Affiliative Relationships Research Articles

Colorful facial markings are associated with foraging rates and affiliative relationships in a wild group-living cichlid fish.

Many animals use color to signal their quality and/or behavioral motivations. Colorful signals have been well studied in the contexts of competition and mate choice; however, the role of these signals in nonsexual, affiliative relationships is not as well understood. Here, we used wild social groups of the cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher to investigate whether the size of a brightly colored facial patch was related to 1) individual quality, 2) social dominance, and/or 3) affiliative relationships. Individuals with larger patches spent more time foraging and tended to perform more aggressive acts against conspecific territory intruders. We did not find any evidence that the size of these yellow patches was related to social rank or body size, but dominant males tended to have larger patches than dominant females. Additionally, patch size had a rank-specific relationship with the number of affiliative interactions that individuals engaged in. Dominant males with large patches received fewer affiliative acts from their groupmates compared to dominant males with small patches. However, subordinates with large patches tended to receive more affiliative acts from their groupmates while performing fewer affiliative acts themselves. Taken together, our results suggest that patch size reflects interindividual variation in foraging effort in this cichlid fish and offer some of the first evidence that colorful signals may shape affiliative relationships within wild social groups.

Urinary oxytocin and cortisol concentrations vary by group type in male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in North American zoos.

Evaluating how primates in human care function within their social environment is important for understanding and optimizing their management and welfare. The neuroendocrine hormone oxytocin is associated with affiliation and bonding, suggesting it can be used to evaluate the affiliative nature of social groupings. When paired with cortisol concentrations, social stressors can simultaneously be assessed, providing a more complete picture of primate social environments than if measuring either hormone independently. Here, we measured both oxytocin and cortisol in urine within a large subset of male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla; n = 71) living in North American zoos. Both endocrine measures were compared between social group types, with an emphasis on comparing bachelor and mixed-sex groupings to understand how these broad management practices affect male gorillas in zoos. Oxytocin concentrations were greater in bachelor group males than mixed-sex group males and singly housed males, providing physiological evidence that males in bachelor groups form comparatively stronger affiliative relationships than males in other group types. Cortisol concentrations did not differ between bachelor and mixed-sex group males and males in both group types had lower cortisol concentrations than singly housed males. These results indicate that males are similarly capable of coping with group-specific social stressors, and single management may expose males to additional stressors for which further study is needed. These data contribute to a larger body of research highlighting the value of bachelor groups from both a population management and individual welfare perspective.

Social Processing in Eating Disorders: Neuroimaging Paradigms and Research Domain Organizational Constructs.

Social and environmental factors have been related to both symptom expression of disordered eating in individuals and changes in the prevalence of eating disorders (EDs) in populations. Neural differences in processing social information may contribute to EDs. This review assesses the evidence for aberrant neural responses during social processing in EDs. This review examines how constructs within the social processing domain have been evaluated by neuroimaging paradigms in EDs, including communication, affiliation, and understanding of both oneself and others. Differences related to social processing in EDs include altered processing for self-relevant stimuli, in the context of identity, valence, expectations, and affiliative relationships. Future work is needed to integrate how differences in processing social stimuli relate to alterations in cognitive control and reward as well as specific disordered eating symptoms.

Measuring effectiveness of movement-based three-way decision using fuzzy Markov model

In the trisecting-acting-outcome (TAO) model of three-way decision (3WD), the typical outcome measures approach is to estimate the difference before and after some strategies acted on the tripartition, regardless of whether it is good or bad. That is, it has not yet had the feature of strategy selection based on the prediction of outcomes. We employ fuzzy Markov to model the effectiveness prediction and analysis for the movement-based three-way decision (M-3WD) to solve this problem. In particular, this work first constructs a correspondence between the tripartition generated by each movement and the states in the Markov model. And then, we propose a fuzzy set represented by a trisection to deliver the satisfaction level of the decision-maker, whose three elements are U+(k)˜, U∼(k)˜, U−(k)˜, corresponding to satisfied, uncertain, and unsatisfied. Further, the affiliation relationship between the state-changing produced by each movement and the satisfaction set is defined as the strategy effectiveness index. With the help of the characteristics of the fuzzy Markov model, it predicts effectiveness, thus avoiding the execution of ineffective and low-efficiency strategies. Finally, we offer an example to illustrate the validity and foresight of the proposed approach.

Reduced injury risk links sociality to survival in a group-living primate

Sociality has been linked to a longer lifespan in many mammals, including humans. Yet, how sociality results in survival benefits remains unclear. Using 10 years of data and over 1,000 recorded injuries in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), we tested two injury-related mechanisms by which social status and affiliative partners might influence survival. Injuries increased individual risk of death by 3-fold in this dataset. We found that sociality can affect individuals' survival by reducing their risk of injury but had no effect on the probability of injured individuals dying. Both males and females of high social status (measured as female matrilineal rank and male group tenure) and females with more affiliative partners (estimated using the number of female relatives) experienced fewer injuries and thus were less likely to die. Collectively, our results offer rare insights into one mechanism that can mediate the well-known benefits of sociality on an individual's fitness.

Asymptotic theory in bipartite graph models with a growing number of parameters

AbstractAffiliation networks contain a set of actors and a set of events, where edges denote the affiliation relationships between actors and events. Here, we introduce a class of affiliation network models for modelling the degree heterogeneity, where two sets of degree parameters are used to measure the activeness of actors and the popularity of events, respectively. We develop the moment method to infer these degree parameters. We establish a unified theoretical framework in which the consistency and asymptotic normality of the moment estimator hold as the numbers of actors and events both go to infinity. We apply our results to several popular models with weighted edges, including generalized ‐, Poisson and Rayleigh models. Simulation studies and a realistic example that involves the Poisson model provide concrete evidence that supports our theoretical findings.

Weighting Research on the First-Class Curriculum Evaluation System of Landscape Architecture Based on the Analytic Network Process Method

China has been implementing a brand-new reform in agricultural education and teaching, and the construction of a first-class curriculum is an important guarantee for improving teaching quality and talent training. In line with the survey results of senior students from the field of landscape architecture, 15 frequent elements are selected, namely, teaching team, teaching strategy, teaching method, curriculum ideology and politics, online teaching, offline teaching informatization, teaching material resources, hardware resources, social resources, curriculum structure, teaching process, curriculum organization, applicability, foresight, innovation, and practicality. According to affiliation relationships, they are then classified into five clusters, which are curriculum intelligence support, informatization, resources, normalization, and content. By adopting the analytic network process method and using the super decision software, the hierarchical network model reflecting the dependence and feedback relationship between elements is established. The research results show that, among the five clusters, curriculum content and intelligence support weight relatively are high, which account for 67% of the total weight. The elements of the teaching team, online teaching, teaching material resources, teaching process normalization, and applicability and practicality of curriculum content weigh high, respectively, among the clusters. In the overall ranking of the system weight, the weights of three elements exceed 0.1, namely, the teaching team, content practicability, and teaching process normalization. The weights of the top eight elements account for approximately 85% of the total weight. This study can be used as a reference for the optimal allocation of curriculum construction resources.

Relation Extraction of Domain Knowledge Entities for Safety Risk Management in Metro Construction Projects

Gathering experience and organizing knowledge from a large number of engineering construction projects is conducive to more effective and efficient safety risk management in construction projects. Metro construction practitioners often find it difficult to determine what professional knowledge is needed to establish better management. By constructing the knowledge structure of safety risk management, which is composed of domain knowledge entities (DKEs) and their hierarchical relations, practitioners can systematically master the knowledge of safety management, enhance safety management levels, and reduce the occurrence of accidents. Traditionally, domain knowledge structure was determined by experts, the mistakes occur due to the limitations of individual knowledge, and high time costs are unavoidable due to the massive amount of data. Therefore, in this study, we used a rule-based Chinese-language natural language processing (C-NLP) method to automatically extract the hierarchical relations between DKEs from a large dataset of unstructured text documents; we aimed to clarify the affiliation relationship and parallel relationship between DKEs. First, 68,817 sources of literature written in Chinese were collected. Next, the specific syntactic structures of relations of the DKEs were analyzed. Hierarchical extraction rules, including 16 hyponymic indicators and 8 appositive indicators, were revealed based on the linguistic characteristics. Then, the relations were extracted from test dataset. The precision and recall values were used to verify the model. Finally, the hierarchical relations of all the DKEs were extracted, and the knowledge structure was formed. The proposed method of hierarchical relation extraction contributes to the quick automatic construction of knowledge structures and minimizes expert bias. The knowledge structures can be used to guide safety training and can assist practitioners in safety risk management.

Chimpanzees organize their social relationships like humans

Human relationships are structured in a set of layers, ordered from higher (intimate relationships) to lower (acquaintances) emotional and cognitive intensity. This structure arises from the limits of our cognitive capacity and the different amounts of resources required by different relationships. However, it is unknown whether nonhuman primate species organize their affiliative relationships following the same pattern. We here show that the time chimpanzees devote to grooming other individuals is well described by the same model used for human relationships, supporting the existence of similar social signatures for both humans and chimpanzees. Furthermore, the relationship structure depends on group size as predicted by the model, the proportion of high-intensity connections being larger for smaller groups.

Research on the emission reduction effects of carbon trading mechanism on power industry: plant-level evidence from China

PurposeCarbon trading mechanism has been adopted to foster the green transformation of the economy on a global scale, but its effectiveness for the power industry remains controversial. Given that energy-related greenhouse gas emissions account for most of all anthropogenic emissions, this paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of this trading mechanism at the plant level to support relevant decision-making and mechanism design.Design/methodology/approachThis paper constructs a novel spatiotemporal data set by matching satellite-based high-resolution (1 × 1 km) CO2 and PM2.5 emission data with accurate geolocation of power plants. It then applies a difference-in-differences model to analyse the impact of carbon trading mechanism on emission reduction for the power industry in China from 2007 to 2016.FindingsResults suggest that the carbon trading mechanism induces 2.7% of CO2 emission reduction and 6.7% of PM2.5 emission reduction in power plants in pilot areas on average. However, the reduction effect is significant only in coal-fired power plants but not in gas-fired power plants. Besides, the reduction effect is significant for power plants operated with different technologies and is more pronounced for those with outdated production technology, indicating the strong potential for green development of backward power plants. The reduction effect is also more intense for power plants without affiliation relationships than those affiliated with particular manufacturers.Originality/valueThis paper identifies the causal relationship between the carbon trading mechanism and emission reduction in the power industry by providing an innovative methodology for identifying plant-level emissions based on high-resolution satellite data, which has been practically absent in previous studies. It serves as a reference for stakeholders involved in detailed policy formulation and execution, including policymakers, power plant managers and green investors.

Fission-fusion dynamics in a wild group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) on Kinkazan Island caused by the repeated separation of an alpha male being followed by females.

The spatiotemporal cohesion of a group is an essential element of primate society. It is thus important to clarify the factors that influence the extent of variation in spatial cohesion and individual membership in a group over time, known as fission-fusion dynamics. During the mating season of 2019, the alpha male (TY) in a wild group of Japanese macaques on Kinkazan Island repeatedly disappeared from the group, and we observed fission-fusion dynamics caused by his movement. The group seemed to have split when TY left the group or its home range, and females who followed him had the most affiliative relationships with TY or were the relatives of those females. Although TY disappeared from the group in the post-mating season, these fission-fusion dynamics only occurred during the mating season probably because females had a more substantial need for protection against aggression from the other males during the mating season. These results indicate that, although rare, fission-fusion dynamics based on affiliative relationships between males and females can occur with the separation of alpha males from the group. More studies in other populations are needed to clarify the influence of group males on the spatial cohesion of groups.

Construct validation of narrative coherence: Exploring links with personality functioning and psychopathology.

Narrative coherence serves as an index of the unity in an individual's sense of self-integrating their past self with their present self and allowing them to pursue meaningful goals for their future. It has been assessed using the Life Story Interview. Personality functioning is used to describe an individual's ability to develop stable and integrated representations of the self and others as well as their ability to develop and maintain stable, intimate, and affiliative relationships and meaningfully empathize with others. We studied the links between narrative coherence (based on Life Story Interviews) and personality functioning (as indexed by clinician ratings using the Levels of Personality Functioning Scale) in a psychiatric sample (N = 134) and more generally studied the nomological net surrounding narrative coherence. Contrary to predictions, results revealed that narrative coherence does not serve as a marker of personality functioning. However, we found evidence of an association between narrative coherence and measures of extraversion and psychosocial functioning. This study represents an important step in integrating narrative identity with empirically derived structural models of personality pathology and psychopathology. Implications for future research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Observing the nature of relationships in male bottlenose dolphins

As long-term studies reveal, bottlenose dolphin communities comprise a complex network of individual relationships. Individuals form strong bonds (e.g., mother-calf or male partnerships), transient relationships, and also compete against each other for resources. Evidence of bonded partnerships is typically revealed by the years-long study of associations with repeated sightings. However, quickly determining which individuals have close affiliations would benefit both field researchers working to describe individual behavior as they engage in cognitive activities such as cooperative foraging as well as caregivers in zoos who must decide which individuals should be housed together. Observations in aquariums are well-suited for collecting long-term, detailed information on how pairs interact because subjects can always be found and their behavior both above and below the water can be seen well. These are conditions that are rare for most (but not all) ocean-based studies. We used multiple measures to detect affiliated behavior across several dimensions of pairwise affiliation. Specifically, we used association indices to measure the frequency of affiliative behavior, the symmetry of the partnership, the tenor of interactions, and the stability of which partners were strongly affiliated from year to year. Synchronous behavior and reciprocity in proximity-seeking are two examples of potential markers of an affiliative relationship where individual choices–to join, to move together, and to leave–are visible to observers. We found that the combined measures were effective at identifying one pair that maintained a strong, stable relationship across years, one individual that formed a moderately strong trio relationship with both members of the most-affiliated pair, and one individual who was more variable in his relationships. These social markers provide a means of rapidly identifying bonded males in both aquarium and ocean settings, particularly when long-term knowledge of individual histories is not available.

Children's affiliation toward peers reflected in their picture drawings.

Previous studies have demonstrated that a picture-drawing task can be an indicator of the affiliation children have with their peers. When a child draws himself/herself along with a peer, the distance between them is assumed to represent the extent of the affiliation held by the child toward the peer: the shorter the distance is, the more affiliation the child has. However, some issues remain before the picture-drawing task is established as a way to measure children's affiliation, including the possibility that the instructions might bias the children's responses (Thomas & Gray, 1992), and inconsistency over where to measure in the children's drawings (e.g., Song et al., 2015). In this study, we focused on the above two issues and addressed whether the picture-drawing task can be used for measuring children's affiliation toward peers. We conducted our study in Japanese nursery schools with 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 676), who drew pictures of themselves and a classmate. Teachers rated how much the children had played with the drawn peer. We found that the more a child had an affiliative relationship with a peer, the shorter the distance between the drawn child and peer was when measuring the closest points and the center between the two drawn figures. Our research sheds light on the validity of the picture-drawing task for measuring children's affiliation.

Does workplace humour influence work engagement? The role of workplace fun

ABSTRACT Workplace humour is particularly prevalent in the hotel industry. However, the effect of workplace humour on outcome variables remains unclear. To fill this research gap, this study investigated the association between workplace humour and work engagement and analyzed the mediating role of workplace fun. Accordingly, data from 305 full-time hotel employees showed that affiliative humour has a positive influence on workplace fun. Furthermore, aggressive humour has a negative influence on customer interactions. Fun activities, manager support for fun, and customer interaction mediate the affiliative humour-work engagement relationship. Only customer interaction mediates the aggressive humour-work engagement relationship. Moreover, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the study findings.

Eyeblink rate as an indicator of concentration on grooming in Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata).

In primates, social relationships with a high frequency of social grooming are referred to as "affiliate relationships," "friendship," "bonding," and are described as involving positive emotion. However, the psychological state during social grooming has not been fully understood. In this study, I focused on blinking as a behavior that reflects psychological state during grooming in Macaca fuscata, a nonhuman wild primate, and examined for the first time whether the blink rate reflects concentration on social grooming. To test this hypothesis, I focused on ectoparasite removals during social grooming with the following three predictions: (1) blinks are synchronized with breakpoints (when monkeys can release visual attention) of mouthing ectoparasites during grooming, (2) the blink rate is lower during grooming (when requiring visual concentration) than during resting (when no visual concentration is required), and (3) the lower the blink rate during grooming (supposedly in high concentration), the higher the frequency of ectoparasites removals (outputs of the task). I recorded the faces of 10 wild female Japanese macaques on Kinkazan Island, Miyagi Prefecture, with video, while they were resting and grooming, and recorded the timing and frequency of eyeblink and ectoparasite removals. All three predictions were supported, suggesting that the blink rate during grooming can be an indicator of concentration on grooming in nonhuman primates. Whether grooming concentration is associated with an affiliative relationship with the grooming partner is an issue that should be carefully examined in future studies, but eyeblink studies may provide new perspectives for understanding the psychological state of individuals during grooming in a noninvasive manner.

Male-male social bonding, coalitionary support and reproductive success in wild Guinea baboons.

Male–male bonds may confer substantial fitness benefits. The adaptive value of these relationships is often attributed to coalitionary support, which aids in rank ascension and female defence, ultimately resulting in greater reproductive success. We investigated the link between male–male sociality and both coalitionary support and reproductive success in wild Guinea baboons. This species lives in a tolerant multi-level society with reproductive units comprising a male and 1–6 females at the core. Males are philopatric, form differentiated, stable and equitable affiliative relationships (strong bonds) with other males, and lack a clear rank hierarchy. Here, we analysed behavioural and paternity data for 30 males and 50 infants collected over 4 years in the Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal. Strongly bonded males supported each other more frequently during conflicts, but strong bonds did not promote reproductive success. Instead, males that spent less time socializing with other males were associated with a higher number of females and sired more offspring. Notably, reproductively active males still maintained bonds with other males, but adjusted their social investment in relation to life-history stage. Long-term data will be needed to test if the adaptive value of male bonding lies in longer male tenure and/or in promoting group cohesion.

Stronger maternal social bonds and higher rank are associated with accelerated infant maturation in Kinda baboons

Social relationships are critical components of health and fitness for humans and other animals. For female-philopatric species, affiliative relationships among females (kin and nonkin alike) can influence components of fitness that include individual survival, interbirth interval and offspring survival. Affiliative relationships with males have attracted somewhat less attention, with most studies focusing on female–male relationships as adaptations for infanticide avoidance. Here, we use 8 years of behavioural data on Kinda baboons, Papio kindae , to assess whether maternal social relationships—both among females and between females and males—affect infant survival, interbirth interval and the pace of infant development. Kinda baboons are an ideal system for these analyses because males and females form strong relationships outside of the periovulatory period and in the absence of obvious infanticide threat. We calculated social metrics that reflected dominance status, total social integration and social bond strength and paired these metrics with data on offspring survival, interbirth interval (IBI) duration and infant behavioural maturation. Neither dominance rank nor sociality had a significant effect on interbirth interval or survival, but higher rank and the stronger affiliative relationships between a female and her top female and top male social partners predicted more rapid infant behavioural maturation. These results suggest that maternal dominance and sociality may confer advantages related to infant development and independence that ultimately may permit females to more quickly invest in subsequent offspring and point to advantages of relationships with males outside of lowering infanticide threat. • Kinda baboon female–male bonds persist outside of fertility or infanticide threat. • Social bonds did not affect interbirth interval or infant survival and growth. • Dominance and affiliative bonds predicted more rapid infant development. • Top-partner bonds were the strongest predictors of infant development. • Strong maternal bonds with females and males enhanced infant development.

Mothers stick together: how the death of an infant affects female social relationships in a group of wild bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Sociality is widespread among group-living primates and is beneficial in many ways. Sociality amongst female bonobos (Pan paniscus) has been proposed to have evolved as a female counterstrategy to male infanticide and sexual coercion. In male-philopatric bonobo societies, females mostly form relationships with unrelated females. Among these social relationships, it has been proposed that females with infants (also referred to as mothers) tend to have strong relationships with each other (mother-bonding hypothesis). In this paper, we use the case of an infant death in a group of wild bonobos in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve, Democratic Republic of Congo, to test this hypothesis. By using dyadic sociality indices for grooming, proximity, and aggression, we investigated whether the infant death influenced dyadic relationships the mother had with other group members. Before the infant death, grooming index (GI) and proximity index (PI) scores were the highest between the focal mother and another mother. After the death, the relationship of this mother dyad weakened, as indicated by lower GI and PI scores, whereas the relationship of another mother dyad became stronger. Aggression index scores among the mothers were comparable before and after the death, suggesting that changes in mother affiliative relationships were not a by-product of changes in overall interaction frequencies. Also, PI scores increased between the focal mother and three non-mothers after the death. Collectively, the shift in social dynamics between the focal mother and other group members after the infant death partially supported the mother-bonding hypothesis.

Sex differences in audience effects on anogenital scent marking in the red-fronted lemur

How the presence of conspecifics affects scent mark deposition remains an understudied aspect of olfactory communication, even though scent marking occurs in different social contexts. Sex differences in scent-marking behaviour are common, and sex-specific effects of the audience could therefore be expected. We investigated sex differences in intra-group audience effects on anogenital scent marking in four groups of wild red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) by performing focal scent-marking observations. We observed a total of 327 events divided into 223 anogenital scent-marking events and 104 pass-by events (i.e. passage without scent marking). Using a combination of generalised linear mixed models and exponential random graph models, we found that scent marking in red-fronted lemurs is associated with some behavioural flexibility linked to the composition of the audience at the time of scent deposition. In particular, our study revealed sex differences in the audience effects, with males being overall more sensitive to their audience than females. Moreover, we show that these audience effects were dependent on the relative degree of social integration of the focal individual compared to that of individuals in the audience (difference in Composite Sociality Index) as well as the strength of the dyadic affiliative relationship (rank of Dyadic Composite Sociality Index within the group). The audience effects also varied as a function of the audience radius considered. Hence, we showed that scent marking in red-fronted lemurs is associated with some behavioural flexibility linked to the composition of the audience, ascribing red-fronted lemurs’ social competence in this context.