11,870 research outputs found
Two Types of Social Grooming Methods depending on the Trade-off between the Number and Strength of Social Relationships
Humans use various social bonding methods known as social grooming, e.g. face
to face communication, greetings, phone, and social networking sites (SNS). SNS
have drastically decreased time and distance constraints of social grooming. In
this paper, I show that two types of social grooming (elaborate social grooming
and lightweight social grooming) were discovered in a model constructed by
thirteen communication data-sets including face to face, SNS, and Chacma
baboons. The separation of social grooming methods is caused by a difference in
the trade-off between the number and strength of social relationships. The
trade-off of elaborate social grooming is weaker than the trade-off of
lightweight social grooming. On the other hand, the time and effort of
elaborate methods are higher than lightweight methods. Additionally, my model
connects social grooming behaviour and social relationship forms with these
trade-offs. By analyzing the model, I show that individuals tend to use
elaborate social grooming to reinforce a few close relationships (e.g. face to
face and Chacma baboons). In contrast, people tend to use lightweight social
grooming to maintain many weak relationships (e.g. SNS). Humans with
lightweight methods who live in significantly complex societies use various
social grooming to effectively construct social relationships.Comment: Accepted by Royal Society Open Scienc
The use of multilayer network analysis in animal behaviour
Network analysis has driven key developments in research on animal behaviour
by providing quantitative methods to study the social structures of animal
groups and populations. A recent formalism, known as \emph{multilayer network
analysis}, has advanced the study of multifaceted networked systems in many
disciplines. It offers novel ways to study and quantify animal behaviour as
connected 'layers' of interactions. In this article, we review common questions
in animal behaviour that can be studied using a multilayer approach, and we
link these questions to specific analyses. We outline the types of behavioural
data and questions that may be suitable to study using multilayer network
analysis. We detail several multilayer methods, which can provide new insights
into questions about animal sociality at individual, group, population, and
evolutionary levels of organisation. We give examples for how to implement
multilayer methods to demonstrate how taking a multilayer approach can alter
inferences about social structure and the positions of individuals within such
a structure. Finally, we discuss caveats to undertaking multilayer network
analysis in the study of animal social networks, and we call attention to
methodological challenges for the application of these approaches. Our aim is
to instigate the study of new questions about animal sociality using the new
toolbox of multilayer network analysis.Comment: Thoroughly revised; title changed slightl
Online Child Sex Solicitation: Exploring the Feasibility of a Research 'Sting'
A small scale test of the integrity of Internet Web 2.0 social network sites was undertaken over several weeks in 2007. The fictional identities of four female underage children where posted on three network sites and later introduced to relay chat forums in order to explore the impact of apparent vulnerability on potential selection of Internet victims. Only one of the three social network sites in the study recognised that the postings violated child protection policies and subsequently closed down the underage postings. Two basic identities were created: one that engendered a needy and vulnerable characterisation of a child while the other identity was created to represent a happy and attached child character. The number of contacts and suspicious contacts were monitored to test assumptions about child âvulnerabilityâ and risks of unwanted sexual solicitations. The characters created also included either an avatar and/or contact details. These variants of the experiment showed that the inclusion of an image or access details increased the likelihood of contacts, including suspicious contact regardless of âvulnerabilityâ. This small experiment noted that although vulnerable children with additional cues maybe at more risk all children who posted details about themselves on social network sites faced the risk of contact by predators. The need for further research and better means of regulating such sites was suggested
Coevolutionary Investments in Human Speech and Trade
We propose a novel explanation for the emergence of language in modern humans, and the lack thereof in other hominids. A coevolutionary process, where trade facilitates speech and speech facilitates trade, driven by expectations and potentially influenced by geography, gives rise to multiple stable development trajectories. While the trade-speech equilibrium is not an inevitable outcome for modern humans, we do find that it is a relatively likely result given that our species evolved in Africa under climatic conditions supporting relatively high population densities.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,
An Investigation into the relationship between the gender binary and occupational discrimination using the implicit relational assessment procedure
The social construction of gender-as-binary plays an important role within many contemporary theories of gender inequality. However, to date, the field of psychology has struggled with the operationalization and assessment of binarist ideologies. The current article proposes a technical framework for the analysis of the gender binary and assesses the suitability of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP) as a measure of binarist gender beliefs. Forty-seven undergraduate students (26 female; M-age = 23.84) completed two IRAPs assessing the coordination of certain traits exclusively with women and others exclusively with men. Effects found on the IRAP were in the expected direction (i.e., relating men but not women with certain traits and women but not men with other traits). In addition, the traits ascribed to men within the IRAP were evaluated as more hirable by a large majority of participants (83%) on an explicit preference task. The results therefore support the arguments that, first, gender traits do seem to be framed oppositionally in language and, second, this binary may underpin existing gender hierarchies in certain contexts
Self-organization and time-stability of social hierarchies
The formation and stability of social hierarchies is a question of general
relevance. Here, we propose a simple generalized theoretical model for
establishing social hierarchy via pair-wise interactions between individuals
and investigate its stability. In each interaction or fight, the probability of
"winning" depends solely on the relative societal status of the participants,
and the winner has a gain of status whereas there is an equal loss to the
loser. The interactions are characterized by two parameters. The first
parameter represents how much can be lost, and the second parameter represents
the degree to which even a small difference of status can guarantee a win for
the higher-status individual. Depending on the parameters, the resulting status
distributions reach either a continuous unimodal form or lead to a totalitarian
end state with one high-status individual and all other individuals having
status approaching zero. However, we find that in the latter case long-lived
intermediary distributions often exist, which can give the illusion of a stable
society. As we show, our model allows us to make predictions consistent with
animal interaction data and their evolution over a number of years. Moreover,
by implementing a simple, but realistic rule that restricts interactions to
sufficiently similar-status individuals, the stable or long-lived distributions
acquire high-status structure corresponding to a distinct high-status class.
Using household income as a proxy for societal status in human societies, we
find agreement over their entire range from the low-to-middle-status parts to
the characteristic high-status "tail". We discuss how the model provides a
conceptual framework for understanding the origin of social hierarchy and the
factors which lead to the preservation or deterioration of the societal
structure.Comment: Added sections 4.1 and S2.A about agonistic interactions in animals,
added sections 4.2.1 and S2.B regarding potential proxies for societal status
in non-human animals, added references to sections 1 and 2. Main text: 34
pages, 11 figures. Supplementary appendices: 36 pages, 24 figure
Regrets, I\u27ve Had a Few: When Regretful Experiences Do (and Don\u27t) Compel Users to Leave Facebook
Previous work has explored regretful experiences on social media. In parallel, scholars have examined how people do not use social media. This paper aims to synthesize these two research areas and asks: Do regretful experiences on social media influence people to (consider) not using social media? How might this influence differ for different sorts of regretful experiences? We adopted a mixed methods approach, combining topic modeling, logistic regressions, and contingency analysis to analyze data from a web survey with a demographically representative sample of US internet users (n=515) focusing on their Facebook use. We found that experiences that arise because of users\u27 own actions influence actual deactivation of their Facebook account, while experiences that arise because of others\u27 actions lead to considerations of non-use. We discuss the implications of these findings for two theoretical areas of interest in HCI: individual agency in social media use and the networked dimensions of privacy
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