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Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 2022Stereotypes are encountered every day, in interpersonal communication as well as in entertainment, news stories, and on social media. In this study, we present a...
Stereotypes are encountered every day, in interpersonal communication as well as in entertainment, news stories, and on social media. In this study, we present a computational method to mine large, naturally occurring datasets of text for sentences that express perceptions of a social group of interest, and then map these sentences to the two-dimensional plane of perceived and for comparison and interpretation. This framework is grounded in established social psychological theory, and validated against both expert annotation and crowd-sourced stereotype data. Additionally, we present two case studies of how the model might be used to answer questions using data "in-the-wild," by collecting Twitter data about women and older adults. Using the data about women, we are able to observe how sub-categories of women (e.g., Black women and white women) are described similarly and differently from each other, and from the superordinate group of women in general. Using the data about older adults, we show evidence that the terms people use to label a group (e.g., old people vs. senior citizens) are associated with different stereotype content. We propose that this model can be used by other researchers to explore questions of how stereotypes are expressed in various large text corpora.
PubMed: 35514953
DOI: 10.3389/frai.2022.826207 -
Current Opinion in Microbiology Jun 2022Division of labour occurs when different individuals, cells or tissues become specialised to perform complementary tasks that benefit the whole organism or social group.... (Review)
Review
Division of labour occurs when different individuals, cells or tissues become specialised to perform complementary tasks that benefit the whole organism or social group. Although long studied in multicellular organisms and colonies of social insects, several recent studies have established that division of labour is common in microorganisms. We review recent work on the division of labour in unicellular and multicellular bacteria, with a particular focus on reproductive and metabolic divisions of labour in actinomycetes. Actinomycetes show enormous variation in sporophore morphology and spore production patterns that likely affect the potential for cooperative interactions within colonies. They also display both irreversible genetic and spatiotemporally regulated phenotypic divisions of labour that structure antibiotic production. We highlight outstanding questions in this group of multicellular bacteria and outline factors that can modify the expression of division of labour across microbes.
Topics: Animals; Humans; Insecta; Reproduction; Streptomyces
PubMed: 35468363
DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2022.102148 -
Evolutionary Human Sciences 2023Standard approaches to cultural evolution focus on the recipients or consumers. This does not take into account the fitness costs incurred in producing the behaviours or...
Standard approaches to cultural evolution focus on the recipients or consumers. This does not take into account the fitness costs incurred in producing the behaviours or artefacts that become cultural, i.e. widespread in a social group. We argue that cultural evolution models should focus on these fitness costs and benefits of cultural production, particularly in the domain of 'symbolic' culture. In this approach, cultural products can be considered as a part of the extended phenotype of producers, which can affect the fitness of recipients in a positive way (through cooperation) but also in a detrimental way (through manipulation and exploitation). Taking the producers' perspective may help explain the specific features of many kinds of cultural products.
PubMed: 37706214
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.20 -
Current Directions in Psychological... Dec 2017What psychological factors drive the popularity of , which explain important events as secret plots by powerful and malevolent groups? What are the psychological...
What psychological factors drive the popularity of , which explain important events as secret plots by powerful and malevolent groups? What are the psychological consequences of adopting these theories? We review the current research and find that it answers the first of these questions more thoroughly than the second. Belief in conspiracy theories appears to be driven by motives that can be characterized as epistemic (understanding one's environment), existential (being safe and in control of one's environment), and social (maintaining a positive image of the self and the social group). However, little research has investigated the consequences of conspiracy belief, and to date, this research does not indicate that conspiracy belief fulfills people's motivations. Instead, for many people, conspiracy belief may be more appealing than satisfying. Further research is needed to determine for whom, and under what conditions, conspiracy theories may satisfy key psychological motives.
PubMed: 29276345
DOI: 10.1177/0963721417718261 -
Neuron Aug 2020Social group dynamics are highly complex. In this issue of Neuron, Anpilov et al. use a novel wireless optogenetic device to demonstrate that the repeated stimulation...
Social group dynamics are highly complex. In this issue of Neuron, Anpilov et al. use a novel wireless optogenetic device to demonstrate that the repeated stimulation of oxytocin neurons modulates pro-social and agonistic behaviors in a time- and context-dependent manner.
Topics: Agonistic Behavior; Neurons; Optogenetics; Oxytocin; Social Behavior
PubMed: 32818470
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2020.07.027 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2023Containing a pandemic requires that individuals adhere to measures such as wearing face-masks and getting vaccinated. Therefore, identifying predictors and motives for...
Containing a pandemic requires that individuals adhere to measures such as wearing face-masks and getting vaccinated. Therefore, identifying predictors and motives for both behaviors is of importance. Here, we study the decisions made by a cross-national sample in randomized hypothetical scenarios during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that mask-wearing was predicted by empathic tendencies, germ aversion, and higher age, whilst belief in misinformation and presentation of an interaction partner as a family member lowered the safety standards. The main motives associated with taking the mask off included: rationalization, facilitating interaction, and comfort. Vaccination intention was positively predicted by empathy, and negatively predicted by belief in misinformation and higher costs of the vaccine. We found no effect of immunization status of the surrounding social group. The most common motive for vaccination was protection of oneself and others, whereas undecided and anti-vaccine groups reported doubts about the effectiveness and fear of side effects. Together, we identify social and psychological predictors and motives of mask-wearing behavior and vaccination intention. The results highlight the importance of social context for mask-wearing, easy access to vaccines, empathy, and trust in publicly distributed information.
Topics: Humans; Intention; Pandemics; COVID-19; Motivation; Vaccination
PubMed: 37357247
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37072-6 -
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal... Sep 2022Characterizing non-human primate social complexity and its cognitive bases has proved challenging. Using principal component analyses, we show that primate social,... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
Characterizing non-human primate social complexity and its cognitive bases has proved challenging. Using principal component analyses, we show that primate social, ecological and reproductive behaviours condense into two components: (including most social and ecological variables) and (comprising mainly a suite of behaviours associated with pairbonded monogamy). We contextualize these results using a meta-analysis of 44 published analyses of primate brain evolution. These studies yield two main consistent results: cognition, sociality and cooperative behaviours are associated with absolute brain volume, neocortex size and neocortex ratio, whereas diet composition and life history are consistently associated with relative brain size. We use a path analysis to evaluate the causal relationships among these variables, demonstrating that social group size is predicted by the neocortex, whereas ecological traits are predicted by the volume of brain structures other than the neocortex. That a range of social and technical behaviours covary, and are correlated with social group size and brain size, suggests that primate cognition has evolved along a continuum resulting in an increasingly flexible, domain-general capacity to solve a range of socioecological challenges culminating in a capacity for, and reliance on, innovation and social information use in the great apes and humans. This article is part of the theme issue 'Cognition, communication and social bonds in primates'.
Topics: Animals; Biological Evolution; Brain; Cognition; Neocortex; Primates; Social Behavior
PubMed: 35934968
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0296 -
Socio-economic Planning Sciences Mar 2022We aim to design a allocation approach to maximize the geographical diversity and avoid in the sense of demographic disparity. During the development of this work, the...
We aim to design a allocation approach to maximize the geographical diversity and avoid in the sense of demographic disparity. During the development of this work, the COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading in the U.S. and other parts of the world on large scale. Many poor communities and minority groups are much more vulnerable than the rest. To provide sufficient vaccine and medical resources to all residents and effectively stop the further spreading of the pandemic, the average medical resources per capita of a community should be independent of the community's demographic features but only conditional on the exposure rate to the disease. In this article, we integrate different aspects of resource allocation and create a synergistic intervention strategy that gives vulnerable populations higher priority in medical resource distribution. This prevention-centered strategy seeks a balance between geographical coverage and social group fairness. The proposed principle can be applied to other scarce resources and social benefits allocation.
PubMed: 34812203
DOI: 10.1016/j.seps.2021.101193 -
Journal of Healthcare Engineering 2022To compare the mental health status of the elderly under different pension modes and to provide evidence for improving institutional services and the quality of life of...
OBJECTIVE
To compare the mental health status of the elderly under different pension modes and to provide evidence for improving institutional services and the quality of life of the elderly.
METHODS
A total of 118 elderly people in social welfare homes, nursing homes, and elderly welfare centers in D city and 165 elderly people from families in D city were assessed by self-made questionnaire, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), activities of daily living scale (ADL), and social support rating scale (SSRS).
RESULTS
The total scores of mental health and self, emotion, and adaptation subscales in the social group were higher than those in the home group, with a significant difference ( > 0.05). The scores of cognitive and interpersonal subscales in the home group were higher than those in the social group, but the differences were not significant ( > 0.05). Under the mode of family pension and social institution pension, the health status of the elderly has certain differences. The elderly in different old-age care modes have good performance in diet and sleep, and there is no statistical difference between them ( > 0.05).
CONCLUSION
The investigation shows that the mental health status of the elderly under the family pension model is obviously better than that under the social institution pension model.
Topics: Activities of Daily Living; Aged; Humans; Mental Health; Nursing Homes; Pensions; Quality of Life
PubMed: 35178223
DOI: 10.1155/2022/2367406 -
Proceedings. Biological Sciences Oct 2018Over our species history, humans have typically lived in small groups of under a hundred individuals. However, our face recognition abilities appear to equip us to...
Over our species history, humans have typically lived in small groups of under a hundred individuals. However, our face recognition abilities appear to equip us to recognize very many individuals, perhaps thousands. Modern society provides access to huge numbers of faces, but no one has established how many faces people actually know. Here, we describe a method for estimating this number. By combining separate measures of recall and recognition, we show that people know about 5000 faces on average and that individual differences are large. Our findings offer a possible explanation for large variation in identification performance. They also provide constraints on understanding the qualitative differences between perception of familiar and unfamiliar faces-a distinction that underlies all current theories of face recognition.
Topics: Facial Recognition; Humans; Individuality; Mental Recall; Recognition, Psychology
PubMed: 30305434
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2018.1319