scholarly journals The evolution of social life in family groups

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos Kramer ◽  
Joël Meunier
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Family Systems ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Family Interactions ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Associated Family

ABSTRACTFamily life forms an integral part of the life-history of species across the animal kingdom, and plays a crucial role in the evolution of animal sociality. Our current understanding of family life, however, is almost exclusively based on studies that (i) focus on parental care and associated family interactions (such as those arising from sibling rivalry and parent-offspring conflict), and (ii) investigate these phenomena in the advanced family systems of mammals, birds, and eusocial insects. Here, we argue that these historical biases have fostered the neglect of key processes shaping social life in ancestral family systems, and thus profoundly hamper our understanding of the (early) evolution of family life. Based on a comprehensive survey of the literature, we first illustrate that the strong focus on parental care in advanced social systems has deflected scrutiny of other important social processes such as sibling cooperation, parent-offspring competition and offspring assistance. We then show that accounting for these neglected processes – and their changing role in the course of evolution – could profoundly change our understanding of the evolutionary origin and subsequent consolidation of family life. Finally, we outline how this diachronic perspective on the evolution of family living could provide novel insights into general processes driving social evolution. Overall, we infer that the explicit consideration of thus far neglected facets of family life, together with their study across the whole diversity of family systems, are crucial to advance our understanding of the processes that shape the evolution of social life.

scholarly journals Parental antagonism and parent–offspring co-adaptation interact to shape family life

2012 ◽  
Vol 279 (1744) ◽  
pp. 3981-3988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Meunier ◽  
Mathias Kölliker
Keyword(s):  
Parental Care ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Multiple Paternity ◽  
Maternal Investment ◽  
Family Interactions ◽  
Forficula Auricularia ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
The Family ◽  
Future Reproduction ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences

The family is an arena for conflicts between offspring, mothers and fathers that need resolving to promote the evolution of parental care and the maintenance of family life. Co-adaptation is known to contribute to the resolution of parent–offspring conflict over parental care by selecting for combinations of offspring demand and parental supply that match to maximize the fitness of family members. However, multiple paternity and differences in the level of care provided by mothers and fathers can generate antagonistic selection on offspring demand (mediated, for example, by genomic imprinting) and possibly hamper co-adaptation. While parent–offspring co-adaptation and parental antagonism are commonly considered two major processes in the evolution of family life, their co-occurrence and the evolutionary consequences of their joint action are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate the simultaneous and entangled effects of these two processes on outcomes of family interactions, using a series of breeding experiments in the European earwig, Forficula auricularia , an insect species with uniparental female care. As predicted from parental antagonism, we show that paternally inherited effects expressed in offspring influence both maternal care and maternal investment in future reproduction. However, and as expected from the entangled effects of parental antagonism and co-adaptation, these effects critically depended on postnatal interactions with caring females and maternally inherited effects expressed in offspring. Our results demonstrate that parent–offspring co-adaptation and parental antagonism are entangled key drivers in the evolution of family life that cannot be fully understood in isolation.

New research frameworks in the study of chimpanzee and gorilla sociality and communication

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam G. B. Roberts ◽  
Anna Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Evolution ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Social Evolution ◽  
Research Frameworks ◽  
New Research ◽  
Large Groups

Group size in primates is strongly correlated with brain size, but exactly what makes larger groups more ‘socially complex’ than smaller groups is still poorly understood. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) are among our closest living relatives and are excellent model species to investigate patterns of sociality and social complexity in primates, and to inform models of human social evolution. The aim of this paper is to propose new research frameworks, particularly the use of social network analysis, to examine how social structure differs in small, medium and large groups of chimpanzees and gorillas, to explore what makes larger groups more socially complex than smaller groups. Given a fission-fusion system is likely to have characterised hominins, a comparison of the social complexity involved in fission-fusion and more stable social systems is likely to provide important new insights into human social evolution

‘Look it Daddy’

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-119
Author(s):  
Darcey K. Searles
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Family Life ◽  
American English ◽  
Video Conferencing ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Family Interactions ◽  
Life Data ◽  
To Receive

Video-mediated technologies enable families with young children to participate in interactions with remote family members. This article examines how a family with young children uses the affordances of video conferencing to 'show' items or themselves. Findings indicate that there are two types of shows in these remote family interactions: those that are designed to receive identification, and those that are designed to receive appreciation and/or assessment. These shows are also often collaboratively produced between a child and her co-present parent. Finally, this paper considers the implications of these shows for our understanding of how families remotely participate in family life. Data are in American English.

Child Diagnosis of Autism - How It Can Change the Family Life

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 498
Author(s):  
Maria Stănescu
Keyword(s):  
Early Intervention ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Autistic Children ◽  
Child Behaviors ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Child Diagnosis ◽  
The Family

The article is about the role of the family in the education and formation of children and, especially, in the life and development of autistic children. It describes the problems their family is facing and the need for counseling to parents with autistic children. The reaction to finding the diagnosis of autism varies from one family to another and may encounter a large variety: from disbelief, anger, guilt, helplessness, devastation, surprise, or even rejection of the child, to understanding and relief when finally the parents have an explanation for their child behaviors. Early intervention is important in psychological sustaining of the parent, as parent involvement in the recovery of the child with autism has a determinant role in his development and in ensuring a high quality of life of the child and the life of the hole family. The response to a child's autism diagnosis varies from one family to another. The family goes through a variety of disbelief, anger, guilt, helplessness, devastation, surprise, or even rejection of the child, to understanding and relief. Early intervention is very important in the psychological support of the parent. Because any change disturbs the family equilibrium. A diagnosis of autism changes not only the life of the diagnosed child, but also the life of family members. All the resources are focused on the need of the child. Although each parent is different, after diagnosing the child with autism, all parents are overwhelmed by confusion, shock and denial. Parents' feelings can be influenced by how their children's situation affects different aspects of life - it has an impact on service, on social life and all their personal life. If we look at the family as a system and when a disturbing factor appears, all parts of the system are affected. The involvement of parents in the recovery of the child with autism has a decisive role in its development and in ensuring a high quality of child's life and family life.

Vocation as Autobiography: Family of Origin Influences on the Caregiving Role in Ministry

1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank J. Stalfa
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Family Systems ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Family Of Origin ◽  
Family Systems Theory ◽  
Therapeutic Applications ◽  
Case Vignettes ◽  
And Function

Presents an overview of transgenerational family systems theory with primary emphasis on the dynamics of family life which are understood to influence the decision to enter a helping profession. Evaluates the role of caregiver as an aspect of ministerial identity and function in order to ascertain those factors which enhance or undermine professional development. Illustrates these influences with case vignettes and suggests education and therapeutic applications.

Free Agent or ‘Conscious Automaton’? Contrasting Interpretations of the Individual in Spencer's Writing on Social and Moral Life

2003 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Offer
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Herbert Spencer ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Policy Sociology ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Individual

Herbert Spencer remains an important and intriguing figure in thinking about political, social and moral matters. At present his writings in relation to idealist thought, social policy, sociology and ethics are undergoing reassessment. This article is concerned with some recent interpretations of Spencer on individuals in social life. It looks in some detail at Spencer's work on psychology and sociology as well as on ethics, seeking to establish how Spencer understood people as social individuals. In particular the neglect of Spencer's denial of freedom of the will is identified as a problem in some recent interpretations. One of his contemporary critics, J.E. Cairnes, charged that Spencer's own theory of social evolution left even Spencer himself the status of only a ‘conscious automaton’. This article, drawing on a range of past and present interpretative discussions of Spencer, seeks to show that Spencerian individuals are psychically and socially so constituted as to be only indirectly responsive to moral suasion, even to that of his own Principles of Ethics as he himself acknowledged. Whilst overtly reconstructionist projects to develop a liberal utilitarianism out of Spencer to enliven political and philosophical debate for today are worthwhile – dead theorists have uses – care needs to be taken that the original context and its concerns with the processes associated with innovation (and decay) in social life are not thereby eclipsed, the more so since in some important respects they have recently received little systematic attention even though the issues have contemporary relevance in sociology.

scholarly journals Polymorphism and division of labour in a socially complex ant: neuromodulation of aggression in the Australian weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1811) ◽  
pp. 20150704 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Frances Kamhi ◽  
Kelley Nunn ◽  
Simon K. A. Robson ◽  
James F. A. Traniello
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Oecophylla Smaragdina ◽  
Minor Worker ◽  
Task Specialization ◽  
Territorial Defence ◽  
Weaver Ant ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Worker Size ◽  
Pharmacological Manipulations

Complex social structure in eusocial insects can involve worker morphological and behavioural differentiation. Neuroanatomical variation may underscore worker division of labour, but the regulatory mechanisms of size-based task specialization in polymorphic species are unknown. The Australian weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina , exhibits worker polyphenism: larger major workers aggressively defend arboreal territories, whereas smaller minors nurse brood. Here, we demonstrate that octopamine (OA) modulates worker size-related aggression in O. smaragdina . We found that the brains of majors had significantly higher titres of OA than those of minors and that OA was positively and specifically correlated with the frequency of aggressive responses to non-nestmates, a key component of territorial defence. Pharmacological manipulations that effectively switched OA action in major and minor worker brains reversed levels of aggression characteristic of each worker size class. Results suggest that altering OA action is sufficient to produce differences in aggression characteristic of size-related social roles. Neuromodulators therefore may generate variation in responsiveness to task-related stimuli associated with worker size differentiation and collateral behavioural specializations, a significant component of division of labour in complex social systems.

Reformation: a Two-edged Sword in the Cause of the Ministry of Women

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Fleur Houston
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Social Model ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Women's Ministry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Social Challenge ◽  
Normative Expectations ◽  
God's Grace

When Martin Luther mounted an attack on the industry of Indulgences, he affirmed key Reformation principles: human beings are saved by God’s grace alone and the priesthood of all the baptised gives all followers of Christ equal status. This was in conformity with an earlier generation of reformers who saw the Bible as ultimate authority and witnessed to biblical truth against corruption. The logical consequence of this should have been the enabling of women who were so disposed to exercise a theological vocation. In practice, the resulting rupture in religious and social life often affected women for the worse. Educational formation and leadership opportunities were restricted by the closure of convents. While the trade guilds, with their tightly regulated social systems, did not allow scope for women who transgressed normative expectations, their suppression was not necessarily liberating for women. The new social model of the home replaced that of convent and guild and marriage was exalted in place of celibacy. Changes in devotional practice involved loss and gain. Women who did not conform to the domestic norm were treated at best with misogyny and female prophets of the radical Reformation paid for their convictions with their lives. In education, leadership, piety and radical social challenge, women’s options were restricted. However, the key Reformation principles ultimately enabled the development of women’s ministry which was marked by the ordination of Constance Todd 400 years later.

scholarly journals SAMFUND? Durkheim revisited i Amazonas og videre

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanne Veber
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Talcott Parsons ◽  
Structured Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Functionalist Theory ◽  
Empirical Context ◽  
Objective Structures

“Society” appears a difficult notion. We use it all the time. But is it any good as an analytical concept? Sociologists seem to agree it is not. Few societies have the empirical characteristics of the bounded entity that structural-functionalist theory assumed. Constructivist notions of society as “imagined community” appear to be tied up with the existence of the State or with the spread of information technology. This leaves contemporary anthropology with “society” as a residue, the left-over from culture’s gluttonous theoretical supper. Still, social science aims to explain or understand social relations, interactions, and the processes by which structures and functions are worked into social systems as implied by the notion of society. The notion of society allows us to assume the existence of objective structures of order in the social life of people. Unlike the notion of culture, however, the notion of society has not been critically scrutinized by anthropologists. In contemporary Danish anthropology with its focus on culture and cultural representations, writers tend to simply take society for granted as the intrinsic empirical context of culture. From the perspective of Durkheimian notions of “the social”, the paper provides a brief review of interpretations that retrospectively have appeared analytical dead-ends. The author goes on to suggest that the notion of “symbolically generalized media of communication” may offer a productive opening that embraces both sides of the culture/society dichotomy in the search for structured systems of social existence whether subjectively or objectively conceived. The idea of “symbolically generalized media or communication” was originally formulated by Talcott Parsons and subsequently reworked by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Rather than an interrelated series of parts that make up a whole plus something else in the classic Durkheimian sense, society from this perspective appears in the form of structured sets of actions oriented by a horizon of possibilities and expectations, symbolically constituted, yet always provisional and emergent. Inspired by analyses of two different cases in Amazonian research the paper offers a brief hint at how the notion may be employed in anthropology.

scholarly journals أوامر في سورة النساء المتعلقة بأحكام الأسرة; دراسة تطبيقية

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-199
Author(s):  
Awal Rifai ◽  
Usamah Maming
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Law

Surah An-Nisa is one of the longest madaniah surah, and is one full of provisions of sharia laws that govern all matters both internal and external ones for Muslims. Among the prominence of this noble surah is that it tells a lot about important things related to women, household, family, country, and social life. In this surah, there are commands and prohibitions in various matters. The purpose of this study was to extract imperative sentences related to family life and then briefly identify the rules that became the base for these commands. The researcher employed an inductive and analytical approach by extrapolating Surah Al-Nisa, taking imperative sentences related to family life, and explaining the law which is concluded from it. Researcher finds, among the most important of the most important ones are as follows: understanding the meaning of al-amr (command) which is a request to do something in the form of superiority. There are two types of amr: direct and indirect. The number of amr related to the family in the surah is seventeen.

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