandoned terraces), but the complexities inherent in these socio-natural systems requires an approach that includes both social and geomorphic processes. This project analyzes feedbacks and emergent properties in terraced systems by implementing a coupled landscape evolution model (LEM) and agent-based model (ABM) using the Landlab and Mesa modeling libraries. In the ABM portion of the model, agricultural terraces are conceptualized using a life-cycle stages schema and implemented using Markov Decision Processes to simulate the changing geomorphic impact of terracing based on human decisions. This paper examines the applicability of this approach by comparing results from a LEM-only model against the coupled LEM-ABM model for a terraced region. Model results are compared by quantify and spatial patterning of sediment transport. This approach fully captures long-term landscape evolution of terraced terrain that is otherwise lost when the life-cycle of terraces is not considered. The coupled LEM-ABM approach balances both environmental and social processes so that the socio-natural feedbacks in such anthropogenic systems can be disentangled.

MyGeneFriends: A Social Network Linking Genes, Genetic Diseases, and Researchers.

PubMed

Allot, Alexis; Chennen, Kirsley; Nevers, Yannis; Poidevin, Laetitia; Kress, Arnaud; Ripp, Raymond; Thompson, Julie Dawn; Poch, Olivier; Lecompte, Odile

2017-06-16

The constant and massive increase of biological data offers unprecedented opportunities to decipher the function and evolution of genes and their roles in human diseases. However, the multiplicity of sources and flow of data mean that efficient access to useful information and knowledge production has become a major challenge. This challenge can be addressed by taking inspiration from Web 2.0 and particularly social networks, which are at the forefront of big data exploration and human-data interaction. MyGeneFriends is a Web platform inspired by social networks, devoted to genetic disease analysis, and organized around three types of proactive agents: genes, humans, and genetic diseases. The aim of this study was to improve exploration and exploitation of biological, postgenomic era big data. MyGeneFriends leverages conventions popularized by top social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc), such as networks of friends, profile pages, friendship recommendations, affinity scores, news feeds, content recommendation, and data visualization. MyGeneFriends provides simple and intuitive interactions with data through evaluation and visualization of connections (friendships) between genes, humans, and diseases. The platform suggests new friends and publications and allows agents to follow the activity of their friends. It dynamically personalizes information depending on the user's specific interests and provides an efficient way to share information with collaborators. Furthermore, the user's behavior itself generates new information that constitutes an added value integrated in the network, which can be used to discover new connections between biological agents. We have developed MyGeneFriends, a Web platform leveraging conventions from popular social networks to redefine the relationship between humans and biological big data and improve human processing of biomedical data. MyGeneFriends is available at lbgi.fr/mygenefriends. ©Alexis Allot, Kirsley Chennen, Yannis Nevers, Laetitia Poidevin, Arnaud Kress, Raymond Ripp, Julie Dawn Thompson, Olivier Poch, Odile Lecompte. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 16.06.2017.

Hydrologic Predictions in the Anthropocene: Exploration with Co-evolutionary Socio-hydrologic Models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sivapalan, Murugesu; Tian, Fuqiang; Liu, Dengfeng

2013-04-01

Socio-hydrology studies the co-evolution and self-organization of humans in the hydrologic landscape, which requires a thorough understanding of the complex interactions between humans and water. On the one hand, the nature of water availability greatly impacts the development of society. On the other hand, humans can significantly alter the spatio-temporal distribution of water and in this way provide feedback to the society itself. The human-water system functions underlying such complex human-water interactions are not well understood. Exploratory models with the appropriate level of simplification in any given area can be valuable to understand these functions and the self-organization associated with socio-hydrology. In this study, a simple coupled modeling framework for socio-hydrology co-evolution is developed, and is used to illustrate the explanatory power of such models. In the Tarim River, humans depend heavily on agricultural production (other industries can be ignored for a start), and the social processes can be described principally by two variables, i.e., irrigated-area and human population. The eco-hydrological processes are expressed in terms of area under natural vegetation and stream discharge. The study area is the middle and the lower reaches of the Tarim River, which is divided into two modeling units, i.e. middle reach and lower reach. In each modeling unit, four ordinary differential equations are used to simulate the dynamics of the hydrological system represented by stream discharge, ecological system represented by area under natural vegetation, the economic system represented by irrigated area under agriculture and social system represented by human population. The four dominant variables are coupled together by several internal variables. For example, the stream discharge is coupled to irrigated area by the colonization rate and mortality rate of the irrigated area in the middle reach and the irrigated area is coupled to stream discharge by water used for irrigation. In a similar way, the stream discharge and natural vegetation are coupled together. The irrigated area is coupled to population by the colonization rate and mortality rate of the population. The discharge of the lower reach is determined by the discharge from the middle reach. The natural vegetation area in the lower reach is coupled to the discharge in the middle reach by water resources management policy. The co-evolution of the Tarim socio-hydrological system is then analyzed within this modeling framework to gain insights into the overall system dynamics and sensitivity to the external drivers and internal system variables.

What's Wrong with a Little Social Darwinism (in Our Historiography)?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Versen, Christopher R.

2009-01-01

The simplest and most widely held definition of Social Darwinism is the application of concepts of biological evolution to social and moral development. More specifically, it is social evolution through "survival of the fittest" in a "struggle for existence" in which the strong prevail and the weak are defeated and disappear.…

Cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks.

PubMed

Fowler, James H; Christakis, Nicholas A

2010-03-23

Theoretical models suggest that social networks influence the evolution of cooperation, but to date there have been few experimental studies. Observational data suggest that a wide variety of behaviors may spread in human social networks, but subjects in such studies can choose to befriend people with similar behaviors, posing difficulty for causal inference. Here, we exploit a seminal set of laboratory experiments that originally showed that voluntary costly punishment can help sustain cooperation. In these experiments, subjects were randomly assigned to a sequence of different groups to play a series of single-shot public goods games with strangers; this feature allowed us to draw networks of interactions to explore how cooperative and uncooperative behaviors spread from person to person to person. We show that, in both an ordinary public goods game and in a public goods game with punishment, focal individuals are influenced by fellow group members' contribution behavior in future interactions with other individuals who were not a party to the initial interaction. Furthermore, this influence persists for multiple periods and spreads up to three degrees of separation (from person to person to person to person). The results suggest that each additional contribution a subject makes to the public good in the first period is tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who are directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more as a consequence. These results show experimentally that cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks.

Collective action and the evolution of social norm internalization.

PubMed

Gavrilets, Sergey; Richerson, Peter J

2017-06-06

Human behavior is strongly affected by culturally transmitted norms and values. Certain norms are internalized (i.e., acting according to a norm becomes an end in itself rather than merely a tool in achieving certain goals or avoiding social sanctions). Humans' capacity to internalize norms likely evolved in our ancestors to simplify solving certain challenges-including social ones. Here we study theoretically the evolutionary origins of the capacity to internalize norms. In our models, individuals can choose to participate in collective actions as well as punish free riders. In making their decisions, individuals attempt to maximize a utility function in which normative values are initially irrelevant but play an increasingly important role if the ability to internalize norms emerges. Using agent-based simulations, we show that norm internalization evolves under a wide range of conditions so that cooperation becomes "instinctive." Norm internalization evolves much more easily and has much larger effects on behavior if groups promote peer punishment of free riders. Promoting only participation in collective actions is not effective. Typically, intermediate levels of norm internalization are most frequent but there are also cases with relatively small frequencies of "oversocialized" individuals willing to make extreme sacrifices for their groups no matter material costs, as well as "undersocialized" individuals completely immune to social norms. Evolving the ability to internalize norms was likely a crucial step on the path to large-scale human cooperation.

Long-Term Evolution of Email Networks: Statistical Regularities, Predictability and Stability of Social Behaviors.

PubMed

Godoy-Lorite, Antonia; Guimerà, Roger; Sales-Pardo, Marta

2016-01-01

In social networks, individuals constantly drop ties and replace them by new ones in a highly unpredictable fashion. This highly dynamical nature of social ties has important implications for processes such as the spread of information or of epidemics. Several studies have demonstrated the influence of a number of factors on the intricate microscopic process of tie replacement, but the macroscopic long-term effects of such changes remain largely unexplored. Here we investigate whether, despite the inherent randomness at the microscopic level, there are macroscopic statistical regularities in the long-term evolution of social networks. In particular, we analyze the email network of a large organization with over 1,000 individuals throughout four consecutive years. We find that, although the evolution of individual ties is highly unpredictable, the macro-evolution of social communication networks follows well-defined statistical patterns, characterized by exponentially decaying log-variations of the weight of social ties and of individuals' social strength. At the same time, we find that individuals have social signatures and communication strategies that are remarkably stable over the scale of several years.

Gene duplication and the evolution of phenotypic diversity in insect societies.

PubMed

Chau, Linh M; Goodisman, Michael A D

2017-12-01

Gene duplication is an important evolutionary process thought to facilitate the evolution of phenotypic diversity. We investigated if gene duplication was associated with the evolution of phenotypic differences in a highly social insect, the honeybee Apis mellifera. We hypothesized that the genetic redundancy provided by gene duplication could promote the evolution of social and sexual phenotypes associated with advanced societies. We found a positive correlation between sociality and rate of gene duplications across the Apoidea, indicating that gene duplication may be associated with sociality. We also discovered that genes showing biased expression between A. mellifera alternative phenotypes tended to be found more frequently than expected among duplicated genes than singletons. Moreover, duplicated genes had higher levels of caste-, sex-, behavior-, and tissue-biased expression compared to singletons, as expected if gene duplication facilitated phenotypic differentiation. We also found that duplicated genes were maintained in the A. mellifera genome through the processes of conservation, neofunctionalization, and specialization, but not subfunctionalization. Overall, we conclude that gene duplication may have facilitated the evolution of social and sexual phenotypes, as well as tissue differentiation. Thus this study further supports the idea that gene duplication allows species to evolve an increased range of phenotypic diversity. © 2017 The Author(s). Evolution © 2017 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

The Theory of Evolution - A Jewish Perspective

PubMed Central

Steinberg, Avraham

2010-01-01

All possible pro and con arguments regarding the theory of evolution have been discussed and debated in the vast literature—scientific, religious, and lay—in the past 150 years. There is usually great zealotry in all debating parties, with mutual intolerance of ideas and concepts, disrespect toward opposing opinions and positions, and usage of very harsh language. This prejudiced approach usually does not allow for a reasonable debate. It is important to look at the facts, assumptions, and beliefs of the theory of evolution in a more calm and humble way. In this article a comparative analysis is offered between the scientific aspects of the theory of evolution and a Judaic approach to these aspects. The two sets of human thought—religion and science—are fundamentally different in their aims and purposes, in their methods of operation, in their scope of interest and issues, and in their origin and ramifications. Whenever science surpasses its limits, or religion exceeds its boundaries, it actually is a form of an abuse of both. This has happened to the theory of evolution in a more powerful mode than any other interaction between science and religion. The agenda of many scientists who promote the theory of evolution is to achieve the goal of understanding the existence of the universe as a random, purposeless, natural development, evolved slowly over billions of years from a common ancestor by way of natural selection, devoid of any supernatural metaphysical power. Jewish faith perceives the development of the universe in a different way: God created the world, with a purpose known to Him; He established natural laws that govern the world; and He imposed a moral-religious set of requirements upon Man. The discussion and comparative analysis in this article is based upon the current neo-Darwinian theory, although it seems almost certain that even the new and modern assumptions and speculations will continue to be challenged, changed, and revised as new scientific information will be discovered. The theory of evolution is based upon certain facts, many assumptions, speculations, and interpretations, and some fundamental non-evidence-based beliefs. Judaism accepts all experimentally proven facts and observations of the theory of evolution. Judaism accepts some of the assumptions and interpretations embedded in the theory of evolution, but rejects other assumptions and speculations which contradict fundamental Jewish beliefs, and which are anyway not scientifically proven; to those Judaism offers different interpretations. Judaism strongly rejects all the extensions of the theory of evolution beyond natural sciences, which endorse the biological assumption of the “survival of the fittest” in commerce and human societies as a whole by justifying claims of social inequality, sexism, racism, Nazism, eugenics, and other moral-social deviations as “laws of nature”. PMID:23908780

The theory of evolution - a jewish perspective.

PubMed

Steinberg, Avraham

2010-07-01

All possible pro and con arguments regarding the theory of evolution have been discussed and debated in the vast literature-scientific, religious, and lay-in the past 150 years. There is usually great zealotry in all debating parties, with mutual intolerance of ideas and concepts, disrespect toward opposing opinions and positions, and usage of very harsh language. This prejudiced approach usually does not allow for a reasonable debate. It is important to look at the facts, assumptions, and beliefs of the theory of evolution in a more calm and humble way. In this article a comparative analysis is offered between the scientific aspects of the theory of evolution and a Judaic approach to these aspects. The two sets of human thought-religion and science-are fundamentally different in their aims and purposes, in their methods of operation, in their scope of interest and issues, and in their origin and ramifications. Whenever science surpasses its limits, or religion exceeds its boundaries, it actually is a form of an abuse of both. This has happened to the theory of evolution in a more powerful mode than any other interaction between science and religion. The agenda of many scientists who promote the theory of evolution is to achieve the goal of understanding the existence of the universe as a random, purposeless, natural development, evolved slowly over billions of years from a common ancestor by way of natural selection, devoid of any supernatural metaphysical power. JEWISH FAITH PERCEIVES THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNIVERSE IN A DIFFERENT WAY: God created the world, with a purpose known to Him; He established natural laws that govern the world; and He imposed a moral-religious set of requirements upon Man. The discussion and comparative analysis in this article is based upon the current neo-Darwinian theory, although it seems almost certain that even the new and modern assumptions and speculations will continue to be challenged, changed, and revised as new scientific information will be discovered. The theory of evolution is based upon certain facts, many assumptions, speculations, and interpretations, and some fundamental non-evidence-based beliefs. Judaism accepts all experimentally proven facts and observations of the theory of evolution. Judaism accepts some of the assumptions and interpretations embedded in the theory of evolution, but rejects other assumptions and speculations which contradict fundamental Jewish beliefs, and which are anyway not scientifically proven; to those Judaism offers different interpretations. Judaism strongly rejects all the extensions of the theory of evolution beyond natural sciences, which endorse the biological assumption of the "survival of the fittest" in commerce and human societies as a whole by justifying claims of social inequality, sexism, racism, Nazism, eugenics, and other moral-social deviations as "laws of nature".

Limited communication capacity unveils strategies for human interaction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miritello, Giovanna; Lara, Rubén; Cebrian, Manuel; Moro, Esteban

2013-06-01

Connectivity is the key process that characterizes the structural and functional properties of social networks. However, the bursty activity of dyadic interactions may hinder the discrimination of inactive ties from large interevent times in active ones. We develop a principled method to detect tie de-activation and apply it to a large longitudinal, cross-sectional communication dataset (~19 months, ~20 million people). Contrary to the perception of ever-growing connectivity, we observe that individuals exhibit a finite communication capacity, which limits the number of ties they can maintain active in time. On average men display higher capacity than women, and this capacity decreases for both genders over their lifespan. Separating communication capacity from activity reveals a diverse range of tie activation strategies, from stable to exploratory. This allows us to draw novel relationships between individual strategies for human interaction and the evolution of social networks at global scale.

Limited communication capacity unveils strategies for human interaction

PubMed Central

Miritello, Giovanna; Lara, Rubén; Cebrian, Manuel; Moro, Esteban

2013-01-01

Connectivity is the key process that characterizes the structural and functional properties of social networks. However, the bursty activity of dyadic interactions may hinder the discrimination of inactive ties from large interevent times in active ones. We develop a principled method to detect tie de-activation and apply it to a large longitudinal, cross-sectional communication dataset (≈19 months, ≈20 million people). Contrary to the perception of ever-growing connectivity, we observe that individuals exhibit a finite communication capacity, which limits the number of ties they can maintain active in time. On average men display higher capacity than women, and this capacity decreases for both genders over their lifespan. Separating communication capacity from activity reveals a diverse range of tie activation strategies, from stable to exploratory. This allows us to draw novel relationships between individual strategies for human interaction and the evolution of social networks at global scale. PMID:23739519

Society, sex, and STIs: human behavior and the evolution of sexually transmitted diseases and their agents.

PubMed

Nahmias, Susa Beckman; Nahmias, Daniella

2011-08-01

The last few decades have provided new perspectives on the increasingly complex interrelationships between the evolutionary epidemiology of STDs and their agents, human sexuality, and economic, social, cultural, and technological developments. Rapidly emerging HIV/AIDS, globalization, migration, and information technology are some factors that stress the importance of focusing on how old and new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are spread, both in and between networks and populations. This review of determinants of STI transmission emphasizes their impact on disease prevalence and transmission, as well as their potential for affecting the agents themselves--directly or indirectly. Interventions aiming to control the spread of STIs and HIV on the different levels of society need to be adapted to the specific environment and need to integrate social structures, such as economic and gender inequality and mobility, as well as the great variability and complexity of sexual behavior. © 2011 New York Academy of Sciences.

A last updating evolution model for online social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bu, Zhan; Xia, Zhengyou; Wang, Jiandong; Zhang, Chengcui

2013-05-01

As information technology has advanced, people are turning to electronic media more frequently for communication, and social relationships are increasingly found on online channels. However, there is very limited knowledge about the actual evolution of the online social networks. In this paper, we propose and study a novel evolution network model with the new concept of “last updating time”, which exists in many real-life online social networks. The last updating evolution network model can maintain the robustness of scale-free networks and can improve the network reliance against intentional attacks. What is more, we also found that it has the “small-world effect”, which is the inherent property of most social networks. Simulation experiment based on this model show that the results and the real-life data are consistent, which means that our model is valid.

Mentor-mentee relationship in clinical microbiology.

PubMed

Opota, O; Greub, G

2017-07-01

Clinical microbiology is a field in constant evolution, with increasing technological opportunities and a growing emphasis on human and social issues. Maintaining knowledge and skills and anticipating future changes is challenging both for laboratory managers and for all the co-workers. Training and succession preparation represents a unique opportunity to adapt/prepare future generations according to the evolutions of the field. The aim of this review is to provide to clinical microbiologists a reflection on ongoing technological and social changes in their field and a deepening of the central role of preparing future generations to these changes through a fruitful mentor-mentee relationship. This narrative review relies on selected publications addressing mentor-mentee interactions in various academic fields, on interview with our colleagues and pairs, as well as on our personal experience. From the qualities and aspects that emerged as necessary for a productive mentor-mentee interaction, we selected and discuss five of them for the mentor: the role and responsibility, the positioning, the vision, the scientific credibility, and the moral credibility, as well as five for the mentee: creativity, flexibility, energy, responsibility, and self evaluation. This review emphasizes the importance of both the scientific and the ethical credibility of the mentor and the mentee as well as the importance of human and social values such as solidarity, equality, equity, respectfulness, and empathy, and might support mentor and mentee in the field of clinical microbiology and also in the field of infectious disease in their intent for a fruitful interaction. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A Proposed Cosmology of Identity in the Sociotechnical Ecosystem of Homeland Security

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-12-01

extremist violence based on “what we know about the psychological and social factors motivating young people to join extremist groups.”6 The consistent...Veblen (1857–1929), an American sociologist and economist.56 If we look at the historical co-evolution of human societies and technology, we see that...in self-perceived identity and physical behaviors when the psychological attachment to avatars becomes an authentic experience. The concept of

Topology Analysis of Social Networks Extracted from Literature

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

In a world where complex networks are an increasingly important part of science, it is interesting to question how the new reading of social realities they provide applies to our cultural background and in particular, popular culture. Are authors of successful novels able to reproduce social networks faithful to the ones found in reality? Is there any common trend connecting an author’s oeuvre, or a genre of fiction? Such an analysis could provide new insight on how we, as a culture, perceive human interactions and consume media. The purpose of the work presented in this paper is to define the signature of a novel’s story based on the topological analysis of its social network of characters. For this purpose, an automated tool was built that analyses the dialogs in novels, identifies characters and computes their relationships in a time-dependent manner in order to assess the network’s evolution over the course of the story. PMID:26039072

Geoethics in the Years of Living Dangerously

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmitt, J.

2014-12-01

The geosciences lag behind the ecologic and atmospheric sciences in addressing the major scientific and societal ethical issues facing the inhabitants of planet Earth. Regardless, major emerging ethical issues at the interface of the earth system with society demand geoscientist engagement. These include climate change, extinction and biodiversity decline, transformation of terrestrial landscapes and related impacts on ocean ecosystems, and the consequential resonance of these changes on human health, economic and environmental justice, and political stability. The societal factors driving these issues derive from a world view founded on speciesism (human dominion), utilitarian use of resources, unquestioned population and economic growth, and human difficulty in perceiving deep time and large spatial scale. Accommodation of the supernatural, mythical, and political realms with science has led to widespread conflation of scientific consensus with opinion, driving denial of both climate change and evolution. Future success in rationally addressing these ethical conundrums requires geoscientist engagement across the social, political, economic, ethical, philosophical, and historical realms of inquiry. Geoscientists must be well-versed in earth system science principles and the major geologic concepts relevant to understanding anthropogenic change including deep time, the fossil record of evolution, and changes across multiple spatial and temporal scales that transcend human experience. They must also: 1) confront the global population issue, using the archaeological and historical record of its recent rapidly accelerated growth, especially as it impacts resource consumption and earth system function, 2) forcefully address the effects of agriculture on the atmosphere, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, disease, urbanization, and political instability, 3) apply the synthetic principles of conservation biology, including ecosystem science, geoecology, and major advances in understanding the cognitive abilities and social dimensions of non-human animals to address ethical issues involving humanity's impact on the Earth's biota, and 4) work to end the accommodation of belief systems with science that invariably leads to denialism and historical confabulation.

Determinants of STD epidemics: implications for phase appropriate intervention strategies.

PubMed

Aral, S O

2002-04-01

Determinants of evolving epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) are equally influenced by the evolution of the STD epidemics themselves and by the evolution of human societies. A temporal approach to STD transmission dynamics suggests the need to monitor infectivity, rate of exposure between infected and susceptible individuals, and duration of infectiousness in societies. Different indicators may be used to monitor rate of exposure in the general population and in core groups. In addition, underlying determinants of STD epidemics such as poverty, inequality, racial/ethnic discrimination, unemployment, sex ratio, volume of migration, and health care coverage and quality are important variables to monitor through a surveillance system focused on social context. Ongoing large scale societal changes including urbanisation, globalisation, increasing inequality, and increasing volume of migrant populations may affect the evolution of STD epidemics. Globalised STD epidemics could pose a major challenge to local public health systems.

Bruteau's philosophy of spiritual evolution and consciousness: foundation for a nursing cosmology.

PubMed

McCarthy, M Patrice

2011-01-01

The ontological foundation of the modern world view based on irreconcilable dichotomies has held hegemonic status since the dawn of the scientific revolution. The post-modern critique has exposed the inadequacies of the modern perspective and challenged the potential for any narrative to adequately ground a vision for the future. This paper proposes that the philosophy of Beatrice Bruteau can support a foundation for a visionary world view consistent with nursing's respect for human dignity and societal health. The author discusses the key concepts of Bruteau's perspective on societal evolution based on an integrated study of science, mathematics, religion, and philosophy. This perspective is discussed as a foundation to move beyond the dichotomous influence of the modern world view and the deconstructive critique of the post-modern perspective. The author suggests spiritual evolution and a participatory consciousness as an ontological foundation for a cosmology congruent with nursing's social mandate. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Evolutionary dynamics of social dilemmas with asymmetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Yongjuan; Chu, Chen; Chen, Fei; Shen, Chen; Geng, Yini; Shi, Lei

2018-04-01

Asymmetric phenomenon is ubiquitous in human and animal societies. Based on this fact, we construct an asymmetric way to investigate the evolution of cooperation. In detail, the structured populations are classified into two types: players of type A (strong player) possess higher fitness, while players of type B (weak player) possess fitness equaling their payoffs. Through numerical simulation, we find that our asymmetric setup can promote the evolution of cooperation, which is related to the leader role of the players of type A. It is worth mentioning that the larger the value of ω, namely, the degree of asymmetric becomes more large, the higher the level of cooperation. Besides, the higher degree of asymmetric will lead to a long relaxation time reaching stationary state and less striking promoting effect. Lastly, in order to test the robustness of mechanism, we explore the evolution of cooperation on different topologies.

Darwinism and the cultural evolution of sports.

PubMed

De Block, Andreas; Dewitte, Siegfried

2009-01-01

This article outlines a Darwinian approach to sports that takes into account its profoundly cultural character and thereby overcomes the traditional nature-culture dichotomies in the sociology of sport. We argue that there are good reasons to view sports as culturally evolved signaling systems that serve a function similar to (biological) courtship rituals in other animals. Our approach combines the insights of evolutionary psychology, which states that biological adaptations determine the boundaries for the types of sport that are possible, and pure cultural theories, which describe the mechanism of cultural evolution without referring to sport's biological bases. Several biological and cultural factors may moderate the direct effect that signaling value has on a sport's viability or popularity. Social learning underlies many aspects of the cultural control of sports, and sports have evolved new cultural functions more-or-less unrelated to mate choice as cultural evolution itself became important in humans.

A hypothesis on the biological origins and social evolution of music and dance

PubMed Central

Wang, Tianyan

2015-01-01

The origins of music and musical emotions is still an enigma, here I propose a comprehensive hypothesis on the origins and evolution of music, dance, and speech from a biological and sociological perspective. I suggest that every pitch interval between neighboring notes in music represents corresponding movement pattern through interpreting the Doppler effect of sound, which not only provides a possible explanation for the transposition invariance of music, but also integrates music and dance into a common form—rhythmic movements. Accordingly, investigating the origins of music poses the question: why do humans appreciate rhythmic movements? I suggest that human appreciation of rhythmic movements and rhythmic events developed from the natural selection of organisms adapting to the internal and external rhythmic environments. The perception and production of, as well as synchronization with external and internal rhythms are so vital for an organism's survival and reproduction, that animals have a rhythm-related reward and emotion (RRRE) system. The RRRE system enables the appreciation of rhythmic movements and events, and is integral to the origination of music, dance and speech. The first type of rewards and emotions (rhythm-related rewards and emotions, RRREs) are evoked by music and dance, and have biological and social functions, which in turn, promote the evolution of music, dance and speech. These functions also evoke a second type of rewards and emotions, which I name society-related rewards and emotions (SRREs). The neural circuits of RRREs and SRREs develop in species formation and personal growth, with congenital and acquired characteristics, respectively, namely music is the combination of nature and culture. This hypothesis provides probable selection pressures and outlines the evolution of music, dance, and speech. The links between the Doppler effect and the RRREs and SRREs can be empirically tested, making the current hypothesis scientifically concrete. PMID:25741232

Co-Evolution of Social Learning and Evolutionary Preparedness in Dangerous Environments

PubMed Central

Lindström, Björn; Selbing, Ida; Olsson, Andreas

2016-01-01

Danger is a fundamental aspect of the lives of most animals. Adaptive behavior therefore requires avoiding actions, objects, and environments associated with danger. Previous research has shown that humans and non-human animals can avoid such dangers through two types of behavioral adaptions, (i) genetic preparedness to avoid certain stimuli or actions, and (ii) social learning. These adaptive mechanisms reduce the fitness costs associated with danger but still allow flexible behavior. Despite the empirical prevalence and importance of both these mechanisms, it is unclear when they evolve and how they interact. We used evolutionary agent-based simulations, incorporating empirically based learning mechanisms, to clarify if preparedness and social learning typically both evolve in dangerous environments, and if these mechanisms generally interact synergistically or antagonistically. Our simulations showed that preparedness and social learning often co-evolve because they provide complimentary benefits: genetic preparedness reduced foraging efficiency, but resulted in a higher rate of survival in dangerous environments, while social learning generally came to dominate the population, especially when the environment was stochastic. However, even in this case, genetic preparedness reliably evolved. Broadly, our results indicate that the relationship between preparedness and social learning is important as it can result in trade-offs between behavioral flexibility and safety, which can lead to seemingly suboptimal behavior if the evolutionary environment of the organism is not taken into account. PMID:27487079

Co-Evolution of Social Learning and Evolutionary Preparedness in Dangerous Environments.

PubMed

Lindström, Björn; Selbing, Ida; Olsson, Andreas

2016-01-01

Danger is a fundamental aspect of the lives of most animals. Adaptive behavior therefore requires avoiding actions, objects, and environments associated with danger. Previous research has shown that humans and non-human animals can avoid such dangers through two types of behavioral adaptions, (i) genetic preparedness to avoid certain stimuli or actions, and (ii) social learning. These adaptive mechanisms reduce the fitness costs associated with danger but still allow flexible behavior. Despite the empirical prevalence and importance of both these mechanisms, it is unclear when they evolve and how they interact. We used evolutionary agent-based simulations, incorporating empirically based learning mechanisms, to clarify if preparedness and social learning typically both evolve in dangerous environments, and if these mechanisms generally interact synergistically or antagonistically. Our simulations showed that preparedness and social learning often co-evolve because they provide complimentary benefits: genetic preparedness reduced foraging efficiency, but resulted in a higher rate of survival in dangerous environments, while social learning generally came to dominate the population, especially when the environment was stochastic. However, even in this case, genetic preparedness reliably evolved. Broadly, our results indicate that the relationship between preparedness and social learning is important as it can result in trade-offs between behavioral flexibility and safety, which can lead to seemingly suboptimal behavior if the evolutionary environment of the organism is not taken into account.

Extraordinary intelligence and the care of infants

PubMed Central

Piantadosi, Steven T.; Kidd, Celeste

2016-01-01

We present evidence that pressures for early childcare may have been one of the driving factors of human evolution. We show through an evolutionary model that runaway selection for high intelligence may occur when (i) altricial neonates require intelligent parents, (ii) intelligent parents must have large brains, and (iii) large brains necessitate having even more altricial offspring. We test a prediction of this account by showing across primate genera that the helplessness of infants is a particularly strong predictor of the adults’ intelligence. We discuss related implications, including this account’s ability to explain why human-level intelligence evolved specifically in mammals. This theory complements prior hypotheses that link human intelligence to social reasoning and reproductive pressures and explains how human intelligence may have become so distinctive compared with our closest evolutionary relatives. PMID:27217560

Differential sensitivity to human communication in dogs, wolves, and human infants.

PubMed

Topál, József; Gergely, György; Erdohegyi, Agnes; Csibra, Gergely; Miklósi, Adám

2009-09-04

Ten-month-old infants persistently search for a hidden object at its initial hiding place even after observing it being hidden at another location. Recent evidence suggests that communicative cues from the experimenter contribute to the emergence of this perseverative search error. We replicated these results with dogs (Canis familiaris), who also commit more search errors in ostensive-communicative (in 75% of the total trials) than in noncommunicative (39%) or nonsocial (17%) hiding contexts. However, comparative investigations suggest that communicative signals serve different functions for dogs and infants, whereas human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) do not show doglike context-dependent differences of search errors. We propose that shared sensitivity to human communicative signals stems from convergent social evolution of the Homo and the Canis genera.

Cultural evolution: The case of babies’ first names

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xi, Ning; Zhang, Zi-Ke; Zhang, Yi-Cheng; Ge, Zehui; She, Li; Zhang, Kui

2014-07-01

In social sciences, there is currently rare consensus on the underlying mechanism for cultural evolution, partially due to lack of suitable data. The evolution of first names of newborn babies offers a remarkable example for such researches. In this paper, we employ the historical data on baby names from the United States to investigate the evolutionary process of culture, in particular focusing on how inequality among baby names changes over time. Then we propose a stochastic model where individual choice is determined by both individual preference and social influence, and show that the decrease in the strength of social influence can account for all the observed empirical features. Therefore, we claim that the weakening of social influence drives cultural evolution.

Genomic signatures of evolutionary transitions from solitary to group living

PubMed Central

Kapheim, Karen M.; Pan, Hailin; Li, Cai; Salzberg, Steven L.; Puiu, Daniela; Magoc, Tanja; Robertson, Hugh M.; Hudson, Matthew E.; Venkat, Aarti; Fischman, Brielle J.; Hernandez, Alvaro; Yandell, Mark; Ence, Daniel; Holt, Carson; Yocum, George D.; Kemp, William P.; Bosch, Jordi; Waterhouse, Robert M.; Zdobnov, Evgeny M.; Stolle, Eckart; Kraus, F. Bernhard; Helbing, Sophie; Moritz, Robin F. A.; Glastad, Karl M.; Hunt, Brendan G.; Goodisman, Michael A. D.; Hauser, Frank; Grimmelikhuijzen, Cornelis J. P.; Pinheiro, Daniel Guariz; Nunes, Francis Morais Franco; Soares, Michelle Prioli Miranda; Tanaka, Érica Donato; Simões, Zilá Luz Paulino; Hartfelder, Klaus; Evans, Jay D.; Barribeau, Seth M.; Johnson, Reed M.; Massey, Jonathan H.; Southey, Bruce R.; Hasselmann, Martin; Hamacher, Daniel; Biewer, Matthias; Kent, Clement F.; Zayed, Amro; Blatti, Charles; Sinha, Saurabh; Johnston, J. Spencer; Hanrahan, Shawn J.; Kocher, Sarah D.; Wang, Jun; Robinson, Gene E.; Zhang, Guojie

2017-01-01

The evolution of eusociality is one of the major transitions in evolution, but the underlying genomic changes are unknown. We compared the genomes of 10 bee species that vary in social complexity, representing multiple independent transitions in social evolution, and report three major findings. First, many important genes show evidence of neutral evolution as a consequence of relaxed selection with increasing social complexity. Second, there is no single road map to eusociality; independent evolutionary transitions in sociality have independent genetic underpinnings. Third, though clearly independent in detail, these transitions do have similar general features, including an increase in constrained protein evolution accompanied by increases in the potential for gene regulation and decreases in diversity and abundance of transposable elements. Eusociality may arise through different mechanisms each time, but would likely always involve an increase in the complexity of gene networks. PMID:25977371

The transition from quantity to quality: A neglected causal mechanism in accounting for social evolution

PubMed Central

Carneiro, Robert L.

2000-01-01

Students of social evolution are concerned not only with the general course it has followed, but also with the mechanisms that have brought it about. One such mechanism comes into play when the quantitative increase in some entity, usually population, reaching a certain threshold, gives rise to a qualitative change in the structure of a society. This mechanism, first recognized by Hegel, was seized on by Marx and Engels. However, neither they nor their current followers among anthropologists have made much use of it in attempting to explain social evolution. But as this paper attempts to show, in those few instances when the mechanism has been invoked, it has heightened our understanding of the process of social evolution. And, it is argued, if the mechanism were more widely applied, further understanding of the course of evolution could be expected to result. PMID:11050189

Historical change and evolutionary theory.

PubMed

Masters, Roger D

2007-09-01

Despite advances in fields like genetics, evolutionary psychology, and human behavior and evolution--which generally focus on individual or small group behavior from a biological perspective--evolutionary biology has made little impact on studies of political change and social history. Theories of natural selection often seem inapplicable to human history because our social behavior is embedded in language (which makes possible the concepts of time and social identity on which what we call "history" depends). Peter Corning's Holistic Darwinism reconceptualizes evolutionary biology, making it possible to go beyond the barriers separating the social and natural sciences. Corning focuses on two primary processes: "synergy" (complex multivariate interactions at multiple levels between a species and its environment) and "cybernetics" (the information systems permitting communication between individuals and groups over time). Combining this frame of reference with inclusive fitness theory, it is possible to answer the most important (and puzzling) question in human history: How did a species that lived for millennia in hunter-gatherer bands form centralized states governing large populations of non-kin (including multi-ethnic empires as well as modern nation-states)? The fragility and contemporary ethnic violence in Kenya and the Congo should suffice as evidence that these issues need to be taken seriously. To explain the rise and fall of states as well as changes in human laws and customs--the core of historical research--it is essential to show how the provision of collective goods can overcome the challenge of self-interest and free-riding in some instances, yet fail to do so in others. To this end, it is now possible to consider how a state providing public goods can--under circumstances that often include effective leadership--contribute to enhanced inclusive fitness of virtually all its members. Because social behavior needs to adapt to ecology, but ecological systems are constantly transformed by human technology and social behavior, multilevel evolutionary processes can explain two central features of human history: the rise, transformations, and ultimate fall of centralized governments (the "stuff" of history); and the biological uniqueness of Homo sapiens as the mammalian species that colonized--and became top carnivore--in virtually every habitable environment on the earth's surface. Once scholars admit the necessity of linking processes of natural selection with human transformations of the natural world, it will seem anomalous that it has taken so long to integrate Darwinian biology and the social sciences.

Why developmental psychology is incomplete without comparative and cross-cultural perspectives.

PubMed

Nielsen, Mark; Haun, Daniel

2016-01-19

As a discipline, developmental psychology has a long history of relying on animal models and data collected among distinct cultural groups to enrich and inform theories of the ways social and cognitive processes unfold through the lifespan. However, approaches that draw together developmental, cross-cultural and comparative perspectives remain rare. The need for such an approach is reflected in the papers by Heyes (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150069. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0069)), Schmelz & Call (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150067. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0067)) and Keller (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150070. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0070)) in this theme issue. Here, we incorporate these papers into a review of recent research endeavours covering a range of core aspects of social cognition, including social learning, cooperation and collaboration, prosociality, and theory of mind. In so doing, we aim to highlight how input from comparative and cross-cultural empiricism has altered our perspectives of human development and, in particular, led to a deeper understanding of the evolution of the human cultural mind. © 2015 The Author(s).

Why developmental psychology is incomplete without comparative and cross-cultural perspectives

PubMed Central

Nielsen, Mark; Haun, Daniel

2016-01-01

As a discipline, developmental psychology has a long history of relying on animal models and data collected among distinct cultural groups to enrich and inform theories of the ways social and cognitive processes unfold through the lifespan. However, approaches that draw together developmental, cross-cultural and comparative perspectives remain rare. The need for such an approach is reflected in the papers by Heyes (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150069. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0069)), Schmelz & Call (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150067. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0067)) and Keller (2015 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371, 20150070. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0070)) in this theme issue. Here, we incorporate these papers into a review of recent research endeavours covering a range of core aspects of social cognition, including social learning, cooperation and collaboration, prosociality, and theory of mind. In so doing, we aim to highlight how input from comparative and cross-cultural empiricism has altered our perspectives of human development and, in particular, led to a deeper understanding of the evolution of the human cultural mind. PMID:26644590

Human history and deep time in nineteenth-century British sciences: An introduction.

PubMed

Sera-Shriar, Efram

2015-06-01

The historicisation of humans was a major endeavour in nineteenth-century Britain, and one that led to wide-ranging debates involving a variety of disciplinary approaches, new and old. Within the context of science and medicine these discussions centred on the issues of human origins and evolution. Did the various races living throughout the world develop from a single location, or were their physical and social differences evidence for their separate genesis? Which disciplinary tradition offered the best method for tracing human development? Was it even possible to trace that development, or had too much time passed since the dawn of humans? Furthermore, who had the authority to speak about these matters? This special issue will examine these core questions and introduce some of the ways that researchers attempted to historicise humans within the context of nineteenth-century British sciences. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evolution of Constructivism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Chu Chih; Chen, I Ju

2010-01-01

The contrast between social constructivism and cognitive constructivism are depicted in different ways in many studies. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the evolution of constructivism and put a focus on social constructivism from the perception of Vygotsky. This study provides a general idea of the evolution of constructivism for people…

Music and the Meeting of Human Minds.

PubMed

Harvey, Alan R

2018-01-01

Over tens of thousands of years of human genetic and cultural evolution, many types and varieties of music and language have emerged; however, the fundamental components of each of these modes of communication seem to be common to all human cultures and social groups. In this brief review, rather than focusing on the development of different musical techniques and practices over time, the main issues addressed here concern: (i) when, and speculations as to why, modern Homo sapiens evolved musical behaviors, (ii) the evolutionary relationship between music and language, and (iii) why humans, perhaps unique among all living species, universally continue to possess two complementary but distinct communication streams. Did music exist before language, or vice versa, or was there a common precursor that in some way separated into two distinct yet still overlapping systems when cognitively modern H. sapiens evolved? A number of theories put forward to explain the origin and persistent universality of music are considered, but emphasis is given, supported by recent neuroimaging, physiological, and psychological findings, to the role that music can play in promoting trust, altruistic behavior, social bonding, and cooperation within groups of culturally compatible but not necessarily genetically related humans. It is argued that, early in our history, the unique socializing and harmonizing power of music acted as an essential counterweight to the new and evolving sense of self, to an emerging sense of individuality and mortality that was linked to the development of an advanced cognitive capacity and articulate language capability.

Understanding the process of social network evolution: Online-offline integrated analysis of social tie formation

PubMed Central

Kwak, Doyeon

2017-01-01

It is important to consider the interweaving nature of online and offline social networks when we examine social network evolution. However, it is difficult to find any research that examines the process of social tie formation from an integrated perspective. In our study, we quantitatively measure offline interactions and examine the corresponding evolution of online social network in order to understand the significance of interrelationship between online and offline social factors in generating social ties. We analyze the radio signal strength indicator sensor data from a series of social events to understand offline interactions among the participants and measure the structural attributes of their existing online Facebook social networks. By monitoring the changes in their online social networks before and after offline interactions in a series of social events, we verify that the ability to develop an offline interaction into an online friendship is tied to the number of social connections that participants previously had, while the presence of shared mutual friends between a pair of participants disrupts potential new connections within the pre-designed offline social events. Thus, while our integrative approach enables us to confirm the theory of preferential attachment in the process of network formation, the common neighbor theory is not supported. Our dual-dimensional network analysis allows us to observe the actual process of social network evolution rather than to make predictions based on the assumption of self-organizing networks. PMID:28542367

Understanding the process of social network evolution: Online-offline integrated analysis of social tie formation.

PubMed

Kwak, Doyeon; Kim, Wonjoon

2017-01-01

It is important to consider the interweaving nature of online and offline social networks when we examine social network evolution. However, it is difficult to find any research that examines the process of social tie formation from an integrated perspective. In our study, we quantitatively measure offline interactions and examine the corresponding evolution of online social network in order to understand the significance of interrelationship between online and offline social factors in generating social ties. We analyze the radio signal strength indicator sensor data from a series of social events to understand offline interactions among the participants and measure the structural attributes of their existing online Facebook social networks. By monitoring the changes in their online social networks before and after offline interactions in a series of social events, we verify that the ability to develop an offline interaction into an online friendship is tied to the number of social connections that participants previously had, while the presence of shared mutual friends between a pair of participants disrupts potential new connections within the pre-designed offline social events. Thus, while our integrative approach enables us to confirm the theory of preferential attachment in the process of network formation, the common neighbor theory is not supported. Our dual-dimensional network analysis allows us to observe the actual process of social network evolution rather than to make predictions based on the assumption of self-organizing networks.

Genomics and the Ark: an ecocentric perspective on human history.

PubMed

Zwart, Hub; Penders, Bart

2011-01-01

Views of ourselves in relationship to the rest of the biosphere are changing. Theocentric and anthropocentric perspectives are giving way to more ecocentric views on the history, present, and future of humankind. Novel sciences, such as genomics, have deepened and broadened our understanding of the process of anthropogenesis, the coming into being of humans. Genomics suggests that early human history must be regarded as a complex narrative of evolving ecosystems, in which human evolution both influenced and was influenced by the evolution of companion species. During the agricultural revolution, human beings designed small-scale artificial ecosystems or evolutionary "Arks," in which networks of plants, animals, and microorganisms coevolved. Currently, our attitude towards this process seems subject to a paradoxical reversal. The boundaries of the Ark have dramatically broadened, and genomics is not only being used to increase our understanding of our ecological past, but may also help us to conserve, reconstruct, or even revivify species and ecosystems to whose degradation or (near) extinction we have contributed. This article explores the role of genomics in the elaboration of a more ecocentric view of ourselves with the help of two examples, namely the renaissance of Paleolithic diets and of Pleistocene parks. It argues that an understanding of the world in ecocentric terms requires new partnerships and mutually beneficial forms of collaboration and convergence between life sciences, social sciences, and the humanities.

Impact of heterogeneous activity and community structure on the evolutionary success of cooperators in social networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Zhi-Xi; Rong, Zhihai; Yang, Han-Xin

2015-01-01

Recent empirical studies suggest that heavy-tailed distributions of human activities are universal in real social dynamics [L. Muchnik, S. Pei, L. C. Parra, S. D. S. Reis, J. S. Andrade Jr., S. Havlin, and H. A. Makse, Sci. Rep. 3, 1783 (2013), 10.1038/srep01783]. On the other hand, community structure is ubiquitous in biological and social networks [M. E. J. Newman, Nat. Phys. 8, 25 (2012), 10.1038/nphys2162]. Motivated by these facts, we here consider the evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game taking place on top of a real social network to investigate how the community structure and the heterogeneity in activity of individuals affect the evolution of cooperation. In particular, we account for a variation of the birth-death process (which can also be regarded as a proportional imitation rule from a social point of view) for the strategy updating under both weak and strong selection (meaning the payoffs harvested from games contribute either slightly or heavily to the individuals' performance). By implementing comparative studies, where the players are selected either randomly or in terms of their actual activities to play games with their immediate neighbors, we figure out that heterogeneous activity benefits the emergence of collective cooperation in a harsh environment (the action for cooperation is costly) under strong selection, whereas it impairs the formation of altruism under weak selection. Moreover, we find that the abundance of communities in the social network can evidently foster the formation of cooperation under strong selection, in contrast to the games evolving on randomized counterparts. Our results are therefore helpful for us to better understand the evolution of cooperation in real social systems.

Social immunity and the evolution of group living in insects.

PubMed

Meunier, Joël

2015-05-26

The evolution of group living requires that individuals limit the inherent risks of parasite infection. To this end, group living insects have developed a unique capability of mounting collective anti-parasite defences, such as allogrooming and corpse removal from the nest. Over the last 20 years, this phenomenon (called social immunity) was mostly studied in eusocial insects, with results emphasizing its importance in derived social systems. However, the role of social immunity in the early evolution of group living remains unclear. Here, I investigate this topic by first presenting the definitions of social immunity and discussing their applications across social systems. I then provide an up-to-date appraisal of the collective and individual mechanisms of social immunity described in eusocial insects and show that they have counterparts in non-eusocial species and even solitary species. Finally, I review evidence demonstrating that the increased risks of parasite infection in group living species may both decrease and increase the level of personal immunity, and discuss how the expression of social immunity could drive these opposite effects. By highlighting similarities and differences of social immunity across social systems, this review emphasizes the potential importance of this phenomenon in the early evolution of the multiple forms of group living in insects. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Effects of conformism on the cultural evolution of social behaviour.

PubMed

Molleman, Lucas; Pen, Ido; Weissing, Franz J

2013-01-01

Models of cultural evolution study how the distribution of cultural traits changes over time. The dynamics of cultural evolution strongly depends on the way these traits are transmitted between individuals by social learning. Two prominent forms of social learning are payoff-based learning (imitating others that have higher payoffs) and conformist learning (imitating locally common behaviours). How payoff-based and conformist learning affect the cultural evolution of cooperation is currently a matter of lively debate, but few studies systematically analyse the interplay of these forms of social learning. Here we perform such a study by investigating how the interaction of payoff-based and conformist learning affects the outcome of cultural evolution in three social contexts. First, we develop a simple argument that provides insights into how the outcome of cultural evolution will change when more and more conformist learning is added to payoff-based learning. In a social dilemma (e.g. a Prisoner's Dilemma), conformism can turn cooperation into a stable equilibrium; in an evasion game (e.g. a Hawk-Dove game or a Snowdrift game) conformism tends to destabilize the polymorphic equilibrium; and in a coordination game (e.g. a Stag Hunt game), conformism changes the basin of attraction of the two equilibria. Second, we analyse a stochastic event-based model, revealing that conformism increases the speed of cultural evolution towards pure equilibria. Individual-based simulations as well as the analysis of the diffusion approximation of the stochastic model by and large confirm our findings. Third, we investigate the effect of an increasing degree of conformism on cultural group selection in a group-structured population. We conclude that, in contrast to statements in the literature, conformism hinders rather than promotes the evolution of cooperation.

Student world view as a framework for learning genetics and evolution in high school biology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCoy, Roger Wesley

Statement of the problem. Few studies in biology education have examined the underlying presuppositions which guide thinking and concept learning in adolescents. The purpose of this study was to describe and understand the biological world views of a variety of high school students before they take biology courses. Specifically, the study examined student world views in the domains of Classification, Relationship and Causation related to the concepts of heredity, evolution and biotechnology. The following served as guiding questions: (1) What are the personal world views of high school students entering biology classes, related to the domain of Classification, Relationship and Causality? (2) How do these student world views confound or enhance the learning of basic concepts in genetics and evolution? Methods. An interpretive method was chosen for this study. The six student participants were ninth graders and represented a wide range of world view backgrounds. A series of three interviews was conducted with each participant, with a focus group used for triangulation of data. The constant comparative method was used to categorize the data and facilitate the search for meaningful patterns. The analysis included a thick description of each student's personal views of classification, evolution and the appropriate use of biotechnology. Results. The study demonstrates that world view is the basis upon which students build knowledge in biology. The logic of their everyday thinking may not match that of scientists. The words they use are sometimes inconsistent with scientific terminology. This study provides evidence that students voice different opinions depending on the social situation, since they are strongly influenced by peers. Students classify animals based on behaviors. They largely believe that the natural world is unpredictable, and that humans are not really part of that world. Half are unlikely to accept the evolution of humans, but may accept it in other species. Their views on causation of evolution vary widely, focusing on intentional changes made by animals. Students who hold world views which differ from scientific world views may become marginalized unless differences in world view are addressed. Researchers and teachers must be mindful of social pressures which cause students to reject certain ideas which may appear to be in opposition to their existing world view.

Subjective matters: from image quality to image psychology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fedorovskaya, Elena A.; De Ridder, Huib

2013-03-01

From the advent of digital imaging through several decades of studies, the human vision research community systematically focused on perceived image quality and digital artifacts due to resolution, compression, gamma, dynamic range, capture and reproduction noise, blur, etc., to help overcome existing technological challenges and shortcomings. Technological advances made digital images and digital multimedia nearly flawless in quality, and ubiquitous and pervasive in usage, provide us with the exciting but at the same time demanding possibility to turn to the domain of human experience including higher psychological functions, such as cognition, emotion, awareness, social interaction, consciousness and Self. In this paper we will outline the evolution of human centered multidisciplinary studies related to imaging and propose steps and potential foci of future research.

Cooperation and the evolution of hunter-gatherer storytelling.

PubMed

Smith, Daniel; Schlaepfer, Philip; Major, Katie; Dyble, Mark; Page, Abigail E; Thompson, James; Chaudhary, Nikhil; Salali, Gul Deniz; Mace, Ruth; Astete, Leonora; Ngales, Marilyn; Vinicius, Lucio; Migliano, Andrea Bamberg

2017-12-05

Storytelling is a human universal. From gathering around the camp-fire telling tales of ancestors to watching the latest television box-set, humans are inveterate producers and consumers of stories. Despite its ubiquity, little attention has been given to understanding the function and evolution of storytelling. Here we explore the impact of storytelling on hunter-gatherer cooperative behaviour and the individual-level fitness benefits to being a skilled storyteller. Stories told by the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population, convey messages relevant to coordinating behaviour in a foraging ecology, such as cooperation, sex equality and egalitarianism. These themes are present in narratives from other foraging societies. We also show that the presence of good storytellers is associated with increased cooperation. In return, skilled storytellers are preferred social partners and have greater reproductive success, providing a pathway by which group-beneficial behaviours, such as storytelling, can evolve via individual-level selection. We conclude that one of the adaptive functions of storytelling among hunter gatherers may be to organise cooperation.

Looking Through a Social Lens: Conceptualising Social Aspects of Knowledge Management for Global Health Practitioners

PubMed Central

Limaye, Rupali J.; Sullivan, Tara M.; Dalessandro, Scott; Jenkins, Ann Hendrix

2017-01-01

Knowledge management plays a critical role in global health. Global health practitioners require knowledge in every aspect of their jobs, and in resource-scarce contexts, practitioners must be able to rely on a knowledge management system to access the latest research and practice to ensure the highest quality of care. However, we suggest that there is a gap in the way knowledge management is primarily utilized in global health, namely, the systematic incorporation of human and social factors. In this paper, we briefly outline the evolution of knowledge management and then propose a conceptualization of knowledge management that incorporates human and social factors for use within a global health context. Our conceptualization of social knowledge management recognizes the importance of social capital, social learning, social software and platforms, and social networks, all within the context of a larger social system and driven by social benefit. We then outline the limitations and discuss future directions of our conceptualization, and suggest how this new conceptualization is essential for any global health practitioner in the business of managing knowledge. Significance for public health Managing knowledge is essential for improving population health outcomes. Global health practitioners at all levels of the health system are bombarded with information related to best practices and guideline changes, among other relevant information to provide the best quality of care. Knowledge management, or the act of effectively using knowledge, has yet to capitalize on the power of social connections within the context of global health. While social elements have been incorporated into knowledge management activities, we suggest that systematically integrating key concepts that leverage social connections, such as social systems, social capital, social learning, and social software, will yield greater benefit with regard to health outcomes. As such, we outline a new conceptualization of knowledge management, focusing on the social aspects of the practice, and posit that such an approach can further the impact of global health interventions and is crucial for global health practitioners. PMID:28480173

The discovery of fire by humans: a long and convoluted process

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Numbers of animal species react to the natural phenomenon of fire, but only humans have learnt to control it and to make it at will. Natural fires caused overwhelmingly by lightning are highly evident on many landscapes. Birds such as hawks, and some other predators, are alert to opportunities to catch animals including invertebrates disturbed by such fires and similar benefits are likely to underlie the first human involvements with fires. Early hominins would undoubtedly have been aware of such fires, as are savanna chimpanzees in the present. Rather than as an event, the discovery of fire use may be seen as a set of processes happening over the long term. Eventually, fire became embedded in human behaviour, so that it is involved in almost all advanced technologies. Fire has also influenced human biology, assisting in providing the high-quality diet which has fuelled the increase in brain size through the Pleistocene. Direct evidence of early fire in archaeology remains rare, but from 1.5 Ma onward surprising numbers of sites preserve some evidence of burnt material. By the Middle Pleistocene, recognizable hearths demonstrate a social and economic focus on many sites. The evidence of archaeological sites has to be evaluated against postulates of biological models such as the ‘cooking hypothesis' or the ‘social brain’, and questions of social cooperation and the origins of language. Although much remains to be worked out, it is plain that fire control has had a major impact in the course of human evolution. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’. PMID:27216521

The discovery of fire by humans: a long and convoluted process.

PubMed

Gowlett, J A J

2016-06-05

Numbers of animal species react to the natural phenomenon of fire, but only humans have learnt to control it and to make it at will. Natural fires caused overwhelmingly by lightning are highly evident on many landscapes. Birds such as hawks, and some other predators, are alert to opportunities to catch animals including invertebrates disturbed by such fires and similar benefits are likely to underlie the first human involvements with fires. Early hominins would undoubtedly have been aware of such fires, as are savanna chimpanzees in the present. Rather than as an event, the discovery of fire use may be seen as a set of processes happening over the long term. Eventually, fire became embedded in human behaviour, so that it is involved in almost all advanced technologies. Fire has also influenced human biology, assisting in providing the high-quality diet which has fuelled the increase in brain size through the Pleistocene. Direct evidence of early fire in archaeology remains rare, but from 1.5 Ma onward surprising numbers of sites preserve some evidence of burnt material. By the Middle Pleistocene, recognizable hearths demonstrate a social and economic focus on many sites. The evidence of archaeological sites has to be evaluated against postulates of biological models such as the 'cooking hypothesis' or the 'social brain', and questions of social cooperation and the origins of language. Although much remains to be worked out, it is plain that fire control has had a major impact in the course of human evolution.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'. © 2016 The Authors.

The concurrent evolution of cooperation and the population structures that support it.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T; Penn, Alexandra S; Watson, Richard A

2011-06-01

The evolution of cooperation often depends upon population structure, yet nearly all models of cooperation implicitly assume that this structure remains static. This is a simplifying assumption, because most organisms possess genetic traits that affect their population structure to some degree. These traits, such as a group size preference, affect the relatedness of interacting individuals and hence the opportunity for kin or group selection. We argue that models that do not explicitly consider their evolution cannot provide a satisfactory account of the origin of cooperation, because they cannot explain how the prerequisite population structures arise. Here, we consider the concurrent evolution of genetic traits that affect population structure, with those that affect social behavior. We show that not only does population structure drive social evolution, as in previous models, but that the opportunity for cooperation can in turn drive the creation of population structures that support it. This occurs through the generation of linkage disequilibrium between socio-behavioral and population-structuring traits, such that direct kin selection on social behavior creates indirect selection pressure on population structure. We illustrate our argument with a model of the concurrent evolution of group size preference and social behavior. © 2011 The Author(s). Evolution© 2011 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

The ontogeny of cultural learning.

PubMed

Tomasello, Michael

2016-04-01

All primates engage in one or another form of social learning. Humans engage in cultural learning. From very early in ontogeny human infants and young children do not just learn useful things from others, they conform to others in order to affiliate with them and to identify with the cultural group. The cultural group normatively expects such conformity, and adults actively instruct children so as to ensure it. Young children learn from this instruction how the world is viewed and how it works in their culture. These special forms of cultural learning enable powerful and species-unique processes of cumulative cultural evolution. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Risk communication and human biomonitoring: which practical lessons from the Belgian experience are of use for the EU perspective?

PubMed

Keune, Hans; Morrens, Bert; Loots, Ilse

2008-06-05

In order to investigate and monitor environmental health in Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium), the Flemish government funded the Centre of Expertise for Environment and Health, which started a human biomonitoring campaign in 2001. In addition to environmental health experts measuring environmental pollutants and health effects in human beings, social scientific experts at the Centre focus on risk communication associated with the human biomonitoring campaign. In the literature about risk communication an evolution can be traced from traditional, one-way communication, restricted to the dissemination of information from experts to the public, to more modern, two-way risk communication, with a focus on participation and cooperation between scientists, policy-makers and the public.Within the Centre of Expertise for Environment and Health this discourse was first translated into some general principles and guidelines for external communication, at a 'Ten Commandments level'. These principles needed to be incorporated in the day-to-day practice of human biomonitoring research. The social scientific experts at the Centre developed a combined risk communication strategy. On the one hand the strategy consists of traditional risk communication for external communication purposes, for example information meetings and digital newsletters. On the other hand it consists of a step by step approach of incorporating more modern risk communication, for example a risk perception questionnaire, dialogical experiments for involving local stakeholders, and an action-plan for interpreting results for policy making. With a parallel strategy of traditional and modern communication, of external and internal reflection, and through different social scientific projects, the Flemish Centre of Expertise of Environment and Health incorporates risk communication in the day-to-day practice of human biomonitoring research. A direct and continuous involvement of the social scientist, an openness between all colleagues involved, and the awareness of a fine balance between quality and practicability are important success factors. These lessons may be helpful and inspirational for a European human biomonitoring project.

Biologically Fit: Using Biotechnology to Create a Better Soldier

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-12-01

edition, loc . 209. 21Ibid., loc . 318–19. 15 it violates social and moral values. The primary fears that drive the bioconservative argument is...19, no. 3 (2005): 204. 23 Moreno, The Body Politic, loc . 318–19. 24 Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds...policy/projects/hum an-enhancement/2012-11-06-Human-enhancement.pdf. Aeschbach, Daniel, Leo Sher, Teodor T. Postolache, Jeffery R. Matthews, Michael A

Social Relations and Technology: Continuity, Context, and Change

PubMed Central

Antonucci, Toni C; Ajrouch, Kristine J; Manalel, Jasmine A

2017-01-01

Abstract Social relations, although basic to human nature, health and well-being, have become increasingly complicated as a result of changing population demography and technology. In this essay, we provide a historical overview of social relations, especially as they affect older people. We briefly review the evolution of theory and measurement surrounding social relations as well as early empirical evidence. We consider how social relations have changed over time as well as continuity and change regarding basic characteristics of social relations. Of special interest is the emerging influence of technology on how people maintain contact, especially the changing ways people can use technology to increase, decrease, maintain, or avoid social relations. We consider both negative and positive aspects of these new technologies and their influence on health and well-being. Finally, we conclude that new and emerging technologies hold great promise for the future by overcoming traditional barriers to maintaining social contact, support exchange, and information acquisition. Nevertheless, we caution that these new technologies can have the dehumanizing effect of distance thus creating the potential for insensitivity and increased negativity. In sum, we are cautiously optimistic about the promise of technology to expand, but not replace, traditional forms of social contact. PMID:29795794

Social Relations and Technology: Continuity, Context, and Change.

PubMed

Antonucci, Toni C; Ajrouch, Kristine J; Manalel, Jasmine A

2017-11-01

Social relations, although basic to human nature, health and well-being, have become increasingly complicated as a result of changing population demography and technology. In this essay, we provide a historical overview of social relations, especially as they affect older people. We briefly review the evolution of theory and measurement surrounding social relations as well as early empirical evidence. We consider how social relations have changed over time as well as continuity and change regarding basic characteristics of social relations. Of special interest is the emerging influence of technology on how people maintain contact, especially the changing ways people can use technology to increase, decrease, maintain, or avoid social relations. We consider both negative and positive aspects of these new technologies and their influence on health and well-being. Finally, we conclude that new and emerging technologies hold great promise for the future by overcoming traditional barriers to maintaining social contact, support exchange, and information acquisition. Nevertheless, we caution that these new technologies can have the dehumanizing effect of distance thus creating the potential for insensitivity and increased negativity. In sum, we are cautiously optimistic about the promise of technology to expand, but not replace, traditional forms of social contact.

The genome of a Mongolian individual reveals the genetic imprints of Mongolians on modern human populations.

PubMed

Bai, Haihua; Guo, Xiaosen; Zhang, Dong; Narisu, Narisu; Bu, Junjie; Jirimutu, Jirimutu; Liang, Fan; Zhao, Xiang; Xing, Yanping; Wang, Dingzhu; Li, Tongda; Zhang, Yanru; Guan, Baozhu; Yang, Xukui; Yang, Zili; Shuangshan, Shuangshan; Su, Zhe; Wu, Huiguang; Li, Wenjing; Chen, Ming; Zhu, Shilin; Bayinnamula, Bayinnamula; Chang, Yuqi; Gao, Ying; Lan, Tianming; Suyalatu, Suyalatu; Huang, Hui; Su, Yan; Chen, Yujie; Li, Wenqi; Yang, Xu; Feng, Qiang; Wang, Jian; Yang, Huanming; Wang, Jun; Wu, Qizhu; Yin, Ye; Zhou, Huanmin

2014-11-05

Mongolians have played a significant role in modern human evolution, especially after the rise of Genghis Khan (1162[?]-1227). Although the social cultural impacts of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian population have been well documented, explorations of their genome structure and genetic imprints on other human populations have been lacking. We here present the genome of a Mongolian male individual. The genome was de novo assembled using a total of 130.8-fold genomic data produced from massively parallel whole-genome sequencing. We identified high-confidence variation sets, including 3.7 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 756,234 short insertions and deletions. Functional SNP analysis predicted that the individual has a pathogenic risk for carnitine deficiency. We located the patrilineal inheritance of the Mongolian genome to the lineage D3a through Y haplogroup analysis and inferred that the individual has a common patrilineal ancestor with Tibeto-Burman populations and is likely to be the progeny of the earliest settlers in East Asia. We finally investigated the genetic imprints of Mongolians on other human populations using different approaches. We found varying degrees of gene flows between Mongolians and populations living in Europe, South/Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The analyses demonstrate that the genetic impacts of Mongolians likely resulted from the expansion of the Mongolian Empire in the 13th century. The genome will be of great help in further explorations of modern human evolution and genetic causes of diseases/traits specific to Mongolians. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Biological ageing and clinical consequences of modern technology.

PubMed

Kyriazis, Marios

2017-08-01

The pace of technology is steadily increasing, and this has a widespread effect on all areas of health and society. When we interact with this technological environment we are exposed to a wide variety of new stimuli and challenges, which may modulate the stress response and thus change the way we respond and adapt. In this Opinion paper I will examine certain aspects of the human-computer interaction with regards to health and ageing. There are practical, everyday effects which also include social and cultural elements. I will discuss how human evolution may be affected by this new environmental change (the hormetic immersion in a virtual/technological environment). Finally, I will also explore certain biological aspects which have direct relevance to the ageing human. By embracing new technologies and engaging with a techno-social ecosystem (which is no longer formed by several interacting species, but by just two main elements: humans and machines), we may be subjected to beneficial hormetic effects, which upregulate the stress response and modulate adaptation. This is likely to improve overall health as we age and, as I speculate here, may also result in the reduction of age-related dysfunction.

Simultaneous Cooperation and Competition in the Evolution of Musical Behavior: Sex-Related Modulations of the Singer's Formant in Human Chorusing

PubMed Central

Keller, Peter E.; König, Rasmus; Novembre, Giacomo

2017-01-01

Human interaction through music is a vital part of social life across cultures. Influential accounts of the evolutionary origins of music favor cooperative functions related to social cohesion or competitive functions linked to sexual selection. However, work on non-human “chorusing” displays, as produced by congregations of male insects and frogs to attract female mates, suggests that cooperative and competitive functions may coexist. In such chorusing, rhythmic coordination between signalers, which maximizes the salience of the collective broadcast, can arise through competitive mechanisms by which individual males jam rival signals. Here, we show that mixtures of cooperative and competitive behavior also occur in human music. Acoustic analyses of the renowned St. Thomas Choir revealed that, in the presence of female listeners, boys with the deepest voices enhance vocal brilliance and carrying power by boosting high spectral energy. This vocal enhancement may reflect sexually mature males competing for female attention in a covert manner that does not undermine collaborative musical goals. The evolutionary benefits of music may thus lie in its aptness as a medium for balancing sexually motivated behavior and group cohesion. PMID:28959222

Charles Darwin and Evolution: Illustrating Human Aspects of Science

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kampourakis, Kostas; McComas, William F.

2010-06-01

Recently, the nature of science (NOS) has become recognized as an important element within the K-12 science curriculum. Despite differences in the ultimate lists of recommended aspects, a consensus is emerging on what specific NOS elements should be the focus of science instruction and inform textbook writers and curriculum developers. In this article, we suggest a contextualized, explicit approach addressing one core NOS aspect: the human aspects of science that include the domains of creativity, social influences and subjectivity. To illustrate these ideas, we have focused on Charles Darwin, a scientist whose life, work and thought processes were particularly well recorded at the time and analyzed by scholars in the succeeding years. Historical facts are discussed and linked to core NOS ideas. Creativity is illustrated through the analogies between the struggle for existence in human societies and in nature, between artificial and natural selection, and between the division of labor in human societies and in nature. Social influences are represented by Darwin’s aversion of criticism of various kinds and by his response to the methodological requirements of the science of that time. Finally, subjectivity is discussed through Darwin’s development of a unique but incorrect source for the origin of variations within species.

Joint evolution of multiple social traits: a kin selection analysis

PubMed Central

Brown, Sam P.; Taylor, Peter D.

2010-01-01

General models of the evolution of cooperation, altruism and other social behaviours have focused almost entirely on single traits, whereas it is clear that social traits commonly interact. We develop a general kin-selection framework for the evolution of social behaviours in multiple dimensions. We show that whenever there are interactions among social traits new behaviours can emerge that are not predicted by one-dimensional analyses. For example, a prohibitively costly cooperative trait can ultimately be favoured owing to initial evolution in other (cheaper) social traits that in turn change the cost–benefit ratio of the original trait. To understand these behaviours, we use a two-dimensional stability criterion that can be viewed as an extension of Hamilton's rule. Our principal example is the social dilemma posed by, first, the construction and, second, the exploitation of a shared public good. We find that, contrary to the separate one-dimensional analyses, evolutionary feedback between the two traits can cause an increase in the equilibrium level of selfish exploitation with increasing relatedness, while both social (production plus exploitation) and asocial (neither) strategies can be locally stable. Our results demonstrate the importance of emergent stability properties of multidimensional social dilemmas, as one-dimensional stability in all component dimensions can conceal multidimensional instability. PMID:19828549

Evolution of popularity in given names

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Mi Jin; Jo, Woo Seong; Yi, Il Gu; Baek, Seung Ki; Kim, Beom Jun

2016-02-01

An individual's identity in a human society is specified by his or her name. Differently from family names, usually inherited from fathers, a given name for a child is often chosen at the parents' disposal. However, their decision cannot be made in a vacuum but affected by social conventions and trends. Furthermore, such social pressure changes in time, as new names gain popularity while some other names are gradually forgotten. In this paper, we investigate how popularity of given names has evolved over the last century by using datasets collected in Korea, the province of Quebec in Canada, and the United States. In each of these countries, the average popularity of given names exhibits typical patterns of rise and fall with a time scale of about one generation. We also observe that notable changes of diversity in given names signal major social changes.

Parental investment theory and gender differences in the evolution of inhibition mechanisms.

PubMed

Bjorklund, D F; Kipp, K

1996-09-01

Based on the tenets of parental investment theory, the authors postulate that there was greater pressure to inhibit potentially maladaptive emotional, social, and sexual responses on prehistoric women than men in some contexts, resulting in enhanced inhibitory abilities in women in some domains. They reviewed studies whose researchers examined gender differences on social, behavioral, and cognitive tasks involving inhibition and found gender differences favoring female humans most consistent for social tasks (e.g., control of emotions), somewhat less pronounced for behavioral tasks (e.g., delay of gratification), and weak and inconsistent for cognitive tasks (e.g., conceptual tempo). This pattern was interrupted as being consistent with the position that gender differences in inhibition are relatively domain specific in nature, with women demonstrating greater abilities on tasks related to reproduction and childrearing, which is consistent with parental investment theory.

Epigenesis of behavioural lateralization in humans and other animals

PubMed Central

Schaafsma, S.M.; Riedstra, B.J.; Pfannkuche, K.A.; Bouma, A.; Groothuis, T.G.G.

2008-01-01

Despite several decades of research, the epigenesis of behavioural and brain lateralization is still elusive, although its knowledge is important in understanding developmental plasticity, function and evolution of lateralization, and its relationship with developmental disorders. Over the last decades, it has become clear that behavioural lateralization is not restricted to humans, but a fundamental principle in the organization of behaviour in vertebrates. This has opened the possibility of extending descriptive studies on human lateralization with descriptive and experimental studies on other vertebrate species. In this review, we therefore explore the evidence for the role of genes and environment on behavioural lateralization in humans and other animals. First, we discuss the predominant genetic models for human handedness, and conclude that their explanatory power alone is not sufficient, leaving, together with ambiguous results from adoption studies and selection experiments in animals, ample opportunity for a role of environmental factors. Next, we discuss the potential influence of such factors, including perinatal asymmetrical perception induced by asymmetrical head position or parental care, and social modulation, both in humans and other vertebrates, presenting some evidence from our own work on the domestic chick. We conclude that both perinatal asymmetrical perception and later social modulation are likely candidates in influencing the degree or strength of lateralization in both humans and other vertebrates. However, in most cases unequivocal evidence for this is lacking and we will point out further avenues for research. PMID:19064352

Experimentally induced innovations lead to persistent culture via conformity in wild birds

PubMed Central

Aplin, L.M.; Farine, D.R.; Morand-Ferron, J.; Cockburn, A.; Thornton, A.; Sheldon, B.C.

2014-01-01

In human societies, cultural norms arise when behaviours are transmitted with high-fidelity social learning through social networks1. However a paucity of experimental studies has meant that there is no comparable understanding of the process by which socially transmitted behaviours may spread and persist in animal populations2,3. Here, we introduce alternative novel foraging techniques into replicated wild sub-populations of great tits (Parus major), and employ automated tracking to map the diffusion, establishment and long-term persistence of seeded behaviours. We further use social network analysis to examine social factors influencing diffusion dynamics. From just two trained birds in each sub-population, information spread rapidly through social network ties to reach an average of 75% of individuals, with 508 knowledgeable individuals performing 58,975 solutions. Sub-populations were heavily biased towards the technique originally introduced, resulting in established local arbitrary traditions that were stable over two generations, despite high population turnover. Finally, we demonstrate a strong effect of social conformity, with individuals disproportionately adopting the most frequent local variant when first learning, but then also continuing to favour social over personal information by matching their technique to the majority variant. Cultural conformity is thought to be a key factor in the evolution of complex culture in humans4-7. In providing the first experimental demonstration of conformity in a wild non-primate, and of cultural norms in foraging techniques in any wild animal, our results suggest a much wider evolutionary occurrence of such apparently complex cultural behaviour. PMID:25470065

Acceptance of evolutionary explanations as they are applied to plants, animals, and humans

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thanukos, Anastasia

In four investigations using Likert-scale questionnaires and think-aloud protocols with 173 university students in total, the willingness to accept evolutionary explanations regarding plant, animal, and human characteristics was examined. Participants were presented with evolutionary explanations for features and behaviors and were asked to rate how much they agreed with evolution as an explanation for each scenario. Some were also asked to explain their reasoning in think-aloud protocols or to discuss item ratings with one another. Overall, participants thought evolutionary explanations appropriate, with median ratings in the upper quarter of the rating scale. They were slightly more willing to ascribe evolutionary explanations to plant than to human phenomena; however, this general effect was mediated by more specific aspects of the evolutionary scenarios in question. Participants who were generally negative regarding evolution were particularly negative towards human evolution. Those who were positive or neutral towards evolution in general were more willing to accept human evolution, but were more likely to use evolution to explain similarities between humans and other species than to explain particular human adaptations. For example, they were more likely to agree that evolution is responsible for the DNA similarities between humans and chimpanzees than that evolution is responsible for human behavioral characteristics, such as the fight or flight response. Think-aloud protocols suggest that, while people are more familiar with human evolutionary relationships than plant evolutionary relationships, they may be less likely to see human characteristics as adaptively valuable. One plausible explanation for these patterns is that an evolutionary explanation is judged jointly by its availability in an individual's memory and its plausibility (i.e., its congruence with the individual's worldview). Popular media coverage, with its focus on controversy and litigation, makes it likely that awareness of human evolution is high, compared with plant evolution (which may not even "enter the radar screen" when most people think of evolution). Some aspects of human evolution, such as the basic relationship between all primates, may have become so pedestrian that they do not threaten many individuals' worldviews. However, even for those positively disposed towards evolution, extending the ramifications of human evolution by suggesting that evolution shapes our behaviors and physical traits may pose a threat to their sense of personal agency. This threat is not associated with plant evolution.

Education as an Agent of Social Evolution: The Educational Projects of Patrick Geddes in Late-Victorian Scotland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sutherland, Douglas

2009-01-01

This paper examines the educational projects of Patrick Geddes in late-Victorian Scotland. Initially a natural scientist, Geddes drew on an eclectic mix of social theory to develop his own ideas on social evolution. For him education was a vital agent of social change which, he believed, had the potential to develop active citizens whose…

The evolution of cultural adaptations: Fijian food taboos protect against dangerous marine toxins

PubMed Central

Henrich, Joseph; Henrich, Natalie

2010-01-01

The application of evolutionary theory to understanding the origins of our species' capacities for social learning has generated key insights into cultural evolution. By focusing on how our psychology has evolved to adaptively extract beliefs and practices by observing others, theorists have hypothesized how social learning can, over generations, give rise to culturally evolved adaptations. While much field research documents the subtle ways in which culturally transmitted beliefs and practices adapt people to their local environments, and much experimental work reveals the predicted patterns of social learning, little research connects real-world adaptive cultural traits to the patterns of transmission predicted by these theories. Addressing this gap, we show how food taboos for pregnant and lactating women in Fiji selectively target the most toxic marine species, effectively reducing a woman's chances of fish poisoning by 30 per cent during pregnancy and 60 per cent during breastfeeding. We further analyse how these taboos are transmitted, showing support for cultural evolutionary models that combine familial transmission with selective learning from locally prestigious individuals. In addition, we explore how particular aspects of human cognitive processes increase the frequency of some non-adaptive taboos. This case demonstrates how evolutionary theory can be deployed to explain both adaptive and non-adaptive behavioural patterns. PMID:20667878

Adult sex ratios and partner scarcity among hunter-gatherers: implications for dispersal patterns and the evolution of human sociality.

PubMed

Kramer, Karen L; Schacht, Ryan; Bell, Adrian

2017-09-19

Small populations are susceptible to high genetic loads and random fluctuations in birth and death rates. While these selective forces can adversely affect their viability, small populations persist across taxa. Here, we investigate the resilience of small groups to demographic uncertainty, and specifically to fluctuations in adult sex ratio (ASR), partner availability and dispersal patterns. Using 25 years of demographic data for two Savannah Pumé groups of South American hunter-gatherers, we show that in small human populations: (i) ASRs fluctuate substantially from year to year, but do not consistently trend in a sex-biased direction; (ii) the primary driver of local variation in partner availability is stochasticity in the sex ratio at maturity; and (iii) dispersal outside of the group is an important behavioural means to mediate locally constrained mating options. To then simulate conditions under which dispersal outside of the local group may have evolved, we develop two mathematical models. Model results predict that if the ASR is biased, the globally rarer sex should disperse. The model's utility is then evaluated by applying our empirical data to this central prediction. The results are consistent with the observed hunter-gatherer pattern of variation in the sex that disperses. Together, these findings offer an alternative explanation to resource provisioning for the evolution of traits central to human sociality (e.g. flexible dispersal, bilocal post-marital residence and cooperation across local groups). We argue that in small populations, looking outside of one's local group is necessary to find a mate and that, motivated by ASR imbalance, the alliances formed to facilitate the movement of partners are an important foundation for the human-typical pattern of network formation across local groups.This article is part of the themed issue 'Adult sex ratios and reproductive decisions: a critical re-examination of sex differences in human and animal societies'. © 2017 The Author(s).

The coevolution of recognition and social behavior.

PubMed

Smead, Rory; Forber, Patrick

2016-05-26

Recognition of behavioral types can facilitate the evolution of cooperation by enabling altruistic behavior to be directed at other cooperators and withheld from defectors. While much is known about the tendency for recognition to promote cooperation, relatively little is known about whether such a capacity can coevolve with the social behavior it supports. Here we use evolutionary game theory and multi-population dynamics to model the coevolution of social behavior and recognition. We show that conditional harming behavior enables the evolution and stability of social recognition, whereas conditional helping leads to a deterioration of recognition ability. Expanding the model to include a complex game where both helping and harming interactions are possible, we find that conditional harming behavior can stabilize recognition, and thereby lead to the evolution of conditional helping. Our model identifies a novel hypothesis for the evolution of cooperation: conditional harm may have coevolved with recognition first, thereby helping to establish the mechanisms necessary for the evolution of cooperation.

The coevolution of recognition and social behavior

PubMed Central

Smead, Rory; Forber, Patrick

2016-01-01

Recognition of behavioral types can facilitate the evolution of cooperation by enabling altruistic behavior to be directed at other cooperators and withheld from defectors. While much is known about the tendency for recognition to promote cooperation, relatively little is known about whether such a capacity can coevolve with the social behavior it supports. Here we use evolutionary game theory and multi-population dynamics to model the coevolution of social behavior and recognition. We show that conditional harming behavior enables the evolution and stability of social recognition, whereas conditional helping leads to a deterioration of recognition ability. Expanding the model to include a complex game where both helping and harming interactions are possible, we find that conditional harming behavior can stabilize recognition, and thereby lead to the evolution of conditional helping. Our model identifies a novel hypothesis for the evolution of cooperation: conditional harm may have coevolved with recognition first, thereby helping to establish the mechanisms necessary for the evolution of cooperation. PMID:27225673

First principles of Hamiltonian medicine.

PubMed

Crespi, Bernard; Foster, Kevin; Úbeda, Francisco

2014-05-19

We introduce the field of Hamiltonian medicine, which centres on the roles of genetic relatedness in human health and disease. Hamiltonian medicine represents the application of basic social-evolution theory, for interactions involving kinship, to core issues in medicine such as pathogens, cancer, optimal growth and mental illness. It encompasses three domains, which involve conflict and cooperation between: (i) microbes or cancer cells, within humans, (ii) genes expressed in humans, (iii) human individuals. A set of six core principles, based on these domains and their interfaces, serves to conceptually organize the field, and contextualize illustrative examples. The primary usefulness of Hamiltonian medicine is that, like Darwinian medicine more generally, it provides novel insights into what data will be productive to collect, to address important clinical and public health problems. Our synthesis of this nascent field is intended predominantly for evolutionary and behavioural biologists who aspire to address questions directly relevant to human health and disease.

Mental time travel and the shaping of the human mind

PubMed Central

Suddendorf, Thomas; Addis, Donna Rose; Corballis, Michael C.

2009-01-01

Episodic memory, enabling conscious recollection of past episodes, can be distinguished from semantic memory, which stores enduring facts about the world. Episodic memory shares a core neural network with the simulation of future episodes, enabling mental time travel into both the past and the future. The notion that there might be something distinctly human about mental time travel has provoked ingenious attempts to demonstrate episodic memory or future simulation in non-human animals, but we argue that they have not yet established a capacity comparable to the human faculty. The evolution of the capacity to simulate possible future events, based on episodic memory, enhanced fitness by enabling action in preparation of different possible scenarios that increased present or future survival and reproduction chances. Human language may have evolved in the first instance for the sharing of past and planned future events, and, indeed, fictional ones, further enhancing fitness in social settings. PMID:19528013

The human socio-cognitive niche and its evolutionary origins

PubMed Central

Whiten, Andrew; Erdal, David

2012-01-01

Hominin evolution took a remarkable pathway, as the foraging strategy extended to large mammalian prey already hunted by a guild of specialist carnivores. How was this possible for a moderately sized ape lacking the formidable anatomical adaptations of these competing ‘professional hunters’? The long-standing answer that this was achieved through the elaboration of a new ‘cognitive niche’ reliant on intelligence and technology is compelling, yet insufficient. Here we present evidence from a diversity of sources supporting the hypothesis that a fuller answer lies in the evolution of a new socio-cognitive niche, the principal components of which include forms of cooperation, egalitarianism, mindreading (also known as ‘theory of mind’), language and cultural transmission, that go far beyond the most comparable phenomena in other primates. This cognitive and behavioural complex allows a human hunter–gatherer band to function as a unique and highly competitive predatory organism. Each of these core components of the socio-cognitive niche is distinctive to humans, but primate research has increasingly identified related capacities that permit inferences about significant ancestral cognitive foundations to the five pillars of the human social cognitive niche listed earlier. The principal focus of the present study was to review and integrate this range of recent comparative discoveries. PMID:22734055

Global climate and infectious disease: The cholera paradigm

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Colwell, R.R.

1996-12-20

Historically, infectious diseases have had a profound effect on human populations, including their evolution and cultural development. Despite significant advances in medical science, infectious diseases continue to impact human populations in many parts of the world. Emerging diseases are considered to be those infections that either are newly appearing in the population or are rapidly increasing in incidence or expanding in geographic range. Emergence of disease is not a simple phenomenon, mainly because infectious diseases are dynamic. Most new infections are not caused by truly new pathogens but are microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and helminths) that find a newmore » way to enter a susceptible host and are newly recognized because of recently developed, sensitive techniques. Human activities drive emergence of disease and a variety of social, economic, political, climatic, technological, and environmental factors can shape the pattern of a disease and influence its emergence into populations. For example, travel affects emergence of disease, and human migrations have been the main source of epidemics throughout history. Trade caravans, religious pilgrimage, and military campaigns facilitated the spread of plague, smallpox, and cholera. Global travel is a fact of modern life and, equally so, the continued evolution of microorganisms; therefore, new infections will continue to emerge, and known infections will change in distribution, frequency, and severity. 88 refs., 1 fig.« less

Evolution and depression: issues and implications.

PubMed

Gilbert, Paul

2006-03-01

Depression is well recognized to be rooted in the down-regulation of positive affect systems. This paper reviews some of the social and non-social theories that seek to explain the potential adaptive advantages of being able to tone down positive affect, and how dysfunctions in such affect control can occur in some contexts. Common to most evolutionary theories of depression is the view that loss of control over aversive events and/or major resources/rewards exert downward pressure on positive affect. Social theories, however, suggest that it is loss of control over the social environment that is particularly depressogenic. Two evolutionary theories (the attachment-loss, and the defeat-loss theories) are briefly reviewed and their interaction considered. It is suggested that phenotypes for toning down positive affect, in the face of loss of control, may become more severe in the context of socially hostile, unsupportive and/or excessively competitive environments. The paper briefly considers how human competencies for self-evaluation in relation to others, rumination, self-criticism, and modern social contexts can accentuate dysfunctional expressions of affect regulation.

Evolution of a behavior-linked microsatellite-containing element in the 5' flanking region of the primate AVPR1A gene

PubMed Central

2008-01-01

Background The arginine vasopressin V1a receptor (V1aR) modulates social cognition and behavior in a wide variety of species. Variation in a repetitive microsatellite element in the 5' flanking region of the V1aR gene (AVPR1A) in rodents has been associated with variation in brain V1aR expression and in social behavior. In humans, the 5' flanking region of AVPR1A contains a tandem duplication of two ~350 bp, microsatellite-containing elements located approximately 3.5 kb upstream of the transcription start site. The first block, referred to as DupA, contains a polymorphic (GT)25 microsatellite; the second block, DupB, has a complex (CT)4-(TT)-(CT)8-(GT)24 polymorphic motif, known as RS3. Polymorphisms in RS3 have been associated with variation in sociobehavioral traits in humans, including autism spectrum disorders. Thus, evolution of these regions may have contributed to variation in social behavior in primates. We examined the structure of these regions in six ape, six monkey, and one prosimian species. Results Both tandem repeat blocks are present upstream of the AVPR1A coding region in five of the ape species we investigated, while monkeys have only one copy of this region. As in humans, the microsatellites within DupA and DupB are polymorphic in many primate species. Furthermore, both single (lacking DupB) and duplicated alleles (containing both DupA and DupB) are present in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) populations with allele frequencies of 0.795 and 0.205 for the single and duplicated alleles, respectively, based on the analysis of 47 wild-caught individuals. Finally, a phylogenetic reconstruction suggests two alternate evolutionary histories for this locus. Conclusion There is no obvious relationship between the presence of the RS3 duplication and social organization in primates. However, polymorphisms identified in some species may be useful in future genetic association studies. In particular, the presence of both single and duplicated alleles in chimpanzees provides a unique opportunity to assess the functional role of this duplication in contributing to variation in social behavior in primates. While our initial studies show no signs of directional selection on this locus in chimps, pharmacological and genetic association studies support a potential role for this region in influencing V1aR expression and social behavior. PMID:18573213

Evolution of a behavior-linked microsatellite-containing element in the 5' flanking region of the primate AVPR1A gene.

PubMed

Donaldson, Zoe R; Kondrashov, Fyodor A; Putnam, Andrea; Bai, Yaohui; Stoinski, Tara L; Hammock, Elizabeth A D; Young, Larry J

2008-06-23

The arginine vasopressin V1a receptor (V1aR) modulates social cognition and behavior in a wide variety of species. Variation in a repetitive microsatellite element in the 5' flanking region of the V1aR gene (AVPR1A) in rodents has been associated with variation in brain V1aR expression and in social behavior. In humans, the 5' flanking region of AVPR1A contains a tandem duplication of two approximately 350 bp, microsatellite-containing elements located approximately 3.5 kb upstream of the transcription start site. The first block, referred to as DupA, contains a polymorphic (GT)25 microsatellite; the second block, DupB, has a complex (CT)4-(TT)-(CT)8-(GT)24 polymorphic motif, known as RS3. Polymorphisms in RS3 have been associated with variation in sociobehavioral traits in humans, including autism spectrum disorders. Thus, evolution of these regions may have contributed to variation in social behavior in primates. We examined the structure of these regions in six ape, six monkey, and one prosimian species. Both tandem repeat blocks are present upstream of the AVPR1A coding region in five of the ape species we investigated, while monkeys have only one copy of this region. As in humans, the microsatellites within DupA and DupB are polymorphic in many primate species. Furthermore, both single (lacking DupB) and duplicated alleles (containing both DupA and DupB) are present in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) populations with allele frequencies of 0.795 and 0.205 for the single and duplicated alleles, respectively, based on the analysis of 47 wild-caught individuals. Finally, a phylogenetic reconstruction suggests two alternate evolutionary histories for this locus. There is no obvious relationship between the presence of the RS3 duplication and social organization in primates. However, polymorphisms identified in some species may be useful in future genetic association studies. In particular, the presence of both single and duplicated alleles in chimpanzees provides a unique opportunity to assess the functional role of this duplication in contributing to variation in social behavior in primates. While our initial studies show no signs of directional selection on this locus in chimps, pharmacological and genetic association studies support a potential role for this region in influencing V1aR expression and social behavior.

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

The complexity and variability of human culture is unmatched by any other species. Humans live in culturally constructed niches filled with artifacts, skills, beliefs, and practices that have been inherited, accumulated, and modified over generations. A causal account of the complexity of human culture must explain its distinguishing characteristics: It is cumulative and highly variable within and across populations. I propose that the psychological adaptations supporting cumulative cultural transmission are universal but are sufficiently flexible to support the acquisition of highly variable behavioral repertoires. This paper describes variation in the transmission practices (teaching) and acquisition strategies (imitation) that support cumulative cultural learning in childhood. Examining flexibility and variation in caregiver socialization and children’s learning extends our understanding of evolution in living systems by providing insight into the psychological foundations of cumulative cultural transmission—the cornerstone of human cultural diversity. PMID:28739945

Cumulative cultural learning: Development and diversity.

PubMed

Legare, Cristine H

2017-07-24

The complexity and variability of human culture is unmatched by any other species. Humans live in culturally constructed niches filled with artifacts, skills, beliefs, and practices that have been inherited, accumulated, and modified over generations. A causal account of the complexity of human culture must explain its distinguishing characteristics: It is cumulative and highly variable within and across populations. I propose that the psychological adaptations supporting cumulative cultural transmission are universal but are sufficiently flexible to support the acquisition of highly variable behavioral repertoires. This paper describes variation in the transmission practices (teaching) and acquisition strategies (imitation) that support cumulative cultural learning in childhood. Examining flexibility and variation in caregiver socialization and children's learning extends our understanding of evolution in living systems by providing insight into the psychological foundations of cumulative cultural transmission-the cornerstone of human cultural diversity.

The spontaneous market order and evolution.

PubMed

Beck, Naomi

2016-08-01

Darwin's theory of natural selection and the idea of a spontaneous order share a fundamental feature: the claim that apparent design or order do not necessarily imply a designer or rational planning. But they also present important differences, which touch upon central questions such as the evolution of morality, the role of human agency in social evolution, the existence (or not) of directionality in undesigned processes, and the presence (nor not) of a providential element in evolutionary accounts. In this article, I explore these themes and probe the relationship between the notion of a spontaneous order and the theory of evolution by natural selection. The reflections of Nobel laureate in economics, F.A. von Hayek, provide the beginning and endpoint in this voyage, for they constitute the most pronounced effort to develop a full-fledged theory combining evolution and economics in recent times. But along the way, I also investigate the influence of classical political economy on Darwin's thought, primarily that of Adam Smith, and consider the reasons for which Darwin did not refer to Smith when discussing the principle of natural selection in The Origin of Species. I conclude that the spontaneous order, as understood by Hayek, and evolution by natural selection constitute two disparate concepts. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Oxytocin reactivity during intergroup conflict in wild chimpanzees.

PubMed

Samuni, Liran; Preis, Anna; Mundry, Roger; Deschner, Tobias; Crockford, Catherine; Wittig, Roman M

2017-01-10

Intergroup conflict is evident throughout the history of our species, ubiquitous across human societies, and considered crucial for the evolution of humans' large-scale cooperative nature. Like humans, chimpanzee societies exhibit intragroup coordination and coalitionary support during violent intergroup conflicts. In both species, cooperation among group members is essential for individuals to gain access to benefits from engaging in intergroup conflict. Studies suggest that a contributive mechanism regulating in-group cooperation during intergroup conflicts in humans involves the neuropeptide hormone oxytocin, known to influence trust, coordination, and social cognition, although evidence from natural settings is lacking. Here, applying a noninvasive method, we investigate oxytocinergic system involvement during natural intergroup conflicts in wild chimpanzees. We found that chimpanzees of both sexes had significantly higher urinary oxytocin levels immediately before and during intergroup conflict compared with controls. Also, elevated hormone levels were linked with greater cohesion during intergroup conflicts, rather than with the level of potential threat posed by rival groups, intragroup affiliative social interactions, or coordinated behavior alone. Thus, the oxytocinergic system, potentially engendering cohesion and cooperation when facing an out-group threat, may not be uniquely human but rather a mechanism with evolutionary roots shared by our last common ancestor with chimpanzees, likely expediting fitness gains during intergroup conflict.

The evolutionary roots of creativity: mechanisms and motivations.

PubMed

Wiggins, Geraint A; Tyack, Peter; Scharff, Constance; Rohrmeier, Martin

2015-03-19

We consider the evolution of cognition and the emergence of creative behaviour, in relation to vocal communication. We address two key questions: (i) what cognitive and/or social mechanisms have evolved that afford aspects of creativity?; (ii) has natural and/or sexual selection favoured human behaviours considered 'creative'? This entails analysis of 'creativity', an imprecise construct: comparable properties in non-humans differ in magnitude and teleology from generally agreed human creativity. We then address two apparent problems: (i) the difference between merely novel productions and 'creative' ones; (ii) the emergence of creative behaviour in spite of high cost: does it fit the idea that females choose a male who succeeds in spite of a handicap (costly ornament); or that creative males capable of producing a large and complex song repertoire grew up under favourable conditions; or a demonstration of generally beneficial heightened reasoning capacity; or an opportunity to continually reinforce social bonding through changing communication tropes; or something else? We illustrate and support our argument by reference to whale and bird song; these independently evolved biological signal mechanisms objectively share surface properties with human behaviours generally called 'creative'. Studying them may elucidate mechanisms underlying human creativity; we outline a research programme to do so. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

The evolutionary roots of creativity: mechanisms and motivations

PubMed Central

Wiggins, Geraint A.; Tyack, Peter; Scharff, Constance; Rohrmeier, Martin

2015-01-01

We consider the evolution of cognition and the emergence of creative behaviour, in relation to vocal communication. We address two key questions: (i) what cognitive and/or social mechanisms have evolved that afford aspects of creativity?; (ii) has natural and/or sexual selection favoured human behaviours considered ‘creative’? This entails analysis of ‘creativity’, an imprecise construct: comparable properties in non-humans differ in magnitude and teleology from generally agreed human creativity. We then address two apparent problems: (i) the difference between merely novel productions and ‘creative’ ones; (ii) the emergence of creative behaviour in spite of high cost: does it fit the idea that females choose a male who succeeds in spite of a handicap (costly ornament); or that creative males capable of producing a large and complex song repertoire grew up under favourable conditions; or a demonstration of generally beneficial heightened reasoning capacity; or an opportunity to continually reinforce social bonding through changing communication tropes; or something else? We illustrate and support our argument by reference to whale and bird song; these independently evolved biological signal mechanisms objectively share surface properties with human behaviours generally called ‘creative’. Studying them may elucidate mechanisms underlying human creativity; we outline a research programme to do so. PMID:25646522

Diversification and cumulative evolution in New Caledonian crow tool manufacture.

PubMed Central

Hunt, Gavin R; Gray, Russell D

2003-01-01

Many animals use tools but only humans are generally considered to have the cognitive sophistication required for cumulative technological evolution. Three important characteristics of cumulative technological evolution are: (i) the diversification of tool design; (ii) cumulative change; and (iii) high-fidelity social transmission. We present evidence that crows have diversified and cumulatively changed the design of their pandanus tools. In 2000 we carried out an intensive survey in New Caledonia to establish the geographical variation in the manufacture of these tools. We documented the shapes of 5550 tools from 21 sites throughout the range of pandanus tool manufacture. We found three distinct pandanus tool designs: wide tools, narrow tools and stepped tools. The lack of ecological correlates of the three tool designs and their different, continuous and overlapping geographical distributions make it unlikely that they evolved independently. The similarities in the manufacture method of each design further suggest that pandanus tools have gone through a process of cumulative change from a common historical origin. We propose a plausible scenario for this rudimentary cumulative evolution. PMID:12737666

Cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks

PubMed Central

Fowler, James H.; Christakis, Nicholas A.

2010-01-01

Theoretical models suggest that social networks influence the evolution of cooperation, but to date there have been few experimental studies. Observational data suggest that a wide variety of behaviors may spread in human social networks, but subjects in such studies can choose to befriend people with similar behaviors, posing difficulty for causal inference. Here, we exploit a seminal set of laboratory experiments that originally showed that voluntary costly punishment can help sustain cooperation. In these experiments, subjects were randomly assigned to a sequence of different groups to play a series of single-shot public goods games with strangers; this feature allowed us to draw networks of interactions to explore how cooperative and uncooperative behaviors spread from person to person to person. We show that, in both an ordinary public goods game and in a public goods game with punishment, focal individuals are influenced by fellow group members’ contribution behavior in future interactions with other individuals who were not a party to the initial interaction. Furthermore, this influence persists for multiple periods and spreads up to three degrees of separation (from person to person to person to person). The results suggest that each additional contribution a subject makes to the public good in the first period is tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who are directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more as a consequence. These results show experimentally that cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks. PMID:20212120

Polygyny without wealth: popularity in gift games predicts polygyny in BaYaka Pygmies.

PubMed

Chaudhary, Nikhil; Salali, Gul Deniz; Thompson, James; Dyble, Mark; Page, Abigail; Smith, Daniel; Mace, Ruth; Migliano, Andrea Bamberg

2015-05-01

The occurrence of polygynous marriage in hunter-gatherer societies, which do not accumulate wealth, remains largely unexplored since resource availability is dependent on male hunting capacity and limited by the lack of storage. Hunter-gatherer societies offer the greatest insight in to human evolution since they represent the majority of our species' evolutionary history. In order to elucidate the evolution of hunter-gatherer polygyny, we study marriage patterns of BaYaka Pygmies. We investigate (i) rates of polygyny among BaYaka hunter-gatherers; (ii) whether polygyny confers a fitness benefit to BaYaka men; (iii) in the absence of wealth inequalities, what are the alternative explanations for polygyny among the BaYaka. To understand the latter, we explore differences in phenotypic quality (height and strength), and social capital (popularity in gift games). We find polygynous men have increased reproductive fitness; and that social capital and popularity but not phenotypic quality might have been important mechanisms by which some male hunter-gatherers sustained polygynous marriages before the onset of agriculture and wealth accumulation.

Neighbourhood reaction in the evolution of cooperation.

PubMed

Yang, Guoli; Zhang, Weiming; Xiu, Baoxin

2015-05-07

Combining evolutionary games with adaptive networks, an entangled model between strategy evolution and structure adaptation is researched in this paper. We consider a large population of cooperators C and defectors D placed in the networks, playing the repeated prisoner׳s dilemma (PD) games. Because of the conflicts between social welfare and personal rationality, both strategy and structure are allowed to change. In this paper, the dynamics of strategy originates form the partner imitation based on social learning and the dynamics of structure is driven by the active linking and neighbourhood reaction. Notably, the neighbourhood reaction is investigated considering the changes of interfaces between cooperators and defectors, where some neighbours may get away from the interface once the focal agent changes to different strategy. A rich landscape is demonstrated by changing various embedding parameters, which sheds light upon that reacting promptly to the shifted neighbour will promote the prevalence of cooperation. Our model encapsulates the dynamics of strategy, reaction and structure into the evolutionary games, which manifests some intriguing principles in the competition between two groups in natural populations, artificial systems and even human societies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Genetic variation in social mammals: the marmot model.

PubMed

Schwartz, O A; Armitage, K B

1980-02-08

The social substructure and the distribution of genetic variation among colonies of yellow-bellied marmots, when analyzed as an evolutionary system, suggests that this substructure enhances the intercolony variance and retards the fixation of genetic variation. This result supports a traditional theory of gradual evolution rather than recent theories suggesting accelerated evolution in social mammals.

Interpreting Evidence: An Approach to Teaching Human Evolution in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeSilva, Jeremy

2004-01-01

Paleoanthropology, which is the study of human evolution through fossil records, can be used as a tool for teaching human evolution in the classrooms. An updated approach to teaching human evolution and a model for explaining what is science and how it is done, is presented.

A coupled modeling framework of the co-evolution of humans and water: case study of Tarim River Basin, western China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, D.; Tian, F.; Lin, M.; Sivapalan, M.

2014-04-01

The complex interactions and feedbacks between humans and water are very essential issues but are poorly understood in the newly proposed discipline of socio-hydrology (Sivapalan et al., 2012). An exploratory model with the appropriate level of simplification can be valuable to improve our understanding of the co-evolution and self-organization of socio-hydrological systems driven by interactions and feedbacks operating at different scales. In this study, a simple coupled modeling framework for socio-hydrology co-evolution is developed for the Tarim River Basin in Western China, and is used to illustrate the explanatory power of such a model. The study area is the mainstream of the Tarim River, which is divided into two modeling units. The socio-hydrological system is composed of four parts, i.e. social sub-system, economic sub-system, ecological sub-system, and hydrological sub-system. In each modeling unit, four coupled ordinary differential equations are used to simulate the dynamics of the social sub-system represented by human population, the economic sub-system represented by irrigated crop area, the ecological sub-system represented by natural vegetation cover and the hydrological sub-system represented by stream discharge. The coupling and feedback processes of the four dominant sub-systems (and correspondingly four state variables) are integrated into several internal system characteristics interactively and jointly determined by themselves and by other coupled systems. For example, the stream discharge is coupled to the irrigated crop area by the colonization rate and mortality rate of the irrigated crop area in the upper reach and the irrigated area is coupled to stream discharge through irrigation water consumption. In a similar way, the stream discharge and natural vegetation cover are coupled together. The irrigated crop area is coupled to human population by the colonization rate and mortality rate of the population. The inflow of the lower reach is determined by the outflow from the upper reach. The natural vegetation cover in the lower reach is coupled to the outflow from the upper reach and governed by regional water resources management policy. The co-evolution of the Tarim socio-hydrological system is then analyzed within this modeling framework to gain insights into the overall system dynamics and its sensitivity to the external drivers and internal system variables. In the modeling framework, the state of each subsystem is holistically described by one state variable and the framework is flexible enough to comprise more processes and constitutive relationships if they are needed to illustrate the interaction and feedback mechanisms of the human-water system.

Social biases modulate the loss of redundant forms in the cultural evolution of language.

PubMed

Roberts, Gareth; Fedzechkina, Maryia

2018-02-01

According to the competitive exclusion principle (Gause, 1934), competition for the same niche must eventually lead one competitor to extinction or the occupation of a new niche. This principle applies in both biology and the cultural evolution of language, where different words and structures compete for the same function or meaning (Aronoff, 2016). Across languages, for example, word order trades off with case marking as a means of indicating who did what to whom in a sentence. Previous experimental work has shed light on how such trade-offs come about as languages adapt to human biases through learning and production, with biases becoming amplified through iterated learning over generations. At the same time, a large body of work has documented the impact of social biases on language change. However, little work has investigated how social biases interact with learning and production biases. In particular, the social dimension of language may provide alternative niches for otherwise redundant forms, preventing or slowing their extinction. We tested this hypothesis in an iterated-learning experiment in which participants were exposed to a language with two dialects, both of which had fixed word order, but differed in whether they employed case markers. In one condition, we biased participants socially towards speakers of the dialect that employed case; in other conditions we provided no bias, or biased participants for or against the dialect without case. As expected under our hypothesis, the use of case markers declined over time in all conditions, but the social bias in favor of case-dialect speakers slowed the decline. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Stretching the boundaries of medical education A case of medical college embracing humanities and social sciences in medical education.

PubMed

Ghias, Kulsoom; Khan, Kausar S; Ali, Rukhsana; Azfar, Shireen; Ahmed, Rashida

2016-01-01

Aga Khan University, a private medical college, had a vision of producing physicians who are not only scientifically competent, but also socially sensitive, the latter by exposure of medical students to a broad-based curriculum. The objective of this study was to identify the genesis of broad-based education and its integration into the undergraduate medical education program as the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) course. A qualitative methodology was used for this study. Sources of data included document review and in-depth key informant interviews. Nvivo software was utilized to extract themes. The study revealed the process of operationalization of the institutional vision to produce competent and culturally sensitive physicians. The delay in the establishment of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which was expected to take a lead role in the delivery of a broad-based education, led to the development of an innovative HASS course in the medical curriculum. The study also identified availability of faculty and resistance from students as challenges faced in the implementation and evolution of HASS. The description of the journey and viability of integration of HASS into the medical curriculum offers a model to medical colleges seeking ways to produce socially sensitive physicians.

Stretching the boundaries of medical education A case of medical college embracing humanities and social sciences in medical education

PubMed Central

Ghias, Kulsoom; Khan, Kausar S; Ali, Rukhsana; Azfar, Shireen; Ahmed, Rashida

2016-01-01

Objective: Aga Khan University, a private medical college, had a vision of producing physicians who are not only scientifically competent, but also socially sensitive, the latter by exposure of medical students to a broad-based curriculum. The objective of this study was to identify the genesis of broad-based education and its integration into the undergraduate medical education program as the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) course. Methods: A qualitative methodology was used for this study. Sources of data included document review and in-depth key informant interviews. Nvivo software was utilized to extract themes. Results: The study revealed the process of operationalization of the institutional vision to produce competent and culturally sensitive physicians. The delay in the establishment of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which was expected to take a lead role in the delivery of a broad-based education, led to the development of an innovative HASS course in the medical curriculum. The study also identified availability of faculty and resistance from students as challenges faced in the implementation and evolution of HASS. Conclusions: The description of the journey and viability of integration of HASS into the medical curriculum offers a model to medical colleges seeking ways to produce socially sensitive physicians. PMID:27648038

The validity and value of inclusive fitness theory

PubMed Central

Bourke, Andrew F. G.

2011-01-01

Social evolution is a central topic in evolutionary biology, with the evolution of eusociality (societies with altruistic, non-reproductive helpers) representing a long-standing evolutionary conundrum. Recent critiques have questioned the validity of the leading theory for explaining social evolution and eusociality, namely inclusive fitness (kin selection) theory. I review recent and past literature to argue that these critiques do not succeed. Inclusive fitness theory has added fundamental insights to natural selection theory. These are the realization that selection on a gene for social behaviour depends on its effects on co-bearers, the explanation of social behaviours as unalike as altruism and selfishness using the same underlying parameters, and the explanation of within-group conflict in terms of non-coinciding inclusive fitness optima. A proposed alternative theory for eusocial evolution assumes mistakenly that workers' interests are subordinate to the queen's, contains no new elements and fails to make novel predictions. The haplodiploidy hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested and positive relatedness within diploid eusocial societies supports inclusive fitness theory. The theory has made unique, falsifiable predictions that have been confirmed, and its evidence base is extensive and robust. Hence, inclusive fitness theory deserves to keep its position as the leading theory for social evolution. PMID:21920980

The validity and value of inclusive fitness theory.

PubMed

Bourke, Andrew F G

2011-11-22

Social evolution is a central topic in evolutionary biology, with the evolution of eusociality (societies with altruistic, non-reproductive helpers) representing a long-standing evolutionary conundrum. Recent critiques have questioned the validity of the leading theory for explaining social evolution and eusociality, namely inclusive fitness (kin selection) theory. I review recent and past literature to argue that these critiques do not succeed. Inclusive fitness theory has added fundamental insights to natural selection theory. These are the realization that selection on a gene for social behaviour depends on its effects on co-bearers, the explanation of social behaviours as unalike as altruism and selfishness using the same underlying parameters, and the explanation of within-group conflict in terms of non-coinciding inclusive fitness optima. A proposed alternative theory for eusocial evolution assumes mistakenly that workers' interests are subordinate to the queen's, contains no new elements and fails to make novel predictions. The haplodiploidy hypothesis has yet to be rigorously tested and positive relatedness within diploid eusocial societies supports inclusive fitness theory. The theory has made unique, falsifiable predictions that have been confirmed, and its evidence base is extensive and robust. Hence, inclusive fitness theory deserves to keep its position as the leading theory for social evolution.

The dynamic evolution of social ties and user-generated content: a case study on a Douban group

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shan, Siqing; Ren, Jie; Li, Cangyan

2017-11-01

As platforms based on user-generated content (UGC), social media platforms emphasise the social ties between users and user participation, which promote the communication and propagation of ideas and help to build and maintain relationships. However, many researchers have studied only predefined social networks, such as academic social networks. We believe that there are certain characteristics associated with the network's UGC worth evaluating. We conducted research in communities in which content attracts discussion and new members and examined the evolution patterns of social and content networks in a topic-oriented Douban group. Datasets of user and content information in communities of interest were collected through web crawler software. Networks based on social and content ties were constructed and analysed. We chose scale, density, centrality, average path length and cluster coefficient as measures for exploring the evolution and correlation of both types of networks. These findings are valuable for social media marketing and helpful in directing and controlling public opinion.

Big cats as a model system for the study of the evolution of intelligence.

PubMed

Borrego, Natalia

2017-08-01

Currently, carnivores, and felids in particular, are vastly underrepresented in cognitive literature, despite being an ideal model system for tests of social and ecological intelligence hypotheses. Within Felidae, big cats (Panthera) are uniquely suited to studies investigating the evolutionary links between social, ecological, and cognitive complexity. Intelligence likely did not evolve in a unitary way but instead evolved as the result of mutually reinforcing feedback loops within the physical and social environments. The domain-specific social intelligence hypothesis proposes that social complexity drives only the evolution of cognitive abilities adapted only to social domains. The domain-general hypothesis proposes that the unique demands of social life serve as a bootstrap for the evolution of superior general cognition. Big cats are one of the few systems in which we can directly address conflicting predictions of the domain-general and domain-specific hypothesis by comparing cognition among closely related species that face roughly equivalent ecological complexity but vary considerably in social complexity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Molecular Evolution in Historical Perspective.

PubMed

Suárez-Díaz, Edna

2016-12-01

In the 1960s, advances in protein chemistry and molecular genetics provided new means for the study of biological evolution. Amino acid sequencing, nucleic acid hybridization, zone gel electrophoresis, and immunochemistry were some of the experimental techniques that brought about new perspectives to the study of the patterns and mechanisms of evolution. New concepts, such as the molecular evolutionary clock, and the discovery of unexpected molecular phenomena, like the presence of repetitive sequences in eukaryotic genomes, eventually led to the realization that evolution might occur at a different pace at the organismic and the molecular levels, and according to different mechanisms. These developments sparked important debates between defendants of the molecular and organismic approaches. The most vocal confrontations focused on the relation between primates and humans, and the neutral theory of molecular evolution. By the 1980s and 1990s, the construction of large protein and DNA sequences databases, and the development of computer-based statistical tools, facilitated the coming together of molecular and evolutionary biology. Although in its contemporary form the field of molecular evolution can be traced back to the last five decades, the field has deep roots in twentieth century experimental life sciences. For historians of science, the origins and consolidation of molecular evolution provide a privileged field for the study of scientific debates, the relation between technological advances and scientific knowledge, and the connection between science and broader social concerns.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Noyes, H. Pierre

In order to ground my approach to the study of paranormal phenomena, I first explain my operational approach to physics, and to the ''historical'' sciences of cosmic, biological, human, social and political evolution. I then indicate why I believe that ''paranormal phenomena'' might-but need not- fit into this framework. I endorse the need for a new theoretical framework for the investigation of this field presented by Etter and Shoup at this meeting. I close with a short discussion of Ted Bastin's contention that paranormal phenomena should be defined as contradicting physics.

The evolution of capture myopathy in hooved mammals: a model for human stress cardiomyopathy?

PubMed

Blumstein, Daniel T; Buckner, Janet; Shah, Sajan; Patel, Shane; Alfaro, Michael E; Natterson-Horowitz, Barbara

2015-07-21

Capture myopathy (CM) syndromes in wildlife may be a model for human stress cardiomyopathy, including Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Emotional stress or grief may trigger heart attack-like symptoms, and occasionally, sudden death in some humans. Similarly, wildlife exposed to predatory stresses, chase, or capture occasionally results in sudden death. To better understand the nature of vulnerability to stress-induced sudden death, we studied cases of CM in hooved mammals-ungulates-and hypothesized that CM would be associated with a syndrome of longevity-related traits. We reconstructed the evolution of CM in ungulates then determined how a set of life history traits explained variation in the likelihood that CM was reported. CM is broadly reported, but not in all genera, and phylogenetic analyses suggest that it is an evolutionarily labile trait. We found that the following traits were significantly associated with reports of CM: greater brain mass, faster maximum running speed, greater minimum group size and greater maximum longevity. CM may be an unavoidable consequence of adaptations to reduce predation risk that include increased running speed, sociality and having larger brains. Moreover, longer-lived species seem to be more likely to be susceptible to CM. Exploring variable susceptibility to CM highlights the evolutionary origins of the disorder, potential basic mechanisms that underlie vulnerability to the phenomenon, and the potential for reduction of risk through modification of life history trajectory. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.

Major transitions in human evolution.

PubMed

Foley, Robert A; Martin, Lawrence; Mirazón Lahr, Marta; Stringer, Chris

2016-07-05

Evolutionary problems are often considered in terms of 'origins', and research in human evolution seen as a search for human origins. However, evolution, including human evolution, is a process of transitions from one state to another, and so questions are best put in terms of understanding the nature of those transitions. This paper discusses how the contributions to the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution' throw light on the pattern of change in hominin evolution. Four questions are addressed: (1) Is there a major divide between early (australopithecine) and later (Homo) evolution? (2) Does the pattern of change fit a model of short transformations, or gradual evolution? (3) Why is the role of Africa so prominent? (4) How are different aspects of adaptation-genes, phenotypes and behaviour-integrated across the transitions? The importance of developing technologies and approaches and the enduring role of fieldwork are emphasized.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'. © 2016 The Author(s).

Evo-devo, deep homology and FoxP2: implications for the evolution of speech and language

PubMed Central

Scharff, Constance; Petri, Jana

2011-01-01

The evolution of novel morphological features, such as feathers, involves the modification of developmental processes regulated by gene networks. The fact that genetic novelty operates within developmental constraints is the central tenet of the ‘evo-devo’ conceptual framework. It is supported by findings that certain molecular regulatory pathways act in a similar manner in the development of morphological adaptations, which are not directly related by common ancestry but evolved convergently. The Pax6 gene, important for vision in molluscs, insects and vertebrates, and Hox genes, important for tetrapod limbs and fish fins, exemplify this ‘deep homology’. Recently, ‘evo-devo’ has expanded to the molecular analysis of behavioural traits, including social behaviour, learning and memory. Here, we apply this approach to the evolution of human language. Human speech is a form of auditory-guided, learned vocal motor behaviour that also evolved in certain species of birds, bats and ocean mammals. Genes relevant for language, including the transcription factor FOXP2, have been identified. We review evidence that FoxP2 and its regulatory gene network shapes neural plasticity in cortico-basal ganglia circuits underlying the sensory-guided motor learning in animal models. The emerging picture can help us understand how complex cognitive traits can ‘descend with modification’. PMID:21690130

Evo-devo, deep homology and FoxP2: implications for the evolution of speech and language.

PubMed

Scharff, Constance; Petri, Jana

2011-07-27

The evolution of novel morphological features, such as feathers, involves the modification of developmental processes regulated by gene networks. The fact that genetic novelty operates within developmental constraints is the central tenet of the 'evo-devo' conceptual framework. It is supported by findings that certain molecular regulatory pathways act in a similar manner in the development of morphological adaptations, which are not directly related by common ancestry but evolved convergently. The Pax6 gene, important for vision in molluscs, insects and vertebrates, and Hox genes, important for tetrapod limbs and fish fins, exemplify this 'deep homology'. Recently, 'evo-devo' has expanded to the molecular analysis of behavioural traits, including social behaviour, learning and memory. Here, we apply this approach to the evolution of human language. Human speech is a form of auditory-guided, learned vocal motor behaviour that also evolved in certain species of birds, bats and ocean mammals. Genes relevant for language, including the transcription factor FOXP2, have been identified. We review evidence that FoxP2 and its regulatory gene network shapes neural plasticity in cortico-basal ganglia circuits underlying the sensory-guided motor learning in animal models. The emerging picture can help us understand how complex cognitive traits can 'descend with modification'.

Dynamic Evolution Model Based on Social Network Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiong, Xi; Gou, Zhi-Jian; Zhang, Shi-Bin; Zhao, Wen

2013-11-01

Based on the analysis of evolutionary characteristics of public opinion in social networking services (SNS), in the paper we propose a dynamic evolution model, in which opinions are coupled with topology. This model shows the clustering phenomenon of opinions in dynamic network evolution. The simulation results show that the model can fit the data from a social network site. The dynamic evolution of networks accelerates the opinion, separation and aggregation. The scale and the number of clusters are influenced by confidence limit and rewiring probability. Dynamic changes of the topology reduce the number of isolated nodes, while the increased confidence limit allows nodes to communicate more sufficiently. The two effects make the distribution of opinion more neutral. The dynamic evolution of networks generates central clusters with high connectivity and high betweenness, which make it difficult to control public opinions in SNS.

The Development of Altruism with Special Reference to Human Relationships: A 10-Stage Theory.

PubMed

Ma, Hing Keung

2017-01-01

All human relationships involve some form of cost and benefit and altruism forms the foundation upon which human relationships are built. In this paper, a taxonomy of human relationships in terms of altruism was constructed. In the proposed taxonomy, human relationships are categorized into three major groups: primary group, secondary group, and tertiary group. The primary group consists of members that are very closely related to each other either by genetic relatedness (e.g., parents, siblings, and cousins) or social relatedness (e.g., mate and close friends) or both. The secondary group consists of members that are socially related but also less closely related with each other (e.g., people of the same political or religious group, teachers, mentors, acquaintances, neighbors, working colleagues, and strangers). Lastly, the tertiary group consists of members of other species. A 10-stage theory of altruism with special reference to human relationships is proposed. The affective, cognitive, and relationship aspects of each stage are delineated in details. There are two developmental principles of altruism. The first principle states that the development of altruism follows the 10-stage theory and moves from Stage 1: Egoism toward the higher stages of altruism slowly. The second developmental principle states that the taxonomy of human relationships is valid at any stage of altruism development. In other words, people at any stage of altruism are more altruistic toward their kin and mate, and then close friends, extended family members, and so on. They are least altruistic toward enemies and members of non-human species. In summary, the proposed developmental principle of altruism and human relationships is logical and robust. It is formulated based on the major developmental and social psychological theories. The theory has the potential in providing a useful framework for future studies on the development and evolution of human relationships.

The Development of Altruism with Special Reference to Human Relationships: A 10-Stage Theory

PubMed Central

Ma, Hing Keung

2017-01-01

All human relationships involve some form of cost and benefit and altruism forms the foundation upon which human relationships are built. In this paper, a taxonomy of human relationships in terms of altruism was constructed. In the proposed taxonomy, human relationships are categorized into three major groups: primary group, secondary group, and tertiary group. The primary group consists of members that are very closely related to each other either by genetic relatedness (e.g., parents, siblings, and cousins) or social relatedness (e.g., mate and close friends) or both. The secondary group consists of members that are socially related but also less closely related with each other (e.g., people of the same political or religious group, teachers, mentors, acquaintances, neighbors, working colleagues, and strangers). Lastly, the tertiary group consists of members of other species. A 10-stage theory of altruism with special reference to human relationships is proposed. The affective, cognitive, and relationship aspects of each stage are delineated in details. There are two developmental principles of altruism. The first principle states that the development of altruism follows the 10-stage theory and moves from Stage 1: Egoism toward the higher stages of altruism slowly. The second developmental principle states that the taxonomy of human relationships is valid at any stage of altruism development. In other words, people at any stage of altruism are more altruistic toward their kin and mate, and then close friends, extended family members, and so on. They are least altruistic toward enemies and members of non-human species. In summary, the proposed developmental principle of altruism and human relationships is logical and robust. It is formulated based on the major developmental and social psychological theories. The theory has the potential in providing a useful framework for future studies on the development and evolution of human relationships. PMID:29085818

Movement Patterns, Social Dynamics, and the Evolution of Cooperation

PubMed Central

Smaldino, Paul E.; Schank, Jeffrey C.

2012-01-01

The structure of social interactions influences many aspects of social life, including the spread of information and behavior, and the evolution of social phenotypes. After dispersal, organisms move around throughout their lives, and the patterns of their movement influence their social encounters over the course of their lifespan. Though both space and mobility are known to influence social evolution, there is little analysis of the influence of specific movement patterns on evolutionary dynamics. We explored the effects of random movement strategies on the evolution of cooperation using an agent-based prisoner’s dilemma model with mobile agents. This is the first systematic analysis of a model in which cooperators and defectors can use different random movement strategies, which we chose to fall on a spectrum between highly exploratory and highly restricted in their search tendencies. Because limited dispersal and restrictions to local neighborhood size are known to influence the ability of cooperators to effectively assort, we also assessed the robustness of our findings with respect to dispersal and local capacity constraints. We show that differences in patterns of movement can dramatically influence the likelihood of cooperator success, and that the effects of different movement patterns are sensitive to environmental assumptions about offspring dispersal and local space constraints. Since local interactions implicitly generate dynamic social interaction networks, we also measured the average number of unique and total interactions over a lifetime and considered how these emergent network dynamics helped explain the results. This work extends what is known about mobility and the evolution of cooperation, and also has general implications for social models with randomly moving agents. PMID:22838026

How People Interact in Evolving Online Affiliation Networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gallos, Lazaros K.; Rybski, Diego; Liljeros, Fredrik; Havlin, Shlomo; Makse, Hernán A.

2012-07-01

The study of human interactions is of central importance for understanding the behavior of individuals, groups, and societies. Here, we observe the formation and evolution of networks by monitoring the addition of all new links, and we analyze quantitatively the tendencies used to create ties in these evolving online affiliation networks. We show that an accurate estimation of these probabilistic tendencies can be achieved only by following the time evolution of the network. Inferences about the reason for the existence of links using statistical analysis of network snapshots must therefore be made with great caution. Here, we start by characterizing every single link when the tie was established in the network. This information allows us to describe the probabilistic tendencies of tie formation and extract meaningful sociological conclusions. We also find significant differences in behavioral traits in the social tendencies among individuals according to their degree of activity, gender, age, popularity, and other attributes. For instance, in the particular data sets analyzed here, we find that women reciprocate connections 3 times as much as men and that this difference increases with age. Men tend to connect with the most popular people more often than women do, across all ages. On the other hand, triangular tie tendencies are similar, independent of gender, and show an increase with age. These results require further validation in other social settings. Our findings can be useful to build models of realistic social network structures and to discover the underlying laws that govern establishment of ties in evolving social networks.

Evolution education in Canada's museums: Where is human evolution?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bean, Sarah

While an interest in the origin of human beings may be a cultural universal, there are various views and beliefs about how this event took place. In Canada, a recent (2010) Angus Reid survey revealed that only 61% of Canadians accepted that humans evolved over millions of years; 39% of the population either believed in creationism or did not accept evolution as a scientific fact. These statistics suggest that human evolution education is a topic that needs to be addressed. This thesis investigates the role of museums in public education about human evolution. Prior to this study, the number of Canadian museums with exhibits about this topic was unknown. Sixteen Canadian museums participated in this study, and the results demonstrated that only two had permanent exhibits on human evolution, and one creationist museum presented a biblically-based account of human origins. Here, it is argued that more of Canada's museums should consider incorporating human evolution education into their mandates.

The interplay between social networks and culture: theoretically and among whales and dolphins.

PubMed

Cantor, Mauricio; Whitehead, Hal

2013-05-19

Culture is increasingly being understood as a driver of mammalian phenotypes. Defined as group-specific behaviour transmitted by social learning, culture is shaped by social structure. However, culture can itself affect social structure if individuals preferentially interact with others whose behaviour is similar, or cultural symbols are used to mark groups. Using network formalism, this interplay can be depicted by the coevolution of nodes and edges together with the coevolution of network topology and transmission patterns. We review attempts to model the links between the spread, persistence and diversity of culture and the network topology of non-human societies. We illustrate these processes using cetaceans. The spread of socially learned begging behaviour within a population of bottlenose dolphins followed the topology of the social network, as did the evolution of the song of the humpback whale between breeding areas. In three bottlenose dolphin populations, individuals preferentially associated with animals using the same socially learned foraging behaviour. Homogeneous behaviour within the tight, nearly permanent social structures of the large matrilineal whales seems to result from transmission bias, with cultural symbols marking social structures. We recommend the integration of studies of culture and society in species for which social learning is an important determinant of behaviour.

The interplay between social networks and culture: theoretically and among whales and dolphins

PubMed Central

Cantor, Mauricio; Whitehead, Hal

2013-01-01

Culture is increasingly being understood as a driver of mammalian phenotypes. Defined as group-specific behaviour transmitted by social learning, culture is shaped by social structure. However, culture can itself affect social structure if individuals preferentially interact with others whose behaviour is similar, or cultural symbols are used to mark groups. Using network formalism, this interplay can be depicted by the coevolution of nodes and edges together with the coevolution of network topology and transmission patterns. We review attempts to model the links between the spread, persistence and diversity of culture and the network topology of non-human societies. We illustrate these processes using cetaceans. The spread of socially learned begging behaviour within a population of bottlenose dolphins followed the topology of the social network, as did the evolution of the song of the humpback whale between breeding areas. In three bottlenose dolphin populations, individuals preferentially associated with animals using the same socially learned foraging behaviour. Homogeneous behaviour within the tight, nearly permanent social structures of the large matrilineal whales seems to result from transmission bias, with cultural symbols marking social structures. We recommend the integration of studies of culture and society in species for which social learning is an important determinant of behaviour. PMID:23569288

The Genome and Methylome of a Subsocial Small Carpenter Bee, Ceratina calcarata.

PubMed

Rehan, Sandra M; Glastad, Karl M; Lawson, Sarah P; Hunt, Brendan G

2016-05-13

Understanding the evolution of animal societies, considered to be a major transition in evolution, is a key topic in evolutionary biology. Recently, new gateways for understanding social evolution have opened up due to advances in genomics, allowing for unprecedented opportunities in studying social behavior on a molecular level. In particular, highly eusocial insect species (caste-containing societies with nonreproductives that care for siblings) have taken center stage in studies of the molecular evolution of sociality. Despite advances in genomic studies of both solitary and eusocial insects, we still lack genomic resources for early insect societies. To study the genetic basis of social traits requires comparison of genomes from a diversity of organisms ranging from solitary to complex social forms. Here we present the genome of a subsocial bee, Ceratina calcarata This study begins to address the types of genomic changes associated with the earliest origins of simple sociality using the small carpenter bee. Genes associated with lipid transport and DNA recombination have undergone positive selection in C. calcarata relative to other bee lineages. Furthermore, we provide the first methylome of a noneusocial bee. Ceratina calcarata contains the complete enzymatic toolkit for DNA methylation. As in the honey bee and many other holometabolous insects, DNA methylation is targeted to exons. The addition of this genome allows for new lines of research into the genetic and epigenetic precursors to complex social behaviors. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Developmental Plasticity and Language: A Comparative Perspective.

PubMed

Griebel, Ulrike; Pepperberg, Irene M; Oller, D Kimbrough

2016-04-01

The growing field of evo-devo is increasingly demonstrating the complexity of steps involved in genetic, intracellular regulatory, and extracellular environmental control of the development of phenotypes. A key result of such work is an account for the remarkable plasticity of organismal form in many species based on relatively minor changes in regulation of highly conserved genes and genetic processes. Accounting for behavioral plasticity is of similar potential interest but has received far less attention. Of particular interest is plasticity in communication systems, where human language represents an ultimate target for research. The present paper considers plasticity of language capabilities in a comparative framework, focusing attention on examples of a remarkable fact: Whereas there exist design features of mature human language that have never been observed to occur in non-humans in the wild, many of these features can be developed to notable extents when non-humans are enculturated through human training (especially with intensive social interaction). These examples of enculturated developmental plasticity across extremely diverse taxa suggest, consistent with the evo-devo theme of highly conserved processes in evolution, that human language is founded in part on cognitive capabilities that are indeed ancient and that even modern humans show self-organized emergence of many language capabilities in the context of rich enculturation, built on the special social/ecological history of the hominin line. Human culture can thus be seen as a regulatory system encouraging language development in the context of a cognitive background with many highly conserved features. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Elephant behaviour and conservation: social relationships, the effects of poaching, and genetic tools for management.

PubMed

Archie, Elizabeth A; Chiyo, Patrick I

2012-02-01

Genetic tools are increasingly valuable for understanding the behaviour, evolution, and conservation of social species. In African elephants, for instance, genetic data provide basic information on the population genetic causes and consequences of social behaviour, and how human activities alter elephants' social and genetic structures. As such, African elephants provide a useful case study to understand the relationships between social behaviour and population genetic structure in a conservation framework. Here, we review three areas where genetic methods have made important contributions to elephant behavioural ecology and conservation: (1) understanding kin-based relationships in females and the effects of poaching on the adaptive value of elephant relationships, (2) understanding patterns of paternity in elephants and how poaching can alter these patterns, and (3) conservation genetic tools to census elusive populations, track ivory, and understand the behavioural ecology of crop-raiding. By comparing studies from populations that have experienced a range of poaching intensities, we find that human activities have a large effect on elephant behaviour and genetic structure. Poaching disrupts kin-based association patterns, decreases the quality of elephant social relationships, and increases male reproductive skew, with important consequences for population health and the maintenance of genetic diversity. In addition, we find that genetic tools to census populations or gather forensic information are almost always more accurate than non-genetic alternatives. These results contribute to a growing understanding of poaching on animal behaviour, and how genetic tools can be used to understand and conserve social species. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

The social origin of the illness experience--an outline of problems.

PubMed

Skrzypek, Michał

2014-01-01

The main research objective is a study of social influences on the processes of experiencing illness in the sociological meaning of the term 'illness experience' focusing attention on the subjective activity inspired by being ill, taking into account interpretive (meaning-making) activity. The goal of the analysis is to specify 'social actors' jointly creating the phenomena of 'illness' and 'being ill', taking into consideration the evolution of the position of medical sociology on this issue. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE: The ways of experiencing illness in contemporary society, including processes of creating the meanings of the phenomena of 'illness' and 'being ill', are the outcome of not only the application of biomedical knowledge, but are also parallelly a sociocultural 'construct' in the sense that they are under the impact of social and cultural influences. In the sociology of illness experience it is pointed out that illness experience develops in connection with experiencing somatic discomfort, this process occurring in the context of influences of culture, society and socially accepted norms and values. These relationships are interpreted by the sociological, interactionist model which presents illness as a 'social construct'. Sociological studies on the social construction of 'illness' and 'being ill' construct a model of these phenomena, complementary to the biomedical model, conducive to the validation of the patient's perspective in the processes of medical treatment, and to the humanization of the naturalistically oriented, biomedical approach to illness, i.e. to adjust it more accurately to typically human needs manifesting themselves in the situation of being ill.

Evolution of cooperation and skew under imperfect information

PubMed Central

Akçay, Erol; Meirowitz, Adam; Ramsay, Kristopher W.; Levin, Simon A.

2012-01-01

The evolution of cooperation in nature and human societies depends crucially on how the benefits from cooperation are divided and whether individuals have complete information about their payoffs. We tackle these questions by adopting a methodology from economics called mechanism design. Focusing on reproductive skew as a case study, we show that full cooperation may not be achievable due to private information over individuals’ outside options, regardless of the details of the specific biological or social interaction. Further, we consider how the structure of the interaction can evolve to promote the maximum amount of cooperation in the face of the informational constraints. Our results point to a distinct avenue for investigating how cooperation can evolve when the division of benefits is flexible and individuals have private information. PMID:22908269

What can microbial genetics teach sociobiology?

PubMed Central

Foster, Kevin R.; Parkinson, Katie; Thompson, Christopher R.L.

2009-01-01

Progress in our understanding of sociobiology has occurred with little knowledge of the genetic mechanisms that underlie social traits. However, several recent studies have described microbial genes that affect social traits, thereby bringing genetics to sociobiology. A key finding is that simple genetic changes can have marked social consequences, and mutations that affect cheating and recognition behaviors have been discovered. The study of these mutants confirms a central theoretical prediction of social evolution: that genetic relatedness promotes cooperation. Microbial genetics also provides an important new perspective: that the genome-to-phenome mapping of social organisms might be organized to constrain the evolution of social cheaters. This constraint can occur both through pleiotropic genes that link cheating to a personal cost and through the existence of phoenix genes, which rescue cooperative systems from selfish and destructive strategies. These new insights show the power of studying microorganisms to improve our understanding of the evolution of cooperation. PMID:17207887

Frequency of Behavior Witnessed and Conformity in an Everyday Social Context

PubMed Central

Claidière, Nicolas; Bowler, Mark; Brookes, Sarah; Brown, Rebecca; Whiten, Andrew

2014-01-01

Conformity is thought to be an important force in human evolution because it has the potential to stabilize cultural homogeneity within groups and cultural diversity between groups. However, the effects of such conformity on cultural and biological evolution will depend much on the particular way in which individuals are influenced by the frequency of alternative behavioral options they witness. In a previous study we found that in a natural situation people displayed a tendency to be ‘linear-conformist’. When visitors to a Zoo exhibit were invited to write or draw answers to questions on cards to win a small prize and we manipulated the proportion of text versus drawings on display, we found a strong and significant effect of the proportion of text displayed on the proportion of text in the answers, a conformist effect that was largely linear with a small non-linear component. However, although this overall effect is important to understand cultural evolution, it might mask a greater diversity of behavioral responses shaped by variables such as age, sex, social environment and attention of the participants. Accordingly we performed a further study explicitly to analyze the effects of these variables, together with the quality of the information participants' responses made available to further visitors. Results again showed a largely linear conformity effect that varied little with the variables analyzed. PMID:24950212

On the social rate of discount: the case for macroenvironmental policy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Doeleman, J.A.

Concern for the rapidly growing scale and intensity of the human exploitation of the environment, in particular the alienation of natural ecosystems, but also resource exhaustion, pollution, and congestion, leads one to wonder about the short time horizons allowed for in decision making. Time preference is dictated by the rate of interest, allowing in practice a horizon often not exceeding several decades. I argue that this is unsatisfactory. Some minimal social rate of discount should not be enforced. Instead, it is more feasible to set absolute environmental standards, thereby introducing quantity constraints on our decision making, within which time preferencemore » can be permitted to find its own level. This acknowledges that the myopia of human vision may not be a flaw but rather a biological design which has served us well in evolution. It may, therefore, be better to change the rules by introducing self-imposed collective constraints than to try to change the shortsightedness of people in their day-to-day grass-roots decision making.« less

Tobacco and health in India.

PubMed

Rao, V; Chaturvedi, P

2010-07-01

Tobacco is a well-acknowledged social and health evil. The history of tobacco use traces back to the dawn of human civilization and has been deeply entrenched into the human society since time immemorial. The social, economic, and health impact of tobacco has been a subject of intense debate over the recent decades. For India, this problem has been a unique one, with the consumption patterns either largely influenced by the socioeconomic backgrounds or dictated by the cultural diversity. With more than 200 million tobacco consumers in the country at present, it becomes imperative to address this health hazard and stir up strong measures toward damage control. This article addresses the tobacco problem, its evolution, and the factors that have affected the growth of Indian tobacco industry. It also highlights the current legislative measures against tobacco, fiscal gains to the government, and the serious health and economic impact to the consumer, compounded by the increasing cost of private health care in the present era of consumerism.

Evolution and literary theory.

PubMed

Carroll, J

1995-06-01

Presupposing that all knowledge is the study of a unitary order of nature, the author maintains that the study of literature should be included within the larger field of evolutionary theory. He outlines four elementary concepts in evolutionary theory, and he argues that these concepts should regulate our understanding of literature. On the basis of these concepts, he repudiates the antirealist and irrationalist views that, under the aegis of "poststructuralism," have dominated academic literary studies for the past two decades. He examines the linkage between poststructuralism and standard social science, and he speculates about the ideological and disciplinary motives that have hitherto impeded evolutionary study in both the social sciences and the humanities. Finally, he distinguishes literature from science and argues that literary criticism integrates elements of both.

Traditional Chinese medicine and the positive correlation with homeostatic evolution of human being: based on medical perspective.

PubMed

Wang, Jie-Hua

2012-08-01

Adaptation is an eternal theme of biological evolution. The paper aims at exploring the conception of positive correlation between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and human homeostatic evolution based on medical perspective. Discussions mainly involve TCM conforming to natural laws and natural evolution of life, spontaneous harmonization of yin and yang and operating system of human self-healing, modern human immunology and human endogenous immune function in TCM, self-homeostasis of human micro-ecological state and balance mechanism on regulating base in TCM, as well as adaptation-eternal theme of biological evolution and safeguarding adaptability-value of TCM. In perspective of medicine, theory and practice of TCM are in positive correlation with human homeostatic evolution, and what TCM tries to maintain is human intrinsic adaptive capability to disease and nature. Therefore, it is the core value of TCM, which is to be further studied, explored, realized and known to the world.

Dynamic microbiome evolution in social bees

PubMed Central

Kwong, Waldan K.; Medina, Luis A.; Koch, Hauke; Sing, Kong-Wah; Soh, Eunice Jia Yu; Ascher, John S.; Jaffé, Rodolfo; Moran, Nancy A.

2017-01-01

The highly social (eusocial) corbiculate bees, comprising the honey bees, bumble bees, and stingless bees, are ubiquitous insect pollinators that fulfill critical roles in ecosystem services and human agriculture. Here, we conduct wide sampling across the phylogeny of these corbiculate bees and reveal a dynamic evolutionary history behind their microbiota, marked by multiple gains and losses of gut associates, the presence of generalist as well as host-specific strains, and patterns of diversification driven, in part, by host ecology (for example, colony size). Across four continents, we found that different host species have distinct gut communities, largely independent of geography or sympatry. Nonetheless, their microbiota has a shared heritage: The emergence of the eusocial corbiculate bees from solitary ancestors appears to coincide with the acquisition of five core gut bacterial lineages, supporting the hypothesis that host sociality facilitates the development and maintenance of specialized microbiomes. PMID:28435856

Spontaneous tempo and rhythmic entrainment in a bonobo (Pan paniscus).

PubMed

Large, Edward W; Gray, Patricia M

2015-11-01

The emergence of speech and music in the human species represent major evolutionary transitions that enabled the use of complex, temporally structured acoustic signals to coordinate social interaction. While the fundamental capacity for temporal coordination with complex acoustic signals has been shown in a few distantly related species, the extent to which nonhuman primates exhibit sensitivity to auditory rhythms remains controversial. In Experiment 1, we assessed spontaneous motor tempo and tempo matching in a bonobo (Pan paniscus), in the context of a social drumming interaction. In Experiment 2, the bonobo spontaneously entrained and synchronized her drum strikes within a range around her spontaneous motor tempo. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the evolution of acoustic communication builds upon fundamental neurodynamic mechanisms that can be found in a wide range of species, and are recruited for social interactions. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Social welfare as small-scale help: evolutionary psychology and the deservingness heuristic.

PubMed

Petersen, Michael Bang

2012-01-01

Public opinion concerning social welfare is largely driven by perceptions of recipient deservingness. Extant research has argued that this heuristic is learned from a variety of cultural, institutional, and ideological sources. The present article provides evidence supporting a different view: that the deservingness heuristic is rooted in psychological categories that evolved over the course of human evolution to regulate small-scale exchanges of help. To test predictions made on the basis of this view, a method designed to measure social categorization is embedded in nationally representative surveys conducted in different countries. Across the national- and individual-level differences that extant research has used to explain the heuristic, people categorize welfare recipients on the basis of whether they are lazy or unlucky. This mode of categorization furthermore induces people to think about large-scale welfare politics as its presumed ancestral equivalent: small-scale help giving. The general implications for research on heuristics are discussed.

Vocal copying of individually distinctive signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins

PubMed Central

King, Stephanie L.; Sayigh, Laela S.; Wells, Randall S.; Fellner, Wendi; Janik, Vincent M.

2013-01-01

Vocal learning is relatively common in birds but less so in mammals. Sexual selection and individual or group recognition have been identified as major forces in its evolution. While important in the development of vocal displays, vocal learning also allows signal copying in social interactions. Such copying can function in addressing or labelling selected conspecifics. Most examples of addressing in non-humans come from bird song, where matching occurs in an aggressive context. However, in other animals, addressing with learned signals is very much an affiliative signal. We studied the function of vocal copying in a mammal that shows vocal learning as well as complex cognitive and social behaviour, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Copying occurred almost exclusively between close associates such as mother–calf pairs and male alliances during separation and was not followed by aggression. All copies were clearly recognizable as such because copiers consistently modified some acoustic parameters of a signal when copying it. We found no evidence for the use of copying in aggression or deception. This use of vocal copying is similar to its use in human language, where the maintenance of social bonds appears to be more important than the immediate defence of resources. PMID:23427174

Parochial altruism in humans.

PubMed

Bernhard, Helen; Fischbacher, Urs; Fehr, Ernst

2006-08-24

Social norms and the associated altruistic behaviours are decisive for the evolution of human cooperation and the maintenance of social order, and they affect family life, politics and economic interactions. However, as altruistic norm compliance and norm enforcement often emerge in the context of inter-group conflicts, they are likely to be shaped by parochialism--a preference for favouring the members of one's ethnic, racial or language group. We have conducted punishment experiments, which allow 'impartial' observers to punish norm violators, with indigenous groups in Papua New Guinea. Here we show that these experiments confirm the prediction of parochialism. We found that punishers protect ingroup victims--who suffer from a norm violation--much more than they do outgroup victims, regardless of the norm violator's group affiliation. Norm violators also expect that punishers will be lenient if the latter belong to their social group. As a consequence, norm violations occur more often if the punisher and the norm violator belong to the same group. Our results are puzzling for evolutionary multi-level selection theories based on selective group extinction as well as for theories of individual selection; they also indicate the need to explicitly examine the interactions between individuals stemming from different groups in evolutionary models.

Technology, expertise and social cognition in human evolution.

PubMed

Stout, Dietrich; Passingham, Richard; Frith, Christopher; Apel, Jan; Chaminade, Thierry

2011-04-01

Paleolithic stone tools provide concrete evidence of major developments in human behavioural and cognitive evolution. Of particular interest are evolving cognitive mechanisms implied by the cultural transmission of increasingly complex prehistoric technologies, hypothetically including motor resonance, causal reasoning and mentalizing. To test the relevance of these mechanisms to specific Paleolithic technologies, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of Naïve, Trained and Expert subjects observing two toolmaking methods of differing complexity and antiquity: the simple 'Oldowan' method documented by the earliest tools 2.5 million years ago; and the more complex 'Acheulean' method used to produce refined tools 0.5 million years ago. Subjects observed 20-s video clips of an expert demonstrator, followed by behavioural tasks designed to maintain attention. Results show that observational understanding of Acheulean toolmaking involves increased demands for the recognition of abstract technological intentions. Across subject groups, Acheulean compared with Oldowan toolmaking was associated with activation of left anterior intraparietal and inferior frontal sulci, indicating the relevance of resonance mechanisms. Between groups, Naïve subjects relied on bottom-up kinematic simulation in the premotor cortex to reconstruct unfamiliar intentions, and Experts employed a combination of familiarity-based sensorimotor matching in the posterior parietal cortex and top-down mentalizing involving the medial prefrontal cortex. While no specific differences between toolmaking technologies were found for Trained subjects, both produced frontal activation relative to Control, suggesting focused engagement with toolmaking stimuli. These findings support motor resonance hypotheses for the evolutionary origins of human social cognition and cumulative culture, directly linking these hypotheses with archaeologically observable behaviours in prehistory. © 2011 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience © 2011 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.