scholarly journals The role of social cognition in parasite and pathogen avoidance

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1751) ◽  
pp. 20170206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Kavaliers ◽  
Elena Choleris
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Pathogen Avoidance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Parasite Avoidance

The acquisition and use of social information are integral to social behaviour and parasite/pathogen avoidance. This involves social cognition which encompasses mechanisms for acquiring, processing, retaining and acting on social information. Social cognition entails the acquisition of social information about others (i.e. social recognition) and from others (i.e. social learning). Social cognition involves assessing other individuals and their infection status and the pathogen and parasite threat they pose and deciding about when and how to interact with them. Social cognition provides a framework for examining pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours and their associated neurobiological mechanisms. Here, we briefly consider the relationships between social cognition and olfactory-mediated pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours. We briefly discuss aspects of (i) social recognition of actual and potentially infected individuals and the impact of parasite/pathogen threat on mate and social partner choice; (ii) the roles of ‘out-groups’ (strangers, unfamiliar individuals) and ‘in-groups’ (familiar individuals) in the expression of parasite/pathogen avoidance behaviours; (iii) individual and social learning, i.e. the utilization of the pathogen recognition and avoidance responses of others; and (iv) the neurobiological mechanisms, in particular the roles of the nonapeptide, oxytocin and steroid hormones (oestrogens) associated with social cognition and parasite/pathogen avoidance. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Evolution of pathogen and parasite avoidance behaviours'.

scholarly journals The impact of the narrative mindset on effectivity in social problem solving

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0253729
Author(s):  
Jerzy Trzebiński ◽  
Jolanta Zuzanna Czarnecka ◽  
Maciej Cabański
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Social Problem Solving ◽  
Positive Real ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
The Impact

The narrative mindset is a tendency to interpret social information in the frame of stories. Two experiments were conducted to determine if and why the narrative mindset increases social problem-solving effectivity. The experiments consisted of two parts: the experimental manipulation (inducing the narrative mindset or control condition) and the observation of effects. In the second part, presented as a separate study, a participant was asked to advise other people facing interpersonal problems (experiment 1) or emotional problems (experiment 2). Three pairs of coders judged each piece of advice independently on three scales: Effectivity of the advice, empathy, and personalization (using their own experiences in providing the advice). The results indicate that the narrative mindset increases empathy, supported by the co-occurring increase in the problem’s personalization, which leads to higher effectivity. The results reveal the positive real-life implications of structuring social information within a story frame. It may encourage the introduction of the narrative mindset effects into an area of social cognition research. Finally, the experiments show that the narrative mindset may be activated experimentally, providing an effective instrument to test the impact of narrative knowledge on social cognition.

scholarly journals The Cerebellum Plays a Role in Cognitive, but Not Affective, Theory of Mind: A Voxel-Based Lesion Mapping Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
pierre-aurélien beuriat ◽  
Shira Cohen-Zimerman ◽  
Gretchen Smith ◽  
Frank Krueger ◽  
Barry Gordon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cerebellar Injury ◽  
Lesion Symptom Mapping ◽  
Crus I ◽  
Neuropsychological Evidence ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Introduction: Theory of Mind (ToM) is a social-cognitive skill that allows the understanding of the intentions, beliefs, and desires of others. There is a distinction between affective and cognitive ToM, with evidence showing that these processes rely on partially distinct neural networks. The role of the cerebellum in social cognition has only been rarely explored. In this study, we tested whether the cerebellum is necessary for cognitive and affective ToM performance. Material and methods: We investigated adults with traumatic brain injury (n=193) and healthy controls (n=52) using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) and by measuring the impact on functional connectivity. Results: First, we observed that damage to the cerebellum affected Cognitive but not Affective ToM processing. Further, we found a lateralization effect for the role of the cerebellum in cognitive ToM with participants with left cerebellar injury performing worse than those with right cerebellar injury. Both VLSM and standard statistical analysis provided evidence that left cerebellar Crus I and lobule VI contributed to ToM processing. Lastly, we found that disconnection of the left thalamic projection and the left fronto-striatal fasciculus was associated with poor cognitive ToM performance. Conclusions: Our study is the first to reveal direct causal neuropsychological evidence for a role of the cerebellum in cognitive, but not in affective, ToM, processing. It reinforces the idea that social cognition relies on a complex network functionally connected through white matter pathways that include the cerebellum. It supports evidence that the neural networks underpinning cognitive and affective ToM can be differentiated.

scholarly journals The impact of culture on mindreading

Synthese ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Suilin Lavelle
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Good Account ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Conceptual Resources

AbstractThe role of culture in shaping folk psychology and mindreading has been neglected in the philosophical literature. This paper shows that there are significant cultural differences in how psychological states are understood and used by (1) drawing on Spaulding’s recent distinction between the ‘goals’ and ‘methods’ of mindreading (2018) to argue that the relations between these methods vary across cultures; and (2) arguing that differences in folk psychology cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the cognitive architecture that facilitates our understanding of psychological states. The paper concludes that any good account of social cognition must have the conceptual resources to explain how culture affects our understanding of psychological states, and that this explanandum should not be an after-thought but instead a guiding feature for those accounts.

scholarly journals Social information use in adolescents: the impact of adults, peers and household composition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Molleman ◽  
Patricia Kanngiesser ◽  
Wouter van den Bos
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Information Use ◽  
Household Composition ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Social Information Use ◽  
Simple Estimation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

Social learning strategies are key for making adaptive decisions, but their ontogeny remains poorly understood. The authors investigate how social information use depends on its source (adults vs. peer), and how it is shaped by adolescents’ household composition (extended vs. nuclear), a factor known to modulate social development. Using a simple estimation task, we show that social information strongly impacts adolescents’ (N=256) behaviour, especially when its source is an adult. However, social information use does not depend on household composition: the relative impact of adults and peers was similar in adolescents from both household types. Furthermore, adolescents were found to directly copy others’ estimates surprisingly frequently. This study provides novel insights into adolescents’ social information use and contributes to understanding the ontogeny of social learning strategies.

Estrogenic involvement in social learning, social recognition and pathogen avoidance

2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Choleris ◽  
Amy E. Clipperton-Allen ◽  
Anna Phan ◽  
Paola Valsecchi ◽  
Martin Kavaliers
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Pathogen Avoidance

scholarly journals Beyond existence and aiming outside the laboratory: estimating frequency-dependent and pay-off-biased social learning strategies

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3515-3528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard McElreath ◽  
Adrian V Bell ◽  
Charles Efferson ◽  
Mark Lubell ◽  
Peter J Richerson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Evolutionary Analysis ◽  
Natural Behaviour ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Learning Heuristics ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Social Learning Strategies

The existence of social learning has been confirmed in diverse taxa, from apes to guppies. In order to advance our understanding of the consequences of social transmission and evolution of behaviour, however, we require statistical tools that can distinguish among diverse social learning strategies. In this paper, we advance two main ideas. First, social learning is diverse, in the sense that individuals can take advantage of different kinds of information and combine them in different ways. Examining learning strategies for different information conditions illuminates the more detailed design of social learning. We construct and analyse an evolutionary model of diverse social learning heuristics, in order to generate predictions and illustrate the impact of design differences on an organism's fitness. Second, in order to eventually escape the laboratory and apply social learning models to natural behaviour, we require statistical methods that do not depend upon tight experimental control. Therefore, we examine strategic social learning in an experimental setting in which the social information itself is endogenous to the experimental group, as it is in natural settings. We develop statistical models for distinguishing among different strategic uses of social information. The experimental data strongly suggest that most participants employ a hierarchical strategy that uses both average observed pay-offs of options as well as frequency information, the same model predicted by our evolutionary analysis to dominate a wide range of conditions.

scholarly journals The Impact on Community Governance from Actual Conditions of Urban "Kominkan" (Japanese public learning centres) Reorganization

Impact ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-45
Author(s):  
Tomoko Sato
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Associate Professor ◽  
World War ◽  
Integrated Education ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Enrollment Rates ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Impact

A Kominkan is a type of learning centre in Japan that conducts activities related to culture and education and thus plays an important role in communities. Kominkans came about following World War II and although the idea was a government-sponsored project, many were also voluntarily built by citizens in response to the government's call. As such, academia has long questioned who is responsible for the operations of Kominkan. With college enrollment rates having increased since World War II, many have questioned why Kominikans are necessary nowadays. Associate Professor Tomoko Sato at Tohoku University's Center for Learning Support, Japan, is investigating the role of Kominkans and the kind needed in the 21st century. Sato looks at how community governance is determined, with a focus on the two main forms: top-down and bottom-up. She believes that Kominikans are more than adult versions of schools and are actually hubs of social learning and integrated education. Ultimately, Sato's goal is to enable every individual to be afforded the same opportunities and environments through education. She hopes her research findings will impact on government policy and social learning practices.

The Impact of Social Capital and Time Spent on Facebook on Social Recognition and Attachment

2021 ◽  
pp. 180-192
Author(s):  
Richard Ladwein ◽  
Mohamed Slim Ben Mimoun
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Equation Model ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Brand Attachment ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
The Impact

Prior research deals rather extensively with psychological aspects related to social network sites usage. In contrast, the present study focuses on “psychosociological aspects” related to social network site usage, such as attachment to the sites. The present research seeks to determine the impact of the “need for social belonging” on the extent of a user social network and time spent on Facebook, as well as the resultant effects on social recognition and brand attachment. The research model was tested with data from 315 Facebook users using a web survey. The structural equation model in AMOS was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The results highlight the central role of social recognition in explaining attachment to Facebook. They show that the need for social belonging affects the number of friends but not time spent on Facebook. Results indicate that it is the quality of the social ties and activity on Facebook together with a feeling of social recognition that explain attachment to Facebook.

THE ROLE OF FAMILIARITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL RECOGNITION BY LAMBS

Behaviour ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Porter ◽  
Pierre Orgeur ◽  
Richard Bon ◽  
Lara Désiré
Keyword(s):  
Social Recognition ◽  
Reverse Order ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Test Situation ◽  
Repeated Testing ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
Direct Association ◽  
Series Of Experiments

AbstractA series of experiments investigated the role of association and familiarity in the development of social recognition among lambs. In each experiment, lambs were tested successively with 2 different social partners. When separated from their mothers, lambs that were paired with a partner with which they had been housed for 17 or 5 days emitted fewer distress bleats than they did during tests with an unfamiliar lamb. However, this effect was only evident when the test with the unfamiliar partner preceded the test with the familiar partner. When lambs were first tested with an unfamiliar partner treated with the same artificial odorant that had previously been associated with members of their own group, they bleated more than they did during a second test with a partner whose odor was novel. This effect was not observed when the familiar- and novel-odor partners were encountered in the reverse order. Bleating frequencies by lambs paired with their twin did not differ reliably from those of lambs paired with a familiar non-twin. Nonetheless, there was a signficant correlation between the number of bleats by twins that were tested together. Overall, the results indicate that lambs become familiar with and recognize individuals (twins and non-twins) as a result of direct association. Lambs also discriminate between novel scents and artificial odorants associated with their familiar agemates, but such odors neither mask nor substitute effectively for lambs' individually recognizable phenotypes. Bleating frequency increases with the novelty of the social partner and of the test situation, and is therefore markedly affected by repeated testing.

Where you are, what you want, and what you can do: The role of master statuses, personality traits, and social cognition in shaping ego network size, structure, and composition

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-380
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Brashears ◽  
Laura Aufderheide Brashears ◽  
Nicolas L. Harder
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Size Structure ◽  
Network Size ◽  
Ego Networks ◽  
Network Information ◽  
The Impact

AbstractEgo networks are thought to be influenced by the opportunities provided to associate with others given by our master statuses (e.g., race or sex), by the preferences individuals possess for interaction given our personality traits (e.g., extroverted or neurotic), and by the capacity to manage interactions on an ongoing basis given our cognitive ability to recall network information. However, prior research has been unable to examine all three classes of predictors concurrently. We rectify this deficiency in the literature by using a novel dataset of nearly 1000 respondents collected using controlled laboratory designs; using this dataset, we can simultaneously examine the impact of master statuses, personality traits, and social cognitive competencies on ego network size, structure (i.e., density), and composition (i.e., diversity). We find that all classes of predictors influence our ego networks, though in different ways, and point to new avenues for research into human sociability.

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