Article
Behavioral Sciences
Jerome Sallet
Summary: The commentary emphasizes the complementarity of various approaches used to study the neural basis of social cognition. The research findings reveal a complex architecture supporting social cognition and the diverse factors influencing our social decisions.
NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Derek Murphy, George Wittemyer, Michelle D. Henley, Hannah S. Mumby
Summary: The community structure of social networks is important for various research directions, but data sampling in wild populations presents challenges. Simulated data sets can help assess the performance of community detection algorithms under sampling conditions, where increasing sampling effort and decreasing skew can improve algorithm accuracy.
Article
Psychology, Social
Shailee R. Woodard, Linus Chan, Lucian Gideon Conway
Summary: Complex thinking is influenced by both situational factors and stable trait differences. Research suggests that cognitive complexity partially stems from a stable and generalizable trait component, accounting for a small-to-moderate amount of variance in individuals' thinking. This trait-based difference in motivation and ability contributes to individuals' cognitive complexity.
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Christophe Heintz, Thom Scott-Phillips
Summary: Human expression is diverse and unified by cognitive capacities for expressing and recognizing informative intentions. These cognitive capacities are adaptations to partner choice social ecology, explaining the massive diversity and open-endedness in human means and modes of expression. This diversity, including language use and other behaviors like joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, is a foundation of distinctive features of human behavior, society, and culture.
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
(2022)
Review
Biology
Claudia A. F. Wascher
Summary: Heart rate is a key physiological parameter that has been used to assess emotional arousal and how social animals cope with challenges in their environment. This review summarizes new insights provided by measuring heart rate and evaluates the advantages and limitations of different technologies used in this context.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Review
Physiology
Masayo Soma
Summary: The division of cognitive processing between the two hemispheres of the brain causes lateralized eye use in various behavioral contexts. Visual lateralization in mating birds shows surprising heterogeneity among different species, possibly influenced by differences in altricial vs. precocial development. Future research can further explore this topic from evolutionary and behavioral perspectives.
FRONTIERS IN PHYSIOLOGY
(2022)
Review
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Vanessa A. D. Wilson, Klaus Zuberbuhler, Balthasar Bickel
Summary: Languages encode events with a bias towards agents, who are quickly recognized and attract more attention in cognition. This bias suggests that the key aspects of language structure may be rooted in a cognition that decomposes events into agents, actions, and patients, privileging agents. The idea that agent-based event decomposition is older than humans is supported by evidence from primates and other animals, raising questions about the uniqueness of this cognition in humans.
Article
Environmental Studies
Thembi Luckett
Summary: Marapong, situated in northern South Africa, is named after the bones of a local woman that were found during the development of a coal mine in 1973. Years later, with the construction of another coal-fired power station, the bones became the site of industrial construction again. The author redefines social death and explores its relationship with racial capitalism, emphasizing the importance of place and time. They argue for a reconsideration of social death and highlight the contested processes of land, life, and death.
ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING D-SOCIETY & SPACE
(2023)
Article
Biology
Yohay Carmel
Summary: This study examines the evolution of human society, suggesting that it is functioning as a higher hierarchical level within which individuals integrate as lower level units. The size, inseparability, and specialization of human societies have increased over time. Based on the findings, it is hypothesized that human society is undergoing an evolutionary transition driven by socio-cultural and technological processes.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Adar B. Eisenbruch, Max M. Krasnow
Summary: Multiple lines of evidence suggest that warmth is prioritized over competence in social decision-making. This prioritization can be explained by the greater variance in warmth of potential cooperative partners and the greater variance in competence over time within cooperative relationships. This suggests that warmth is more predictive of future benefits in a relationship, but not because it is intrinsically more consequential than competence.
PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Andre Hajek, Hans-Helmut Koenig
Summary: Loneliness and perceived social isolation were found to be associated with decreased expectations of longevity and an increased frequency of dealing with death and dying in older adults, highlighting the importance of addressing these issues to promote longevity.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Ines Testoni, Silvia Piol, Diego De Leo
Summary: Social isolation and loneliness are on the rise, correlating with suicide. Social workers play a crucial role in promoting community cohesion and preventing suicide. Through education and interventions, young people can voice their reasons for living and dying in a safe space.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Developmental
Rosemary Bettle, Alexandra G. Rosati
Summary: The natural pedagogy hypothesis suggests that human infants prefer communicative signals to facilitate cultural learning, while nonhuman animals may not produce or utilize these signals. However, a study with rhesus monkeys found that they paid more attention to nonsocial cues, indicating evolutionary variations in sensitivity to communicative signals between humans and nonhuman animals.
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Zoology
Toshiki Minami, Hiroki Ishikawa
Summary: Reporting reactions to death in nonhuman primates can help understand the evolutionary origin of human ways of dealing with death. This study focused on the reactions of Japanese macaques to the corpse of an adult female. Most group members showed no interest in the corpse, except for one adult female who touched and groomed it. The study highlights the importance of examining the associations between reactions to dead adults or adolescents and social relationships in primate groups.
Article
Economics
Victor Zitian Chen, John Cantwell
Summary: This conceptual paper discusses the evolutionary root causes of institutional complexity, which refers to the inherent incompatibility of different sources of institutions when they intersect. It suggests that societies do not have clear-cut boundaries but evolve dynamically along multiple co-existing social lineages, each associated with a replicator. Decomposing institutional complexity, two types of inherent incompatibility are identified: the incompatibilities between co-existing levels of the same social lineage and the incompatibilities between social lineages at the same level that intersect again after being separate in history. The implications for future institutional studies are discussed.
JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMICS
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Sandy Oduor, Margaret F. Kinnaird, David Daballen, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, George Wittemyer
AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2016)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
S. Z. Goldenberg, I. Douglas-Hamilton, D. Daballen, G. Wittemyer
ANIMAL CONSERVATION
(2017)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Lain Douglas-Hamilton, George Wittemyer
Review
Ecology
Alison L. Greggor, Oded Berger-Tal, Daniel T. Blumstein, Lisa Angeloni, Carmen Bessa-Gomes, Bradley F. Blackwell, Colleen Cassady St Clair, Kevin Crooks, Shermin de Silva, Esteban Fernandez-Juricic, Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Sarah L. Mesnick, Megan Owen, Catherine J. Price, David Saltz, Christopher J. Schell, Andrew V. Suarez, Ronald R. Swaisgood, Clark S. Winchell, William J. Sutherland
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
(2016)
Article
Biology
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, George Wittemyer
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2018)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, George Wittemyer
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, George Wittemyer
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2017)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Megan A. Owen, Janine L. Brown, George Wittemyer, Zaw Min Oo, Peter Leimgruber
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION
(2019)
Article
Parasitology
Jenna M. Parker, Shifra Z. Goldenberg, David Letitiya, George Wittemyer
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Andrea K. Turkalo, Peter H. Wrege, Daniela Hedwig, George Wittemyer
Summary: Social relationships among elephants are shaped by ecological conditions, leading to diverse social patterns even among related species. Forest elephants exhibit unique sociality compared to savannah and Asian elephants, with potential fissioning into smaller units due to resource competition. The presence of distinct social communities and limited core social units highlight the importance of aggregation context in interpreting elephant social behavior.
Article
Ecology
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Paul M. Cryan, Paulo Marcos Gorresen, Lee Jay Fingersh
Summary: Bats are predominantly affected by wind turbines in North America, but it is unclear why they are at higher risk. Fatalities mostly occur from July through October in northern temperate zones, with peaks in bat activity observed in July and September.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jenna M. Parker, Colleen T. Webb, David Daballen, Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Jerenimo Lepirei, David Letitiya, David Lolchuragi, Chris Leadismo, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, George Wittemyer
Summary: The prolonged maternal care is vital for the well-being of long-lived mammals, while the premature loss of maternal care, i.e., orphaning, can reduce offspring survival and negatively impact population growth. Orphaned individuals have lower survival rates compared to nonorphaned age mates, and population growth rate is negatively correlated with orphaning probability while positively correlated with orphan survival. Additionally, the sensitivity of population growth rate to orphan survival increases as orphaning probability rises, highlighting the importance of considering the impacts of orphaning on population dynamics.
Article
Zoology
Shifra Z. Goldenberg, Stephen M. Chege, Nelson Mwangi, Ian Craig, David Daballen, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Nadine Lamberski, Moses Lenaipa, Reuben Lendira, Colman Lesowapir, Lekilia P. Lokooria, Mathew Mutinda, Fred Omengo, Katie Rowe, Jenna Stacy-Dawes, George Wittemyer, Megan A. Owen
Summary: This study examines the social associations of rehabilitated African savannah elephant calves that have been released into a wildlife sanctuary. The results show that the post-release social behavior of the calves is influenced by their interaction history and cohort membership.
Article
Zoology
Katherine Mertes, Catherine A. Ressijac, Rosana N. Moraes, Lacey F. Hughey, Luisa H. Porto Alegre, Megan Horning, Tara Buk, Arielle Harwood, Lawrence Layman, Christopher Mathews, Morgan Vance, Dolores Reed, Jared A. Stabach, Shifra Z. Goldenberg
Summary: This study presents a minimally invasive method for testing individual responses to a novel environment, taking into account the social context. Video footage of scimitar-horned oryx entering an unfamiliar enclosure was analyzed to examine behavioral responses and social context. The results show that social context significantly influences individual posture and movement behaviors, and the oryx were differentiated along two principal components related to vigilance or caution and changing social context and age.