scholarly journals Reciprocal mimicry: kin selection can drive defended prey to resemble their Batesian mimics

2018 ◽  
Vol 285 (1890) ◽  
pp. 20181149
Author(s):  
Øistein Haugsten Holen ◽  
Rufus A. Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Signal Detection ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Batesian Mimicry ◽  
Individual Selection ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Detection Model ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Aggressive Attack ◽  
Over Time

Established mimicry theory predicts that Batesian mimics are selected to resemble their defended models, while models are selected to become dissimilar from their mimics. However, this theory has mainly considered individual selection acting on solitary organisms such as adult butterflies. Although Batesian mimicry of social insects is common, the few existing applications of kin selection theory to mimicry have emphasized relatedness among mimics rather than among models. Here, we present a signal detection model of Batesian mimicry in which the population of defended model prey is kin structured. Our analysis shows for most of parameter space that increased average dissimilarity from mimics has a twofold group-level cost for the model prey: it attracts more predators and these adopt more aggressive attack strategies. When mimetic resemblance and local relatedness are sufficiently high, such costs acting in the local neighbourhood may outweigh the individual benefits of dissimilarity, causing kin selection to drive the models to resemble their mimics. This requires model prey to be more common than mimics and/or well-defended, the conditions under which Batesian mimicry is thought most successful. Local relatedness makes defended prey easier targets for Batesian mimicry and is likely to stabilize the mimetic relationship over time.

scholarly journals Adaptive social immunity in leaf-cutting ants

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 446-448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom N. Walker ◽  
William O. H. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Immune Response ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Social Immunity ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
Fungal Parasite ◽  
The Social ◽  
Leaf Cutting ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Acromyrmex Echinatior

Social insects have evolved a suite of sophisticated defences against parasites. In addition to the individual physiological immune response, social insects also express ‘social immunity’ consisting of group-level defences and behaviours that include allogrooming. Here we investigate whether the social immune response of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior reacts adaptively to the virulent fungal parasite, Metarhizium anisopliae . We ‘immunized’ mini-nests of the ants by exposing them twice to the parasite and then compared their social immune response with that of naive mini-nests that had not been experimentally exposed to the parasite. Ants allogroomed individuals exposed to the parasite, doing this both for those freshly treated with the parasite, which were infectious but not yet infected, and for those treated 2 days previously, which were already infected but no longer infectious. We found that ants exposed to the parasite received more allogrooming in immunized mini-nests than in naive mini-nests. This increased the survival of the freshly treated ants, but not those that were already infected. The results thus indicate that the social immune response of this leaf-cutting ant is adaptive, with the group exhibiting a greater and more effective response to a parasite that it has previously been exposed to.

On the Individual

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Magnusson
Keyword(s):  
School Psychologist ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

A description of two cases from my time as a school psychologist in the middle of the 1950s forms the background to the following question: Has anything important happened since then in psychological research to help us to a better understanding of how and why individuals think, feel, act, and react as they do in real life and how they develop over time? The studies serve as a background for some general propositions about the nature of the phenomena that concerns us in developmental research, for a summary description of the developments in psychological research over the last 40 years as I see them, and for some suggestions about future directions.

Geographical aspects of the diffusion of passive houses

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Kozma ◽  
E. Molnár ◽  
K. Czimre ◽  
J. Pénzes
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Renewable Energy Resources ◽  
Passive House ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Passive Houses ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Geographical Locations ◽  
Over Time

Abstract In our days, energy issues belong to the most important problems facing the Earth and the solution may be expected partly from decreasing the amount of the energy used and partly from the increased utilisation of renewable energy resources. A substantial part of energy consumption is related to buildings and includes, inter alia, the use for cooling/heating, lighting and cooking purposes. In the view of the above, special attention has been paid to minimising the energy consumption of buildings since the late 1980s. Within the framework of that, the passive house was created, a building in which the thermal comfort can be achieved solely by postheating or postcooling of the fresh air mass without a need for recirculated air. The aim of the paper is to study the changes in the construction of passive houses over time. In addition, the differences between the geographical locations and the observable peculiarities with regard to the individual building types are also presented.

QUALITY OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP LEVEL INTERVENTIONS FOR FIRST EPISODE PSYCHOSIS AT THE TERTIARY PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL IN UGANDA.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Kiiza Mwesiga ◽  
Noeline Nakasujja ◽  
Lawrence Nankaba ◽  
Juliet Nakku ◽  
Seggane Musisi
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Hospital ◽  
Psychotic Disorders ◽  
First Episode Psychosis ◽  
First Episode ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Group Interventions ◽  
Episode Psychosis ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
The Individual

Introduction: Individual and group level interventions have the largest effect on outcomes in patients with the first episode of psychosis. The quality of these individual and group level interventions provided to first-episode psychosis patients in Uganda is unclear.Methods: The study was performed at Butabika National Psychiatric Teaching and referral hospital in Uganda. A retrospective chart review of recently discharged adult in-patients with the first episode of psychosis was first performed to determine the proportion of participants who received the different essential components for individual and group level interventions. From the different proportions, the quality of the services across the individual and group interventions was determined using the first-Episode Psychosis Services Fidelity Scale (FEPS-FS). The FEPS-FS assigns a grade of 1-5 on a Likert scale depending on the proportion of patients received the different components of the intervention. Results: The final sample included 156 first-episode psychosis patients. The median age was 27 years [IOR (24-36)] with 55% of participants of the female gender. 13 essential components across the individual and group interventions were assessed and their quality quantified. All 13 essential components had poor quality with the range of scores on the FEPS-FS of 1-3. Only one essential component assessed (use of single antipsychotics) had moderate quality.Discussion: Among current services at the National psychiatric hospital of Uganda, the essential for individual and group level interventions for psychotic disorders are of low quality. Further studies are required on how the quality of these interventions can be improved.

Associations between collectivism and perception of social threat: a signal detection approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuong-Van Vu ◽  
Catrin Finkenauer ◽  
Lydia Krabbendam
Keyword(s):  
Signal Detection ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Social Threat ◽  
Threat Detection ◽  
Perceptual Sensitivity ◽  
Detection Approach ◽  
Self Construal ◽  
The Individual

Collectivistic orientation, which entails interdependent self-construal and concern for interpersonal harmony and social adjustment, has been suggested to be associated with detecting emotional expressions that signal social threat than individualistic orientation, which entails independent self-construal. The present research tested if this detection is a result of enhanced perceptual sensitivity or of response bias. We used country as proxy of individualism and collectivism (Country IC), measured IC of individuals with a questionnaire (Individual IC) and manipulated IC with culture priming (Situational IC). Dutch participants in the Netherlands (n = 143) and Chinese participants in China (n = 151) performed a social threat detection task where they had to categorize ambiguous facial expressions as “angry” or “not angry”. As the stimuli varied in degrees of scowling and frequency of presentation, we were able to measure the participants' perceptual sensitivity and response bias following the principles of the Signal Detection Theory. On the Country IC level, the results indicated that individualism-representative Dutch participants had higher perceptual sensitivity than collectivism-representative Chinese participants; whereas, Chinese participants were more biased towards categorizing a scowling face as “angry” than the Dutch (i.e. stronger liberal bias). In both groups, collectivism on the Individual IC was associated with a bias towards recognizing a scowling face as “not angry” (i.e. stronger conservative bias). Culture priming (Situational IC) affected neither perceptual sensitivity nor response bias. Our data suggested that cultural differences were in the form of behavioral tendency and IC entails multiple constructs linked to different outcomes in social threat detection.

Personality change and environmental concerns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Hopwood ◽  
Ted Schwaba ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Personality Change ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Big Five Personality ◽  
German Population ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Sustainable Behavior ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Over Time

Personal concerns about climate change and the environment are a powerful motivator of sustainable behavior. People’s level of concern varies as a function of a variety of social and individual factors. Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009-2017 in the German population. However, individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, Big Five personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism and openness to experience. Indeed, changes in openness explained roughly 50% of the variance in changes in environmental concerns. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior at the individual level.

Reply to Connor and Evers (2020): Critique of the Bias of Crowds Model Simply Restates the Model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Bias ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Core ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Implicit Biases ◽  
The Individual

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.

The Epistemology of Groups

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lackey
Keyword(s):  
Group Level ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Individual Group ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Normative Requirements ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Belief Justification ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Trump Administration

Groups are often said to bear responsibility for their actions, many of which have enormous moral, legal, and social significance. The Trump Administration, for instance, is said to be responsible for the U.S.’s inept and deceptive handling of COVID-19 and the harms that American citizens have suffered as a result. But are groups subject to normative assessment simply in virtue of their individual members being so, or are they somehow agents in their own right? Answering this question depends on understanding key concepts in the epistemology of groups, as we cannot hold the Trump Administration responsible without first determining what it believed, knew, and said. Deflationary theorists hold that group phenomena can be understood entirely in terms of individual members and their states. Inflationary theorists maintain that group phenomena are importantly over and above, or otherwise distinct from, individual members and their states. It is argued that neither approach is satisfactory. Groups are more than their members, but not because they have “minds of their own,” as the inflationists hold. Instead, this book shows how group phenomena—like belief, justification, and knowledge—depend on what the individual group members do or are capable of doing while being subject to group-level normative requirements. This framework, it is argued, allows for the correct distribution of responsibility across groups and their individual members.

scholarly journals Examining the Effects of Three Group-Level Metacognitive Scaffoldings on In-Service Teachers’ Knowledge Building

2021 ◽  
pp. 073563312110308
Author(s):  
Fan Ouyang ◽  
Si Chen ◽  
Yuqin Yang ◽  
Yunqing Chen
Keyword(s):  
Small Groups ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Peer Interactions ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Question Asking ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Task Oriented ◽  
Metacognitive Scaffolding

Group-level metacognitive scaffolding is critical for productive knowledge building. However, previous research mainly focuses on the individual-level metacognitive scaffoldings in helping learners improve knowledge building, and little effort has been made to develop group-level metacognitive scaffolding (GMS) for knowledge building. This research designed three group-level metacognitive scaffoldings of general, task-oriented, and idea-oriented scaffoldings to facilitate in-service teachers’ knowledge building in small groups. A mixed method is used to examine the effects of the GMSs on groups’ knowledge building processes, performances, and perceptions. Results indicate a complication of the effects of GMSs on knowledge building. The idea-oriented scaffolding has potential to facilitate question-asking and perspective-proposing inquiry through peer interactions; the general scaffolding does not necessarily lessen teachers’ idea-centered explanation and elaboration on the individual level; the task-oriented scaffolding has the worst effect. Pedagogical and research implications are discussed to foster knowledge building with the support of GMSs.

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