Knowing your neighbourhood: local ecology and personal experience predict neighbourhood perceptions in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

James Gilbert,Caroline Uggla,Ruth Mace

doi:10.1098/rsos.160468

James Gilbert, Caroline Uggla + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160468

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Abstract

Evolutionary theory predicts that humans should adjust their life-history strategies in response to local ecological threats and opportunities in order to maximize their reproductive success. Cues representing threats to individuals' lives and health in modern, Western societies may come in the form of local ages at death, morbidity rate and crime rate in their local area, whereas the adult sex ratio represents a measure of the competition for reproductive partners. These characteristics are believed to have a strong influence over a wide range of behaviours, but whether they are accurately perceived has not been robustly tested. Here, we investigate whether perceptions of four neighbourhood characteristics are accurate across eight neighbourhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We find that median age at death and morbidity rates are accurately perceived, whereas adult sex ratios and crime rates are not. We suggest that both neighbourhood characteristics and personal experiences contribute to the formation of perceptions. This should be considered by researchers looking for associations between area-level factors.

Highlights

Individuals have access to a limited amount of resources that they are able to invest in essential life processes such as survival and reproduction [1,2]
Linear models controlling for sex, age, education and household income, perceptions of median age at death and morbidity rate were significantly predicted by the actual neighbourhood values
We found evidence that perceptions of local morbidity rates and median ages at death are fairly accurate, but no evidence that local crime rates and adult sex ratios (ASRs) are accurately perceived

Summary

Introduction

Individuals have access to a limited amount of resources that they are able to invest in essential life processes such as survival and reproduction [1,2]. How 2 successfully an individual navigates these trade-offs throughout its life course will contribute significantly to its reproductive success. Examples of classic life-history trade-offs include allocating resources between growth, maintenance or reproduction, whether to invest in current or future reproductive efforts, and whether to invest in few costly offspring or many less costly ones. A series of mathematical models recently suggested that the optimal response to variation in environmental harshness is not as simple as adopting a ‘faster’ or ‘slower’ strategy [6], it is clear that being able to adapt life-history behaviours appropriately to the local physical and social environment is fundamentally important to any organism’s inclusive fitness

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