The Strength of Association: Population Density and Social Deviance

This issue is the second of three in Series 3a, "The Strength of Community-level Rates of Association," mapping Anchorage neighborhood characteristics by census block area, highlighting the correlation or lack of correlation between those characteristics and the level of crime and social deviance in the neighborhood as measured by police calls for service for six types of offenses. Maps in this subseries should be compared with the maps in Series 3b, "An Examination of Police Service Deployment (Police Calls for Service)," for a full picture of the "strength of association."This issue of Anchorage Community Indicators provides a brief examination of the relationship between population density and social deviance in the Municipality of Anchorage. A commonly held belief is that social density is positively correlated with social deviance, despite only sparse scientific evidence in support of this theory. A previous issue of Anchorage Community Indicators ("The Strength of Association: Housing Density and Delinquency," ACI 3a(1) (Jul 2004)) found no evidence of a relationship between housing density and deviance. The current issue builds on these previously reported findings by introducing a second measure of social density: population density, once again finding no evidence that social density of Anchorage neighborhoods is associated with community-level rates of social deviance

Social density processes regulate the functioning and performance of foraging human teams

Social density processes impact the activity and order of collective behaviours in a variety of biological systems. Much effort has been devoted to understanding how density of people affects collective human motion in the context of pedestrian flows. However, there is a distinct lack of empirical data investigating the effects of social density on human behaviour in cooperative contexts. Here, we examine the functioning and performance of human teams in a central-place foraging arena using high-resolution GPS data. We show that team functioning (level of coordination) is greatest at intermediate social densities, but contrary to our expectations, increased coordination at intermediate densities did not translate into improved collective foraging performance, and foraging accuracy was equivalent across our density treatments. We suggest that this is likely a consequence of foragers relying upon visual channels (local information) to achieve coordination but relying upon auditory channels (global information) to maximise foraging returns. These findings provide new insights for the development of more sophisticated models of human collective behaviour that consider different networks for communication (e.g. visual and vocal) that have the potential to operate simultaneously in cooperative contexts

Rowan University\u27s converted triples: impacts on roommate relationships and fostering social density

The primary purpose of this study was to explore selected freshmen students that were assigned to triple rooms for the 2014-2015 academic year and see how a student\u27s assignment to a triple room impacted his or her roommate relationships and possibly led to the fostering of social density. The students were incoming freshmen in the class of 2018 living in Evergreen, Oak, or Laurel Halls and were either general freshmen or freshmen students participating in the Engineering Learning Community. At the end of the fall 2014 semester freshmen students assigned to quad, triple, double, and single rooms were surveyed to give feedback regarding their experiences living in their particular residential space with or without roommates. There was particular interest to see if the tripled rooms on Rowan University\u27s campus for this upcoming year, the 32 rooms within Oak, 31 rooms within Laurel, and the 118 rooms within Evergreen Hall, fostered social density and impacted a student\u27s roommate relationships compared to freshmen students living in quad, double, or single rooms in Evergreen, Oak, or Laurel Hall. Subjects reported that they were satisfied and having a positive experience with their residential environment and roommate(s). Furthermore, they reported that they did not feel their residential environment was overcrowded or socially dense. Overall, students in double and triple rooms stated they were very satisfied or satisfied with their current residential environment and the roommate relationship(s) they had built and maintained

A social density model of child/teacher ratio effects in early childhood settings

Following a review of research in child/teacher ratio, group size, crowding, and density in young children's settings, a model was developed to predict the short-term behavioral effects of variations in child/teacher ratio, based on Freedman1s density-intensity hypothesis. In this model, it was proposed that ratio effects on children's behavior are better conceptualized as functions of the two variables, number of children and number of teachers present in a behavior setting. Hypotheses were generated for the relationships between these two independent variables and five a priori dependent variables of children's epistemic behavior. Specifically, it was predicted that as number of children increased: social interaction with peers would drop; interaction with teachers would drop; interaction with the physical environment would not change; solitary behavior would rise; and passive behavior would rise. As number of teachers increased: interaction with peers would not change; interaction with teachers would rise; interaction with the physical environment would not change; solitary behavior would drop; and passive behavior would not change

Social density, but not sex ratio, drives ecdysteroid hormone provisioning to eggs by female house crickets (Acheta domesticus)

Social environment profoundly influences the fitness of animals, affecting their probability of survival to adulthood, longevity, and reproductive output. The social conditions experienced by parents at the time of reproduction can predict the social environments that offspring will face. Despite clear challenges in predicting future environmental conditions, adaptive maternal effects provide a mechanism of passing environmental information from parent to offspring and are now considered pervasive in natural systems. Maternal effects have been widely studied in vertebrates, especially in the context of social environment, and are often mediated by steroid hormone (SH) deposition to eggs. In insects, although many species dramatically alter phenotype and life‐history traits in response to social density, the mechanisms of these alterations, and the role of hormone deposition by insect mothers into their eggs, remains unknown. In the experiments described here, we assess the effects of social environment on maternal hormone deposition to eggs in house crickets (Acheta domesticus). Specifically, we tested the hypotheses that variable deposition of ecdysteroid hormones (ESH) to eggs is affected by both maternal (a) social density and (b) social composition. We found that while maternal hormone deposition to eggs does not respond to social composition (sex ratio), it does reflect social density; females provision their eggs with higher ESH doses under low‐density conditions. This finding is consistent with the interpretation that variable ESH provisioning is an adaptive maternal response to social environment and congruent with similar patterns of variable maternal provisioning across the tree of life. Moreover, our results confirm that maternal hormone provisioning may mediate delayed density dependence by introducing a time lag in the response of offspring phenotype to population size.Here we show that female crickets respond to social density in provisioning their eggs with hormones that govern hatchling growth and development. This is the first evidence that we are aware of for hormone provisioning as a mechanism for achieving delayed density dependence in a population.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146319/1/ece34502_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146319/2/ece34502.pd

STRATEGI ADAPTASI YANG EFEKTIF DALAM SITUASI KEPADATAN SOSIALEffective Adaptation Strategy on Social Density Situation

Increasing social density in urban area warrants considerable study. Some studies reported the detrimental effects of high density on physical, psychological, and health aspects of inhabitants. This study attemped to find effective adaptation strategies to deal with high social density, competitive, and strange situations. Adaptation strategy was classified into two types, territorial and sociofugal strategies. Low level of density as well as medium level of concentration were indicators of effective adaptation. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures constituted additional data.Subjects of this study were 36 students of Engineering, Psychology, and Lawcomprised of 18 subjects with high self-esteem and 18 subjects with low self-esteem. The study was experimentally done in laboratoty. Chi-square and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.Results showed individual choice of a particular coping strategy was influenced by his/ her self-esteem level. Subjects with low self-esteem tended to chose territorial strategy while subjects with high self-esteem chose sociofugal strategy The choice of a particular coping strategy consistent with choice of a particular adaptation strategy. Other outcomes revealed the effectiveness of territorial adaptation strategy in controlling systolic and diastolic blood pressures in coping with crowdedness and in maintaining concentration. Sociofugal setting was also effective in controlling blood pressure as well as in coping with crowdedness, but it was not effective in maintaining concentration. This might be due to inadequate control of the outside density level and the duration of the experiment. Keywords: Adaptation Strategy - Social Densit

Decelerating The Diminishing Returns Of Citizenship On Task Performance: The Role Of Social Context And Interpersonal Skill

Recent scholarship on citizenship behavior demonstrates that engaging too often in these behaviors comes at the expense of task performance. In order to examine the boundary conditions of this relationship, we used resource allocation and social exchange theories to build predictions regarding moderators of the curvilinear association between citizenship and task performance. We conducted a field study of 366 employees, in which we examined the relationship between the frequency of interpersonal helping behavior and task performance and tested for the moderating influences of 3 social context features (social density, interdependence, and social support) and of employees’ levels of interpersonal skill. Results provided corroborating evidence of the diminishing returns between citizenship and task performance. Further, these diminishing returns were decelerated when contexts were characterized by high interdependence and social density and when employees possessed strong interpersonal skills. Implications for extending future citizenship theory and research to incorporate curvilinearity are presented

Jigsaw percolation: What social networks can collaboratively solve a puzzle?

We introduce a new kind of percolation on finite graphs called jigsaw percolation. This model attempts to capture networks of people who innovate by merging ideas and who solve problems by piecing together solutions. Each person in a social network has a unique piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Acquainted people with compatible puzzle pieces merge their puzzle pieces. More generally, groups of people with merged puzzle pieces merge if the groups know one another and have a pair of compatible puzzle pieces. The social network solves the puzzle if it eventually merges all the puzzle pieces. For an Erd\H{o}s-R\'{e}nyi social network with $n$ vertices and edge probability $p_n$, we define the critical value $p_c(n)$ for a connected puzzle graph to be the $p_n$ for which the chance of solving the puzzle equals $1/2$. We prove that for the $n$-cycle (ring) puzzle, $p_c(n)=\Theta(1/\log n)$, and for an arbitrary connected puzzle graph with bounded maximum degree, $p_c(n)=O(1/\log n)$ and $\omega(1/n^b)$ for any $b>0$. Surprisingly, with probability tending to 1 as the network size increases to infinity, social networks with a power-law degree distribution cannot solve any bounded-degree puzzle. This model suggests a mechanism for recent empirical claims that innovation increases with social density, and it might begin to show what social networks stifle creativity and what networks collectively innovate.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AAP1041 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Cooperative Local Caching under Heterogeneous File Preferences

Local caching is an effective scheme for leveraging the memory of the mobile terminal (MT) and short range communications to save the bandwidth usage and reduce the download delay in the cellular communication system. Specifically, the MTs first cache in their local memories in off-peak hours and then exchange the requested files with each other in the vicinity during peak hours. However, prior works largely overlook MTs' heterogeneity in file preferences and their selfish behaviours. In this paper, we practically categorize the MTs into different interest groups according to the MTs' preferences. Each group of MTs aims to increase the probability of successful file discovery from the neighbouring MTs (from the same or different groups). Hence, we define the groups' utilities as the probability of successfully discovering the file in the neighbouring MTs, which should be maximized by deciding the caching strategies of different groups. By modelling MTs' mobilities as homogeneous Poisson point processes (HPPPs), we analytically characterize MTs' utilities in closed-form. We first consider the fully cooperative case where a centralizer helps all groups to make caching decisions. We formulate the problem as a weighted-sum utility maximization problem, through which the maximum utility trade-offs of different groups are characterized. Next, we study two benchmark cases under selfish caching, namely, partial and no cooperation, with and without inter-group file sharing, respectively. The optimal caching distributions for these two cases are derived. Finally, numerical examples are presented to compare the utilities under different cases and show the effectiveness of the fully cooperative local caching compared to the two benchmark cases