The functions of ritual in social groups

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel E. Watson-Jones ◽  
Cristine H. Legare
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Social Learning Biases

AbstractRitual cognition builds upon social learning biases that may have become specialized for affiliation within social groups. The adaptive problems of group living required a means of identifying group members, ensuring commitment to the group, facilitating cooperation, and maintaining group cohesion. We discuss how ritual serves these social functions.

Copy the In-group: Group Membership Trumps Perceived Reliability, Warmth, and Competence in a Social-Learning Task

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110322
Author(s):  
Marcel Montrey ◽  
Thomas R. Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Minimal Group Paradigm ◽  
Learning Game ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution

Surprisingly little is known about how social groups influence social learning. Although several studies have shown that people prefer to copy in-group members, these studies have failed to resolve whether group membership genuinely affects who is copied or whether group membership merely correlates with other known factors, such as similarity and familiarity. Using the minimal-group paradigm, we disentangled these effects in an online social-learning game. In a sample of 540 adults, we found a robust in-group-copying bias that (a) was bolstered by a preference for observing in-group members; (b) overrode perceived reliability, warmth, and competence; (c) grew stronger when social information was scarce; and (d) even caused cultural divergence between intermixed groups. These results suggest that people genuinely employ a copy-the-in-group social-learning strategy, which could help explain how inefficient behaviors spread through social learning and how humans maintain the cultural diversity needed for cumulative cultural evolution.

Cultural evolution in more than two dimensions: Distinguishing social learning biases and identifying payoff structures

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-92
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Payoff Structure ◽  
Social Learning Biases

AbstractBentley et al.’s two-dimensional conceptual map is complementary to cultural evolution research that has sought to explain population-level cultural dynamics in terms of individual-level behavioral processes. Here, I qualify their scheme by arguing that different social learning biases should be treated distinctly, and that the transparency of decisions is sometimes conflated with the actual underlying payoff structure of those decisions.

scholarly journals Locomotor compromises maintain group cohesion in baboon troops on the move

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1955) ◽  
pp. 20210839
Author(s):  
Roi Harel ◽  
J. Carter Loftus ◽  
Margaret C. Crofoot
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Movement Ecology ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Collective Movement ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Locomotor Capacity

When members of a group differ in locomotor capacity, coordinating collective movement poses a challenge: some individuals may have to move faster (or slower) than their preferred speed to remain together. Such compromises have energetic repercussions, yet research in collective behaviour has largely neglected locomotor consensus costs. Here, we integrate high-resolution tracking of wild baboon locomotion and movement with simulations to demonstrate that size-based variation in locomotor capacity poses an obstacle to the collective movement. While all baboons modulate their gait and move-pause dynamics during collective movement, the costs of maintaining cohesion are disproportionately borne by smaller group members. Although consensus costs are not distributed equally, all group-mates do make locomotor compromises, suggesting a shared decision-making process drives the pace of collective movement in this highly despotic species. These results highlight the importance of considering how social dynamics and locomotor capacity interact to shape the movement ecology of group-living species.

scholarly journals Dorsal raphe oxytocin receptors regulate the neurobehavioral consequences of social touch

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z.A. Grieb ◽  
E.G. Ford ◽  
F.P. Manfredsson ◽  
J.S. Lonstein
Keyword(s):  
Cortical Plasticity ◽  
Coping Behavior ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Dorsal Raphe ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Oxytocin Receptors ◽  
Tactile Cues ◽  
Group Members ◽  
New Mother ◽  
Dorsal Raphé

SummaryProsocial interactions are essential for group-living animals and are regulated by tactile cues shared among the group members. Neurobiological mechanisms through which social touch influences prosociality and related affective behaviors are relatively unknown. Using the evolutionarily ancient mother-young dyad as a model, we hypothesized that neurobehavioral consequences of social touch involves an interaction between central oxytocin (released during social touch) and serotonin (regulating affect and neuroplasticity). New mother rats showed upregulation of numerous aspects of the oxytocin system in the midbrain dorsal raphe (DR; source of forebrain serotonin) compared to non-maternal females. Preventing this upregulation by OTR knockdown in the maternal DR elicited infanticide, reduced nursing, increased aggression, and decreased active coping behavior. OTR knockdown also decreased serotonin-immunoreactive fibers, and increased neuroplasticity-restricting perineuronal nets, in the primary somatosensory cortex. Thus, oxytocin signaling in the DR regulates mechanisms involved in serotonin-induced cortical plasticity, which refines the tactile processing underlying prosocial behaviors.

scholarly journals Fitness of breeders in social Damaraland mole-rats is independent of group size

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Thorley ◽  
Hanna Bensch ◽  
Kyle Finn ◽  
Tim Clutton-Brock ◽  
Markus Zöttl
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Adult Survival ◽  
High Survival ◽  
Successful Reproduction ◽  
Related Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Using Data

Damaraland mole-rats (Fukomys damarensis) are usually viewed as an obligatorily group living eusocial species in which successful reproduction is dependent on reproductive altruism of closely related group members. However, the reproductive ecology of social mole-rats in their natural environment remains poorly understood and it is unclear to what extent successful reproduction is dependent on assistance from other group members. Using data from a 7-year field study of marked individuals, we show that, after dispersal from their natal group, individuals typically settled alone in new burrow systems where they enjoyed high survival rates, and often remained in good body condition for several years before finding a mate. Unlike most other eusocial or singular cooperative breeders, we found that Damaraland mole-rats reproduced successfully in pairs without helpers and experimentally formed pairs had the same reproductive success as larger established groups. Overall there was only a weak increase in reproductive success with increasing group size and no effect of group size on adult survival rates across the population. Juveniles in large groups grew faster early in life but their growth rates declined subsequently so that they eventually plateaued at a lower maximum body mass than juveniles from small groups. Taken together, our data suggest that the fitness benefits of group living to breeders are small and we suggest that extended philopatry in Damaraland mole-rats has evolved because of the high costs and constraints of dispersal rather than because of strong indirect benefits accrued through cooperative behaviour.

scholarly journals Social and asocial learning in zebrafish are encoded by a shared brain network that is differentially modulated by local activation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Pinho ◽  
Vincent T. Cunliffe ◽  
Giovanni Petri ◽  
Rui Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Early Gene ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Social Stimulus ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Learning Module

Group living animals can use social and asocial cues to predict the presence of a reward or a punishment in the environment through associative learning. The degree to which social and asocial learning share the same mechanisms is still a matter of debate, and, so far, studies investigating the neuronal basis of these two types of learning are scarce and have been restricted to primates, including humans, and rodents. Here we have used a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm in which a social (fish image) or an asocial (circle image) conditioned stimulus (CS) have been paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US=food), and we have used the expression of the immediate early gene c-fos to map the neural circuits associated with social and asocial learning. Our results show that the learning performance is similar with social (fish image) and asocial (circle image) CSs. However, the brain regions involved in each learning type are distinct. Social learning is associated with an increased expression of c-fos in olfactory bulbs, ventral zone of ventral telencephalic area, ventral habenula and ventromedial thalamus, whereas asocial learning is associated with a decreased expression of c-fos in dorsal habenula and anterior tubercular nucleus. Using egonetworks, we further show that each learning type has an associated pattern of functional connectivity across brain regions. Moreover, a community analysis of the network data reveals four segregated functional submodules, which seem to be associated with different cognitive functions involved in the learning tasks: a generalized attention module, a visual response module, a social stimulus integration module and a learning module. Together, these results suggest that, although there are localized differences in brain activity between social and asocial learning, the two learning types share a common learning module and social learning also recruits a specific social stimulus integration module. Therefore, our results support the occurrence of a common general-purpose learning module, that is differentially modulated by localized activation in social and asocial learning.

scholarly journals Social fluidity mobilizes contagion in human and animal populations

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Colman ◽  
Vittoria Colizza ◽  
Ephraim M Hanks ◽  
David P Hughes ◽  
Shweta Bansal
Keyword(s):  
Social Bonds ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Basic Reproductive Number ◽  
Reproductive Number ◽  
Frequency Dependent ◽  
Density Dependent ◽  
Gregarious Behavior ◽  
Animal Populations ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Social Fluidity

Humans and other group-living animals tend to distribute their social effort disproportionately. Individuals predominantly interact with a small number of close companions while maintaining weaker social bonds with less familiar group members. By incorporating this behavior into a mathematical model, we find that a single parameter, which we refer to as social fluidity, controls the rate of social mixing within the group. Large values of social fluidity correspond to gregarious behavior, whereas small values signify the existence of persistent bonds between individuals. We compare the social fluidity of 13 species by applying the model to empirical human and animal social interaction data. To investigate how social behavior influences the likelihood of an epidemic outbreak, we derive an analytical expression of the relationship between social fluidity and the basic reproductive number of an infectious disease. For species that form more stable social bonds, the model describes frequency-dependent transmission that is sensitive to changes in social fluidity. As social fluidity increases, animal-disease systems become increasingly density-dependent. Finally, we demonstrate that social fluidity is a stronger predictor of disease outcomes than both group size and connectivity, and it provides an integrated framework for both density-dependent and frequency-dependent transmission.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 243-247
Author(s):  
James Pickett
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Functions ◽  
Regional Networks ◽  
Mix And Match ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge ◽  
Integrated Knowledge

This concluding chapter explains that for all of their eclecticism, and for all their seeming paradoxes, the polymaths of Islam were united by a common madrasa education, mastery of a canon of texts, and shared regional networks. Their curriculum went far beyond the grammar and logic emphasized in the madrasa. Even mastering substantive Islamic law from medieval Arabic texts was necessary, but not sufficient, to distinguish a high Persianate intellectual from his many, many competitors. Most of the ulama — especially those who rose to the top — studied a plethora of collateral disciplines: poetry, mysticism, astronomy, calligraphy, medicine, trade, and more. Secondary scholarship often pairs these forms of knowledge with discrete communities, differentiating scholars, poets, sufis, and physicians into distinct social groups, with the sufi-ulama dichotomy especially pronounced. However, these were not separate groups with separate corporate identities. Rather, they were discrete social roles performed by a single social group. Their integrated knowledge base allowed them to mix and match social functions with impunity.

Groups and Social Boundaries

2021 ◽  
pp. 72-108
Author(s):  
Jan Fuhse
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Concept ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Network Patterns ◽  
Social Units

Social groups were a key concept in early sociology (German formal sociology, symbolic interactionism). Since the 1960s, they have been replaced by “social network” as the prime concept for informal social structures. We rarely find the bounded and internally homogeneous social units suggested by the group concept in the real world. Instead, individuals are embedded in a complex mesh of social relationships. Building on relational sociology, we can reconceptualize groups as a particular case of densely connected network patterns of social relationships. These exist only by degree, to the extent that they are reinforced by a social boundary separating the group members symbolically from the outside world and by foci of activity for the group to meet. Densely connected groups develop a particular group culture, and they frequently use symbols to signal group membership and the cultural difference to other groups and to the wider cultural context (group style).

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