The Social Construction of Perceptual Categories

The term “social niche” is rapidly increasing in usage, particularly in the context of “social niche construction.” But what (if anything) is a social niche? Here, we survey papers that have used the term to uncover commonalities and discrepancies in its definition. We aim to alert researchers to the need for more consistency in how the term is used in the literature, and we provide a working definition of “social niche:” the set of social environments in which the focal individual has non-zero inclusive fitness. We consider the extent to which a social niche is analogous to an ecological niche, discuss whether a population-level social niche can be meaningfully identified, and describe conceptual insights about the properties of social niches, focusing on social niche construction. We highlight questions about social niches that demand more theoretical and empirical attention.

This angstroms to ecosystems model of ecological adaptation links nutrient energy-dependent epigenetic effects on base pairs and amino acid substitutions to pheromone-controlled changes in the microRNA/messenger RNA balance and chromosomal rearrangements via the physiology of reproduction in species from microbes to humans. The nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled changes are required for the thermodynamic regulation of intracellular signaling, which enables biophysically constrained nutrient-dependent protein folding; experiencedependent receptor-mediated behaviors, and organism-level thermoregulation in ever-changing ecological niches and social niches. Nutrient-dependent ecological, social, neurogenic and socio-cognitive niche construction are manifested in increasing organismal complexity. Species-specific pheromones link quorum-sensing in microbes from chemical ecology to the physiology of reproduction. The reciprocal relationships of species-typical nutrientdependent morphological and behavioral diversity are enabled by pheromone-controlled reproduction. Ecological variations and biophysically constrained natural selection for codon optimality links nutritional epigenetics to the behaviors that enable ecological adaptations. All biodiversity is an ecologically validated proof-of-concept. Ideas from population genetics, which exclude ecological factors, are integrated with an experimental evidence-based approach that establishes what is currently known. Simply put, olfactory/pheromonal input links food odors and social odors from the epigenetic landscape to the physical landscape of supercoiled DNA in the organized genomes of species from microbes to man during their development.

This chapter argues that emotions might be productively thought of as distributed processes of social niche construction: forms of engagement whereby agents manipulate their social context to establish, modify, and negotiate relationships, communicate intentions, and attune themselves to the mental life of others. It considers how material and ideational factors of our social niches support the emergence of emotions on both short-term and long-term time scales. In doing so, it draws upon theoretical resources of distributed approaches to cognition as well as several different strands of empirical work, including research in developmental psychology.

Niche construction is a process whereby organisms that modify their own or others' niches through their ecological activities. Recent studies have revealed that changes in social structures of interactions caused by social niche construction of individuals can affect seriously the evolution of cooperation. However, such a social niche also could be changed indirectly by a modification of their physical environment. Our purpose is to clarify the coevolution of cooperative behavior and physically niche-constructing behavior that modify social niche indirectly. For this purpose, we constructed an evolutionary model in which each individual has not only a strategy for a spatial Prisoner's Dilemma but also has traits for niche-constructing behavior for modifying its physical environment that can limit social interactions between neighboring individuals. By conducting evolutionary experiments, we show that the evolution of cooperation was promoted by the emerged environmental structure constructed by the evolved niche-constructing behavior under the condition that the constructed niche could be inherited in succeeding generations stably. We also discuss effects of ecological inheritance of environmental factors on the evolution of cooperative behavior in detail.

Niche construction is a process whereby organisms that modify their own or others’ niches through their ecological activities. Recent studies have revealed that changes in social structures of interactions caused by social niche construction of individuals can affect seriously the evolution of cooperation. However, such a social niche also could be changed indirectly by a modification of their physical environment. Our purpose is to clarify the coevolution of cooperative behavior and physically niche-constructing behavior that modifies social niche indirectly. For this purpose, we constructed an evolutionary model in which each individual has not only a strategy for a spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma but also has traits for a niche-constructing behavior for modifying its physical environment that can limit social interactions between neighboring individuals. By conducting evolutionary experiments, we show that a cyclic coevolution between cooperative behavior and niche-constructing behavior occurred in the situation with no or low degree of ecological inheritance, in which the constructed niche could not be inherited in succeeding generations at all. Conversely, when the degree of ecological inheritance was high, the evolution of cooperation was promoted by the emerged environmental structure constructed by the evolved niche-constructing behavior. We also show that the condition for each scenario to occur depends on the settings of the payoff parameters as well as the degree of ecological inheritance.

Individuals are not merely subject to their social environments; they choose and create them, through a process called social environment (or social niche) construction. When genotypes differ in social environment-constructing behaviors, different genotypes are expected to experience different social environments. As social experience often affects behavioral development, quantitative genetics and psychology theories predict that genetic variation in social environment construction should have an important role in determining phenotypic variation; however, this hypothesis has not been tested directly. I identify multiple mechanisms of social environment construction that differ among natural genotypes of Drosophila melanogaster and investigate their consequences for the development of aggressive behavior. Male genotypes differed in the group sizes that they preferred and in their aggressive behavior; both of these behaviors influenced social experience, demonstrating that these behaviors function as social environment-constructing traits. Further, the effects of social experience-as determined in part by social environment construction-carried over to affect focal male aggression at a later time and with a new opponent. These results provide manipulative experimental support for longstanding hypotheses in psychology, that genetic variation in social environment construction has a causal role in behavioral development. More broadly, these results imply that studies of the genetic basis of complex traits should be expanded to include mechanisms by which genetic variation shapes the environments that individuals experience.

In the contemporary socio-economical scenario, knowledge sharing has become a crucial topic for discussion. As the economy of the societies becoming knowledge centric, knowledge production and dissemination by the educational and other social institutions must play an important role. In this paper, we discuss the notion of knowledge sharing as normative action involving two modes of function: voluntary and obligatory. Knowledge sharing as voluntary action presupposes personal ontology of knowledge. The knower as owner of knowledge has the right to disseminate knowledge. The reason of this dissemination could be sometimes to fulfill certain psychological desire or material needs, rather than purely value centric. Such a mode of sharing could be the reason for the degeneration of knowledge. It is because voluntary dissemination of knowledge does not go beyond the whims and fancies of the knower. On the other hand, knowledge sharing as an obligatory action emphasizes care and commitment. These normative elements could not only transform the attitude of the knower, but also help him to transcend the mere economic and psychological reasons of knowledge sharing. This transcendental logic of sharing would show how knowledge obtains its social ontology.

While there are now a number of theoretical models predicting how consistent individual differences in behaviour may be generated and maintained, so far, there are few empirical tests. The social niche specialization hypothesis predicts that repeated social interactions among individuals may generate among-individual differences and reinforce within-individual consistency through positive feedback mechanisms. Here, we test this hypothesis using groups of the social spider Stegodyphus mimosarum that differ in their level of familiarity. In support of the social niche specialization hypothesis, individuals in groups of spiders that were more familiar with each other showed greater repeatable among-individual variation in behaviour. Additionally, individuals that were more familiar with each other exhibited lower within-individual variation in behaviour, providing one of the first examples of how the social environment can influence behavioural consistency. Our study demonstrates the potential for the social environment to generate and reinforce consistent individual differences in behaviour and provides a potentially general mechanism to explain this type of behavioural variation in animals with stable social groups.

The observed social systems of extant apes and humans suggest that the common ancestral state for Miocene hominoids was living in multimale–multifemale groups that exhibited a tendency to fission and fusion in response to ecological and/or social variables. The Hominoidea share a set of social commonalities, notably a social niche that extends beyond kin and beyond the immediate social group, as well as extensive intraspecific flexibility in social organization. We propose that an essential feature of hominoid evolution is the shift from limited plasticity in a generalized social ape to expanded behavioral plasticity as an adaptive niche. Whereas in most nonhominoid primates variability and flexibility take the shape of specific patterns of demographic flux and interindividual relationships, we can consider behavioral flexibility and plasticity as a means to an end in hominoid socioecological landscapes. In addition, the potential for innovation, spread, and inheritance of behavioral patterns and social traditions is much higher in the hominoids, especially the great apes, than in other anthropoid primates. We further suggest that this pattern forms a basis for the substantial expansion of social complexity and adaptive behavioral plasticity in the hominins, especially the genus Homo. Our objectives in this article are threefold: 1) summarize the variation in the social systems of extant hominoid taxa; 2) consider the evolutionary processes underlying these variations; and 3) expand upon the traditional socioecological model, especially with respect to reconstructions of early hominin social behavior. We emphasize a central role for both ecological and social niche construction, as well as behavioral plasticity, as basal hominoid characteristics. Over evolutionary time these characteristics influence the patterns of selection pressures and the resulting social structures. We propose that a mosaic of ecological and social inheritance patterns should be considered in the reconstruction of early hominin social systems.

Grooming interventions in female rhesus macaques as social niche construction

This atoms to ecosystems model of ecological adaptations links nutrient-dependent epigenetic effects on DNA base pairs in solution and RNA-mediated amino acid substitutions to chromosomal rearrangements via pheromone-controlled changes in the microRNA / messenger RNA balance. The nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled changes are required for the thermodynamic regulation of intracellular signaling, which enables biophysically constrained nutrient-dependent & pH-dependent protein folding; experience-dependent receptor-mediated behaviors, and organism-level thermoregulation in ever-changing ecological niches and social niches. Critical limits for enhanced medical care already include what is known about the RNA-mediated physics and chemistry of biologically-based ecological, social, neurogenic and socio-cognitive niche construction. The epigenetic landscape is clearly linked to the physical landscape of supercoiled DNA and top-down causation is manifested in increasing organismal complexity in species from microbes to humans. In all vertebrates and invertebrates the reciprocal relationships of species-typical nutrient-dependent & pH-dependent morphological and behavioral diversity are enabled by microRNAs, adhesion proteins, and pheromone-controlled reproduction. Ecological variation and biophysically constrained natural selection of nutrients cause the RNA-mediated behaviors that enable ecological adaptations, which include development of the brain during life history transitions. Ideas from population genetics typically exclude ecological factors, which must be linked to cell type differentiation. Theories are integrated with an experimental evidence-based approach that establishes what is currently known in the context of this mammalian model.

This study aims to understand how PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia Tbk. (BRI) uses Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs as a performance to shape and manage the company's image, using Erving Goffman's dramaturgical perspective. Through a qualitative approach and case study method, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with internal parties of the company and analysis of documents such as sustainability reports, media publications, and CSR campaigns. The findings show that BRI's CSR operates in two symbolic areas: the frontstage, which is presented to the public through positive narratives, promotional media, and formal reporting; and the backstage, which reflects internal dynamics, planning processes, and the reality of program implementation. The analysis reveals that although CSR is carried out with social goals, public representation is often strategically arranged to strengthen the institutional image. Thus, CSR is not only a practice of social responsibility, but also a dramaturgical instrument in managing corporate impressions. This study broadens the understanding of CSR as a social construction and its contribution to shaping corporate legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

Cancer bereavement may be associated with unique challenges involved in the caregiving experience, particularly for spouses, who commonly adopt this role. However, the dominance of quantitative and diagnostically informed research has produced a-contextual theories, which reinforce increasingly medicalised conceptualisations of grief. In contrast, less attention has been given to the subjective experience in this context, particularly from a discursive perspective. Three focus groups comprising an overall total of six men and 17 women were used to facilitate discussions between spouses who were bereaved by cancer. A Foucauldian-informed discourse analysis was employed to examine how participants constructed grief and loss, and to identify the broader discourses that served to shape these. Additional attention was paid to the rhetorical aspects of these constructions. Three overarching discursive ‘sites’ were identified: i) medicalisation; ii) individualism and iii) productivity and purpose. Analysis of the discursive activity illuminated how these discourses co-existed, creating tensions within constructions that highlighted an increasing professionalisation of grief, and also carried expectations for individuals to manage their grieving in private, via practices of self-regulation. These discourses offered subjugated positions and served to reinforce the power differentials that exist between the bereaved and professionals. However, those constructions that resisted positions of powerlessness and being silenced enabled individuals a greater sense of authority within bereavement and led them to feel more open and connected as a result. The findings draw attention to the expectation for bereaved individuals to protect society from their emotions. This has important implications for how grief may be better supported within clinical psychology settings and points to the need to challenge unhelpful assumptions within society.

Individuals construct their own identity, but they do not construct their identity just as they please; they do not construct it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances encountered, given and transmitted from the past. (Darity, Mason, and Stewart 2006, 290) Identity can’t be compartmentalized. You can’t divide it up into halves or thirds or any other separate segments. I haven’t got several identities: I’ve got just one, made up of many components in a mixture that is unique of me, just as other people’s identity is unique to them as individuals. (Maalouf 1998 [2000], 2) The Economics of Identity What is the “economics of identity?” In fact, the meaning of that expression is ambiguous and contested (Kirman and Teschl 2004; Fine 2009). Many nonetheless associate it with Akerlof and Kranton’s (2000) proposal to introduce the concept of social identity into economics by expanding the traditional Homo economicus utility function to include a set of self-images associated with the individual’s different social identities. On that view, people gain or lose utility according to how their social identity self-images are affected by their interaction with others. However, this does not explain the role that individuals have in determining which social identities they wish to have. That would entail having some account of how individuals choose certain social identities and also some explanation of the extent to which they are influential in determining what social identities they have. That is, it would entail having some understanding of the relationship between who they are, or what their personal identity involves, and their many social identities. Akerlof and Kranton, though they do not refer to personal identity, implicitly equate it with the individual’s utility function. However, because the utility function only tells us how people are affected by their social identities, it does not allow us to say how they influence their determination, thus making it the choice of the economic modeler to say what social identities individuals have. That is, with no real account of personal identity, they are unable to explain the relationship between personal identity and social identity. I argued in the previous chapter that on a capabilities conception of the individual people’s development of their capabilities goes hand in hand with their development of a special personal identity capability that allows them to keep narrative accounts of themselves. If one capability they develop, then, is of being able to elect particular social identities, how they keep narrative accounts of themselves constitutes a way of explaining the relationship between personal identity and social identity. Yet it would be a mistake to say that their doing this gives people complete freedom to determine what social identities they will have. Recall from Chapter 3, then, that in contrast to the psychology’s social identity approach and Turner’s self-categorization theory (Turner 1985) that Akerlof and Kranton draw on, the sociological approach to identity assumes that individuals and social groups mutually influence one another. On this view, the personal and social identities of individuals and also the identities of social groups are all mutually determined. On the one hand, the social construction and assignment of social categories to individuals influences what social groups they belong to and thus what social identities they elect. This in turn influences their personal identities. On the other hand, the social groups individuals belong to and the social identities they elect influences the formation of social groups and the construction of social categories used to represent those social groups. This frames the evolutionary-relational side of the individual conception developed previously in much broader terms that allow us to begin to capture the more indirect social influences that operate on individuality. In effect, what we try to do here, then, is locate that individual conception in an “identity dynamics” (Potts 2008) that operates across individuals and groups.

Although many experiments have investigated factors that constrain perceptual category construction, there have been no investigations of factors that constrain memory-based (MB) category construction. Six experiments examined the extent to which perceptual and MB sorting were influenced by correlated dimensions, family resemblance principles, and conceptual knowledge. Sensitivity to many types of relational information (e.g., correlated features, causal relations, interactive properties of objects, and family resemblance relations) was observed with perceptual sorting, but these properties were rarely used to organize information in MB sorting conditions. Instead, there was a clear preference to organize categories around single dimensions. Even when perfectly correlated features were causally related, Ss in memory conditions did not use correlations to construct categories. The strengths and limitations of MB analyses and categorizations are discussed.