scholarly journals Social networks and the development of social skills in cowbirds

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1597) ◽  
pp. 1892-1900 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. White ◽  
Andrew S. Gersick ◽  
Noah Snyder-Mackler
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Skills ◽  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Molothrus Ater ◽  
Dynamic Structure ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Group Interactions ◽  
The Social

The complex interrelationships among individuals within social environments can exert selection pressures on social skills: those behaviours and cognitive processes that allow animals to manipulate and out-reproduce others. Social complexity can also have a developmental effect on social skills by providing individuals with opportunities to hone their skills by dealing with the challenges posed in within-group interactions. We examined how social skills develop in captive, adult male brown-headed cowbirds ( Molothrus ater ) that were exposed to differing levels of ‘social complexity’ across a 2-year experiment. After each year, subjects housed in groups with dynamic social structure (where many individuals entered and exited the groups during the year) outcompeted birds who had been housed in static groups. Exposure to dynamic structure subsequently led to substantial changes to the social networks of the home conditions during the breeding season. Static groups were characterized by a predictable relationship between singing and reproductive success that was stable across years. In dynamic conditions, however, males showed significant variability in their dominance status, their courting and even in their mating success. Reproductive success of males varied dramatically across years and was responsive to social learning in adulthood, and socially dynamic environments ‘trained’ individuals to be better competitors, even at an age when the development of many traits important for breeding (like song quality) had ended.

scholarly journals Strategies for integrating disparate social information

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1939) ◽  
pp. 20202413
Author(s):  
Lucas Molleman ◽  
Alan N. Tump ◽  
Andrea Gradassi ◽  
Stefan Herzog ◽  
Bertrand Jayles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Animal Kingdom ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Filter Bubble ◽  
Information Combining ◽  
Simple Heuristics

Social information use is widespread in the animal kingdom, helping individuals rapidly acquire useful knowledge and adjust to novel circumstances. In humans, the highly interconnected world provides ample opportunities to benefit from social information but also requires navigating complex social environments with people holding disparate or conflicting views. It is, however, still largely unclear how people integrate information from multiple social sources that (dis)agree with them, and among each other. We address this issue in three steps. First, we present a judgement task in which participants could adjust their judgements after observing the judgements of three peers. We experimentally varied the distribution of this social information, systematically manipulating its variance (extent of agreement among peers) and its skewness (peer judgements clustering either near or far from the participant's judgement). As expected, higher variance among peers reduced their impact on behaviour. Importantly, observing a single peer confirming a participant's own judgement markedly decreased the influence of other—more distant—peers. Second, we develop a framework for modelling the cognitive processes underlying the integration of disparate social information, combining Bayesian updating with simple heuristics. Our model accurately accounts for observed adjustment strategies and reveals that people particularly heed social information that confirms personal judgements. Moreover, the model exposes strong inter-individual differences in strategy use. Third, using simulations, we explore the possible implications of the observed strategies for belief updating. These simulations show how confirmation-based weighting can hamper the influence of disparate social information, exacerbate filter bubble effects and deepen group polarization. Overall, our results clarify what aspects of the social environment are, and are not, conducive to changing people's minds.

scholarly journals DIFERENCIAS DE HABILIDADES SOCIALES ENTRE ADOLESCENTES DE LAS UNIDADES EDUCATIVAS FISCALES Y PARTICULARES

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Eliana María Carrera Garcés ◽  
Helder Marcel Barrera Erreyes
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Social Skills ◽  
Exploratory Factor Analysis ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Adolescent Women ◽  
School Year ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The Social ◽  
Las Mujeres

Las habilidades sociales que se generan en los adolescentes son de crucial importancia para la comunicación e intercambio de ideas en diversos ambientes sociales con el fin de expresar sus sentimientos, actitudes, deseos, opiniones; respetando las  conductas de sus semejantes y siendo capaces de resolver conflictos de manera inmediata minimizando así la probabilidad de futuros problemas. Los objetivos de la presente investigación son obtener la validez y las dimensiones del constructor de la escala de habilidades sociales, además buscar diferencias significativas entre los adolescentes de bachillerato general unificado que estudian en instituciones fiscales y particulares de la ciudad de Ambato, provincia de Tungurahua en el primer quimestre del año lectivo 2019-2020. Se contó con la colaboración de 506 estudiantes a quienes se aplicó la encuesta, de los cuales 258 pertenecen a instituciones fiscales y  248 a particulares, en total 264 hombres y 242 mujeres. La técnica utilizada es multivariante del análisis factorial exploratorio en búsqueda de las dimensiones, y para identificar las diferencias el estadístico t de Student para muestras independientes. Los resultados de la confiabilidad del instrumento fueron de α= 0,795 y con el análisis factorial exploratorio se encontró dos dimensiones, las habilidades de resolución de conflictos y asertividad, y la segunda habilidades comunicativas o relacionales con una varianza total explicada del 50,37%. Adicionalmente, se encontró que los adolescentes que estudian en las unidades educativas particulares tienen mayores habilidades sociales que los adolescentes de las unidades educativas fiscales; y de manera general las mujeres adolescentes tienen mayores habilidades sociales que los hombres sin tomar en cuenta el tipo de unidad educativa. PALABRAS CLAVE: habilidades sociales; adolescencia; unidades educativas. DIFFERENCES OF SOCIAL SKILLS BETWEEN ADOLESCENTS OF THE FISCAL AND PARTICULAR EDUCATIONAL UNITS ABSTRACT The social skills that are generated in adolescents are of crucial importance for the communication and exchange of ideas in various social environments in order to express their feelings, attitudes, desires, opinions; respecting the behavior of their peers and being able to resolve conflicts immediately thus minimizing the probability of future problems. The objectives of the present investigation are to obtain the validity and the dimensions of the social skills scale, in addition to looking for specific differences between the adolescents who study in fiscal and particular educational units of the city of Ambato, province of Tungurahua in the first quarter of the 2019-2020 school year. There was the collaboration of 506 students to whom the survey was applied, of which 258 belong to fiscal educational units and 248 individuals belong to particular educational units, in total 264 men and 242 women. The technique identified is multivariate of the exploratory factor analysis in search of the dimensions, and to identify the differences the Student t statistic for independent samples. The instrument's reliability results were α = 0.795 and with the exploratory factor analysis two dimensions were found, conflict resolution and assertiveness skills, and the second communicative or relational skills with a total explained variance of 50.37%. In addition, it is found that adolescents studying in particular educational units have greater social skills than adolescents of fiscal educational units; and in general, adolescent women have greater social skills than men regardless of the type of educational unit. KEYWORDS: social skills; adolescence; educational units.

A Friendships and Dating Program for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: A Formative Evaluation

2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Ward ◽  
Julie P. Atkinson ◽  
Curtis A. Smith ◽  
Richard Windsor
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Skills ◽  
Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Formative Evaluation ◽  
Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities ◽  
Full Inclusion ◽  
Community Agencies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Meaningful Relationships

Abstract Meaningful relationships with others are often elusive for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but no less desired for their full inclusion and participation in society. It is well documented that people with disabilities are victims of interpersonal violence at higher rates than peers without disabilities. This article presents a formative evaluation of the Friendships and Dating Program (FDP). The FDP was designed to teach the social skills needed to develop healthy, meaningful relationships and to prevent violence in dating and partnered relationships. Thirty-one adults were recruited by 5 community agencies in Alaska to participate. The results showed the size of the participants' social networks increased and the number of incidents of interpersonal violence was reduced for participants who completed the FDP, and outcomes were maintained 10 weeks later.

Usage of social networks by digital natives as a new communication platform for interpersonal communication

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ece Kahraman ◽  
Tutku Akter Gokasan ◽  
Bahire Efe Ozad
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Communication Skills ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Digital Natives ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Communication Platform ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Level

Abstract Social Networking Sites (SNS), particularly Facebook (FB) have become extremely popular among digital natives, especially university-level students. Moreover, they sometimes may see social networks as an extension of their lives (D. Boyd, 2014) which can be called as a new communication platform for interpersonal communication. For the purpose of the study, interpersonal communication skills (ICS) levels explored in four sub-sections both in the social and e-social environments.1 Digital natives’ IPC skills were measured to figure out whether there is any statistically difference between both environments. Interpersonal Communication Skills Inventory (Social Learning, 2002) is used as an instrument for the present study.

scholarly journals Strategies for integrating disparate social information

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Molleman ◽  
Alan Novaes Tump ◽  
Andrea Gradassi ◽  
Stefan Michael Herzog ◽  
Bertrand Jayles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
The Social ◽  
Adjustment Strategies ◽  
Filter Bubble ◽  
Information Combining ◽  
Simple Heuristics

**Note that the paper has been published on https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2413.** Our increasingly interconnected world provides virtually unlimited opportunities to observe the behavior of others. This affords abundant useful information but also requires navigating complex social environments with people holding disparate or conflicting views. It is, however, still largely unclear how people integrate information from multiple social sources that (dis)agree with them, and among each other. We address this issue in three steps. First, we present a judgment task in which participants could adjust their judgments after observing the judgments of three peers. We experimentally varied the distribution of this social information, systematically manipulating its variance (extent of agreement among peers) and its skewness (peer judgments clustering either near or far from the participant’s). As expected, higher variance among peers reduced their impact on behavior. Importantly, observing a single peer confirming an individual’s judgment markedly decreased the influence of other—more distant—peers. Second, we develop a framework for modelling the cognitive processes underlying the integration of disparate social information, combining Bayesian updating with simple heuristics. Our model accurately accounts for observed adjustment strategies and reveals that people particularly heed social information that confirms personal judgments. Moreover, the model exposes strong inter-individual differences in strategy use. Third, using simulations, we explore the possible implications of identified strategies for belief updating more broadly. They show how confirmation effects can hamper the influence of disparate social information, exacerbate filter bubble effects and worsen group polarization. Overall, our results clarify what aspects of the social environment are, and are not, conducive to changing people’s minds.

scholarly journals Can Social Robots Make Societies More Human?

Information ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 295 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Silva Sequeira
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Reasoning Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
Technological Limitations ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Major Criticism ◽  
Direction Opposite

A major criticism social robots often face is that their integration in real social, human environments will dehumanize some of the roles currently being played by the human agents. This implicitly overestimates the social skills of the robots, which are constantly being upgraded, but which are still far from being able to overshadow humans. Moreover, it reflects loosely rational fears that robots may overcome humans in the near future. This paper points to a direction opposite to mainstream, and claims that robots can induce humanizing feelings in humans. In fact, current technological limitations can be managed to induce a perception of social fragility that may lead human agents to reason about the social condition of a robot. Though robot and/or technology phobias may bias the way a social robot is perceived, this reasoning process may contribute to an introspection on the meaning of being social and, potentially, to contribute to humanizing social environments.

Managing the social environments of flamingos for reproductive success

Zoo Biology ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 501-507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Stevens ◽  
Charles Pickett
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
The Social

Male cowbirds vary the attractiveness of courtship songs with changes in the social context

Behaviour ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Gersick ◽  
David J. White
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
High Intensity ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Sound Attenuation ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Sexual Competition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Courtship Songs ◽  
Signalling Theory ◽  
Male Displays

Abstract Courtship-signalling theory often incorporates the assumption that males must consistently produce the highest-intensity displays they can achieve, thereby indicating their underlying quality to females. Contest-signalling theory, in contrast, assumes that flexible signal performance is routine. The two frameworks thereby suggest conflicting predictions about male flexibility when the same signal operates in both intrasexual and intersexual communication. Sexual competition often occurs within complex social environments where male displays can be received by potential mates, rivals, or both at once. In brown-headed cowbirds’ breeding flocks, for example, multiple males sometimes vie directly for a single female’s attention; at other times males have opportunities to sing to females without interference. We tested whether cowbirds vary the intensity of their signalling across contexts like these. We recorded songs from males courting females both with and without a male competitor in sight. We then played those recordings to solitary, naïve females in sound attenuation chambers, and also to a naïve aviary-housed flock. The songs males had produced when they could see their competitors were more attractive, eliciting more copulatory postures from naïve females and more approaches from birds in the flock. Results suggest high-intensity displays function within a larger, flexible signalling strategy in this species, and the varying audience composition that accompanies social complexity may demand flexible signalling even in classic display behaviours such as birdsong.

scholarly journals Tolerant and intolerant macaques show different levels of structural complexity in their vocal communication

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1928) ◽  
pp. 20200439
Author(s):  
Nancy Rebout ◽  
Arianna De Marco ◽  
Jean-Christophe Lone ◽  
Andrea Sanna ◽  
Roberto Cozzolino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Rhesus Macaques ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Social Tolerance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Vocal Signals ◽  
Complexity Hypothesis

We tested the social complexity hypothesis which posits that animals living in complex social environments should use complex communication systems. We focused on two components of vocal complexity: diversity (number of categories of calls) and flexibility (degree of gradation between categories of calls). We compared the acoustic structure of vocal signals in groups of macaques belonging to four species with varying levels of uncertainty (i.e. complexity) in social tolerance (the higher the degree of tolerance, the higher the degree of uncertainty): two intolerant species, Japanese and rhesus macaques, and two tolerant species, Tonkean and crested macaques. We recorded the vocalizations emitted by adult females in affiliative, agonistic and neutral contexts. We analysed several acoustic variables: call duration, entropy, time and frequency energy quantiles. The results showed that tolerant macaques displayed higher levels of vocal diversity and flexibility than intolerant macaques in situations with a greater number of options and consequences, i.e. in agonistic and affiliative contexts. We found no significant differences between tolerant and intolerant macaques in the neutral context where individuals are not directly involved in social interaction. This shows that species experiencing more uncertain social interactions displayed greater vocal diversity and flexibility, which supports the social complexity hypothesis.

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