Social Individual Behavior Research Articles

Before the Decalogue: In Search of the Oldest Written Torah

Abstract: Taking its cue from the earliest reference to written torah (Hos 8:12), this article seeks to identify the content and purpose of the oldest written tôrôt . I focus on quotations from “temple-entry liturgies” or temple tôrôt (Hos 4:2; Jer 7:9; Ps 50:18– 19; 81:9–11) and compare them with the Decalogue (Deut 5:17; Exod 20:13). It turns out that the Decalogue had a forerunner consisting of a small set of apodictic rules about individual social behavior. This prequel to the Decalogue had its origins in the sanctuaries of the Northern Kingdom. Though the various instances of temple torah were in origin oral performances, they had a material counterpart in written copies of a proto-Decalogue. These were monumental texts on display in several Israelite temples. In some respects they compare to the Balaam text from Deir ‘Alla and the theophany text from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud; in other respects they compare to the copies of Hammurabi’s Code present in the temples of Babylon and Sippar. What distinsguishes them from these texts, however, is their terseness and their claim to be copies of an original that was handwritten by God.

Family caregiver’s concerns and anxiety about unaccompanied out-of-home activities of persons with cognitive impairment

BackgroundAlthough people with cognitive impairment highly value social participation in out-of-home activities, their families typically perceive concerns and experience anxiety over such activities. This study aimed to elucidate the underlying concerns and factors associated with family caregivers’ anxiety over the individual’s unaccompanied out-of-home activities.MethodsIn December 2021, we conducted a cross-sectional e-survey of family caregivers of individuals with early-stage cognitive impairment. Caregivers’ concerns about ten common risks related to out-of-home activities were cross-tabulated by specific anxiety levels to examine trend associations. With the variables of caregivers and their individuals across the five domains, we ran logistic regression analyses to determine explanatory models for anxiety.ResultsThe study participants were 1,322 family caregivers of people whose cognitive function varied from intact to possible mild dementia according to the Dementia Assessment Sheet for Community-based Integrated Care System 8-item. Significant associations were found between the prevalence of concerns and the degree of anxiety, even without actual experience with the issues of concern. Among the five domains, individual dementia characteristics and social behaviors were the predominant factors attributed to caregiver anxiety. Caregivers’ no anxiety state was significantly associated with: younger age (OR 4.43, 95% CI 1.81–10.81), no detectable cognitive decline (OR 3.34, 95% CI 1.97–5.64), free from long-term care (LTC) (OR 3.52, 95% CI 1.72–7.21), no manifestation of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) (OR 13.22, 95% CI 3.06–57.01), and not engaging in unaccompanied out-of-home activities (OR 3.15, 95% CI 1.87–5.31). Their severe anxiety was positively associated with being on LTC (OR 3.39, 95% CI 2.43–4.72) and minor BPSD (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.05–1.95), and negatively associated with engagement in unaccompanied out-of-home activities (OR 0.31, 95% CI 0.23–0.43).ConclusionsThe study found that family caregivers’ anxiety was associated with concerns about behavioral issues, regardless of actual experiences. There were two significant associations in opposite directions between caregivers’ anxiety and the individual’s engagement in out-of-home activities. In the early phase of cognitive impairment, caregivers may intuitively interpret the individual’s behavior and feel anxious. Educational support may provide reassurance and enable caregivers to facilitate out-of-home activities.

The (surprising) importance of males in a matrilineal society: behavioural insights from a topological knockout study

Social group structure often has consequences for individual fitness and ecological and evolutionary processes, but group structure is not fixed because of demographic processes: individuals die, disperse or are recruited into social groups. Thus, it is important to understand how demographic social roles and the loss of individuals with different roles modify group structure. We studied yellow-bellied marmots, Marmota flaviventer, and performed a series of statistical/topological knockouts on observed marmot social networks to investigate how the social roles of individuals from specific age–sex categories (adult/yearling, males/females) contribute to group social structure and to ask whether the loss of different roles has varying structural effects. We focused on five central aspects of overall social structure: density, the global clustering coefficient, reciprocity, global degree centrality and the coefficient of variation of strength. Somewhat surprisingly, given that marmots live in matrilines, our knockout results suggested that males played a key role in shaping networks: yearling males were a key cohesive element and adult males were central players in agonistic networks. Thus, social networks are dynamic and their structure is shaped in the interplay of demographic processes and individual social behaviour.

Factors Affecting Employability of Patients with Schizophrenia who had First Participated in Vocational Training: A Pilot Study.

While vocational training may offer financial and health benefits for patients with schizophrenia (PwS), further empirical research is required to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention for PwS, as well as the factors influencing their employability. This study aimed to (i) identify the factors affecting the employability of PwS who had participated in vocational training and (ii) examine the effectiveness of vocational training. This prospective cohort study was conducted in a community rehabilitation center attached to a psychiatric hospital in southern Taiwan that provides vocational training. The participants completed two questionnaires: (i) a pre-test that served as the study's baseline; (ii) a post-test during a follow-up 12 months later. The questionnaire was divided into three parts: (i) participants' basic information, (ii) the work performance scale, and (iii) the mental state measure. The participants included 35 males and 30 females, with the average age being 45.85 years. The significant factors affecting their employability were social support, work behavior, thinking disorder, and cognitive impairment. In other words, participants with better social support, work behavior, and fewer thought disorders and cognitive impairment were more employable. Their work attitude and ability were found to have significantly improved after having participated in vocational training for 12 months. In conclusion, when conducting vocational training in the future, it is necessary to pay attention to individual participants' social support and work behavior and reduce thinking disorders and cognitive impairments. This may help improve the employability of PwS.

Impact of public sentiments on the transmission of COVID-19 across a geographical gradient.

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a recently discovered, novel coronavirus, SARS-COV-2. The disease has led to over 81 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with close to two million deaths. In the current social climate, the risk of COVID-19 infection is driven by individual and public perception of risk and sentiments. A number of factors influences public perception, including an individual's belief system, prior knowledge about a disease and information about a disease. In this article, we develop a model for COVID-19 using a system of ordinary differential equations following the natural history of the infection. The model uniquely incorporates social behavioral aspects such as quarantine and quarantine violation. The model is further driven by people's sentiments (positive and negative) which accounts for the influence of disinformation. People's sentiments were obtained by parsing through and analyzing COVID-19 related tweets from Twitter, a social media platform across six countries. Our results show that our model incorporating public sentiments is able to capture the trend in the trajectory of the epidemic curve of the reported cases. Furthermore, our results show that positive public sentiments reduce disease burden in the community. Our results also show that quarantine violation and early discharge of the infected population amplifies the disease burden on the community. Hence, it is important to account for public sentiment and individual social behavior in epidemic models developed to study diseases like COVID-19.

PerCLTV: A General System for Personalized Customer Lifetime Value Prediction in Online Games

Online games make up the largest segment of the booming global game market in terms of revenue as well as players. Unlike games that sell games at one time for profit, online games make money from in-game purchases by a large number of engaged players. Therefore, Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is particularly vital for game companies to improve marketing decisions and increase game revenues. Nowadays, as virtual game worlds are becoming increasingly innovative, complex, and diverse, the CLTV of massive players is highly personalized. That is, different players may have very different patterns of CLTV, especially on churn and payment. However, current solutions are inadequate in terms of personalization and thus limit predictive performance. First, most methods just attempt to address either task of CLTV, i.e., churn or payment, and only consider the personalization from one of them. Second, the correlation between churn and payment has not received enough attention and its personalization has not been fully explored yet. Last, most solutions around this line are conducted based on historical data where the evaluation is not convincing enough without real-world tests. To tackle these problems, we propose a general system to predict personalized customer lifetime value in online games, named perCLTV. To be specific, we revisit the personalized CLTV prediction problem from the two sub-tasks of churn prediction and payment prediction in a sequential gated multi-task learning fashion. On this basis, we develop a generalized framework to model CLTV across games in distinct genres by heterogeneous player behavior data, including individual behavior sequential data and social behavior graph data. Comprehensive experiments on three real-world datasets validate the effectiveness and rationality of perCLTV, which significantly outperforms other baseline methods. Our work has been implemented and deployed in many online games released from NetEase Games. Online A/B testing in production shows that perCLTV achieves a prominent improvement in two precision marketing applications of popup recommendation and churn intervention.

Differences in the behavior and diet between shoaling and solitary surgeonfish (Acanthurus triostegus).

Variation in behavior within marine and terrestrial species can influence the functioning of the ecosystems they inhabit. However, the contribution of social behavior to ecosystem function remains underexplored. Many coral reef fish species provide potentially insightful models for exploring how social behavior shapes ecological function because they exhibit radical intraspecific variation in sociality within a shared habitat. Here, we provide an empirical exploration on how the ecological function of a shoaling surgeonfish (Acanthurus triostegus) may differ from that of solitary conspecifics on two Pacific coral reefs combining insight from behavioral observations, stable isotope analysis, and macronutrient analysis of gut and fecal matter. We detected important differences in how the social mode of A.triostegus affected its spatial and feeding ecology, as well as that of other reef fish species. Specifically, we found increased distance traveled and area covered by shoaling fish relative to solitary A.triostegus. Additionally, shoaling A.triostegus primarily grazed within territories of other herbivorous fish and had piscivorous and nonpiscivorous heterospecific fish associated with the shoal, while solitary A.triostegus grazed largely grazed outside of any territories and did not have any such interactions with heterospecific fish. Results from stable isotope analysis show a difference in δ15N isotopes between shoaling and solitary fish, which suggests that these different social modes are persistent. Further, we found a strong interaction between social behavior and site and carbohydrate and protein percentages in the macronutrient analysis, indicating that these differences in sociality are associated with measurable differences in both the feeding ecology and nutrient excretion patterns. Our study suggests that the social behavior of individuals may play an important and underappreciated role in mediating their ecological function.

The Influence of COVID-19 in Endocrine Research: Critical Overview, Methodological Implications and a Guideline for Future Designs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of people's lives, including not only individual social behavior, healthcare procedures, and altered physiological and pathophysiological responses. As a result, some medical studies may be influenced by one or more hidden factors brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the literature review method, we are briefly discussing the studies that are confounded by COVID-19 and facemask-induced partiality and how these factors can be further complicated with other confounding variables. Facemask wearing has been reported to produce partiality in studies of ophthalmology (particularly dry eye and related ocular diseases), sleep studies, cognitive studies (such as emotion-recognition accuracy research, etc.), and gender-influenced studies, to mention a few. There is a possibility that some other COVID-19 related influences remain unrecognized in medical research. To account for heterogeneity, current and future studies need to consider the severity of the initial illness (such as diabetes, other endocrine disorders), and COVID-19 infection, the timing of analysis, or the presence of a control group. Face mask-induced influences may confound the results of diabetes studies in many ways.

Internet of Behavior: Types, models, principles

This article presents a general view and conceptualization of the Internet of Behavior from a social science perspective. The Internet of Behavior (IoB) is defined as a technology for machine monitoring, recognizing, and responding to human behavior (including emotion expression and biometrics). Based on the analysis of a typical case in higher education, the article forms the conceptual outline of social research on IoB by highlighting the types, possible models, and principles of IoB implementation. The study identifies three models of IoB: binary (based on checking the compliance of an individual’s behavior with the norm and his or her identification), medical (based on determining the physiological causes of certain human actions), and social (focused on identifying the features of human social behavior in addressing professional or other public problems). Monitoring, summarizing, and evaluating students’ social behavior potentially allows the implementation of new models of interaction between universities, employers, and students, based on the digitization and monetization of student engagement in learning and the responsibility of universities for the demand for graduates. The implementation of these models will lead to a profound transformation of higher education, including the digital servitization of education, the reduction of the established gap between knowledge and the social interactions associated with the generation, translation, and assimilation of this knowledge, and the inclusion of individual social behavior associated with professional knowledge in the list of those aspects of society that are subject to digitization and monetization. The basic principles of social IoB, without observance of which this technology can lead to anti-human consequences, are defined: privacy, multivalency of interpretation, continuity, relevance, and reflexivity.

Assessing the drivers of gut microbiome composition in wild redfronted lemurs via longitudinal metacommunity analysis

The gut microbiome influences host’s immunity, development, and metabolism and participates in the gut–brain axis, thus impacting the health of the host. It is a dynamic community varying between individuals and within individuals at different time points. Hence, determining the factors causing this variability may elucidate their impact on host’s health. However, understanding the drivers of variation has proven difficult particularly as multiple interactions occur simultaneously in the gut microbiome. We investigated the factors shaping the gut microbiome by applying the metacommunity concept where the gut microbiome is considered as a microbial community shaped by the interactions within the community, with the host and microbial communities outside the host, this through a longitudinal study in a wild primate. Focal behavioral data were collected for 1 year in four groups of redfronted lemurs to determine individual social and feeding behaviors. In addition, regular fecal samples were collected to assess bacteria, protozoa, and helminths through marker gene analysis and to measure fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations to investigate the impact of physiological stress on the gut microbiome. Higher consumption of leaves and elevated fGCM concentrations correlated with higher alpha diversity, which also differed among groups. The major drivers of variation in beta diversity were group membership, precipitation and fGCM concentrations. We found positive and negative associations between bacterial genera and almost all studied factors. Correlations between bacterial indicator networks and social networks indicate transmission of bacteria between interacting individuals. We detected that processes occurring inside the gut environment are shaping the gut microbiome. Host associated factors such as, HPA axis, dietary changes, and fluctuations in water availability had a greater impact than interactions within the microbial community. The interplay with microbial communities outside the host also shape the gut microbiome through the exchange of bacteria through social relationships between individuals and the acquisition of microorganisms from environmental water sources.

Multilevel selection on social network traits differs between sexes in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles

Both individual and group behavior can influence individual fitness, but multilevel selection is rarely quantified on social behaviors. Social networks provide a unique opportunity to study multilevel selection on social behaviors, as they describe complex social traits and patterns of interaction at both the individual and group levels. In this study, we used contextual analysis to measure the consequences of both individual network position and group network structure on individual fitness in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles (Bolitotherus cornutus) with two different resource distributions. We found that males with high individual connectivity (strength) and centrality (betweenness) had higher mating success. However, group network structure did not influence their mating success. Conversely, we found that individual network position had no effect on female reproductive success but that females in populations with many social interactions experienced lower reproductive success. The strength of individual-level selection in males and group-level selection in females intensified when resources were clumped together, showing that habitat structure influences multilevel selection. Individual and emergent group social behavior both influence variation in components of individual fitness, but impact the male mating success and female reproductive success differently, setting up intersexual conflicts over patterns of social interactions at multiple levels.

Verbal communication apprehension phenomenon

The influence of communication apprehension on an individual's academic achievement and social behaviour has not been investigated until quite recently. The present article presents a review of existing literature on this important phenomenon.

Sociability in a non-captive macaque population is associated with beneficial gut bacteria.

The relationship between social behaviour and the microbiome is known to be reciprocal. Research in wild animal populations, particularly in primate social groups, has revealed the role that social interactions play in microbial transmission, whilst studies in laboratory animals have demonstrated that the gut microbiome can affect multiple aspects of behaviour, including social behaviour. Here we explore behavioural variation in a non-captive animal population with respect to the abundance of specific bacterial genera. Social behaviour based on grooming interactions is assessed in a population of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), and combined with gut microbiome data. We focus our analyses on microbiome genera previously linked to sociability and autistic behaviours in rodents and humans. We show in this macaque population that some of these genera are also related to an individual's propensity to engage in social interactions. Interestingly, we find that several of the genera positively related to sociability, such as Faecalibacterium, are well known for their beneficial effects on health and their anti-inflammatory properties. In contrast, the genus Streptococcus, which includes pathogenic species, is more abundant in less sociable macaques. Our results indicate that microorganisms whose abundance varies with individual social behaviour also have functional links to host immune status. Overall, these findings highlight the connections between social behaviour, microbiome composition, and health in an animal population.

Experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan leads to a lasting increase in social distancing

On 11th Jan 2020, the first COVID-19 related death was confirmed in Wuhan, Hubei. The Chinese government responded to the outbreak with a lockdown that impacted most residents of Hubei province and lasted for almost three months. At the time, the lockdown was the strictest both within China and worldwide. Using an interactive web-based experiment conducted half a year after the lockdown with participants from 11 Chinese provinces, we investigate the behavioral effects of this ‘shock’ event experienced by the population of Hubei. We find that both one’s place of residence and the strictness of lockdown measures in their province are robust predictors of individual social distancing behavior. Further, we observe that informational messages are effective at increasing compliance with social distancing throughout China, whereas fines for noncompliance work better within Hubei province relative to the rest of the country. We also report that residents of Hubei increase their propensity to social distance when exposed to social environments characterized by the presence of a superspreader, while the effect is not present outside of the province. Our results appear to be specific to the context of COVID-19 and are not explained by general differences in risk attitudes and social preferences.

Is social capital associated with individual social responsibility? The case of social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Individual social responsibility is essential to achieving the sustainable development goals of the society, yet there has been very little research on whether and how social and cultural factors influence individual social responsibility. Using the Covid-19 pandemic as our empirical context, this research examines the relationship between social capital and individual social distancing behaviors during the pandemic. Social distancing is a form of socially responsible behavior because it is critical in mitigating the spread of the Covid-19 virus. By exploiting daily mobile GPS location data, we provide strong evidence for the divergent relationships between the two constituents of social capital–civic norms and social networks–and social distancing behaviors. While civic norms are positively associated with social distancing, social networks have a negative association with social distancing. These results are consistent with a nuanced view of social capital: civic norms facilitate cooperation and self-sacrifice for the common good, whereas social networks increase individual embeddedness and hence inertia in maintaining social interactions, resulting in opposite effects on social distancing. Our results contribute to the research at the intersection of social capital and individual social responsibility by highlighting the nuanced effects of social capital on individual responses to the pandemic and provide valuable insights for policymakers and businesses in disaster management.

A Mini-Review Regarding the Modalities to Study Neurodevelopmental Disorders-Like Impairments in Zebrafish-Focussing on Neurobehavioural and Psychological Responses.

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are complex disorders which can be associated with many comorbidities and exhibit multifactorial-dependent phenotypes. An important characteristic is represented by the early onset of the symptoms, during childhood or young adulthood, with a great impact on the socio-cognitive functioning of the affected individuals. Thus, the aim of our review is to describe and to argue the necessity of early developmental stages zebrafish models, focusing on NDDs, especially autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and also on schizophrenia. The utility of the animal models in NDDs or schizophrenia research remains quite controversial. Relevant discussions can be opened regarding the specific characteristics of the animal models and the relationship with the etiologies, physiopathology, and development of these disorders. The zebrafish models behaviors displayed as early as during the pre-hatching embryo stage (locomotor activity prone to repetitive behavior), and post-hatching embryo stage, such as memory, perception, affective-like, and social behaviors can be relevant in ASD and schizophrenia research. The neurophysiological processes impaired in both ASD and schizophrenia are generally highly conserved across all vertebrates. However, the relatively late individual development and conscious social behavior exhibited later in the larval stage are some of the most important limitations of these model animal species.

The Relationship‘ Emotional Identification – Individual Social Behavior’ in Hearing Impaired Children Integrated into a General Education Environment

The article focuses on the relationship between emotional identification and individual social behavior in children with hearing impairment who are integrated into a general educational environment. This suggests a study of the specific characteristics of emotional identification and strategies of individual social behavior in children with hearing impairment and their hearing peers. The study involved 32 children of preschool age (N=32, 5 – 7 years of age), educated in general kindergartens. The experimental group included 14 children (heterogeneous group according to auditory status), and the control group – 18 hearing children. The following methods were used: Emotional Faces and Individual Social Behavior. The results showed that the hearing children did better in terms of basic assessment of other people’s emotions than the children with hearing impairment. It was found that negative emotions were better identified by children with hearing experience compared to their deaf peers. Moreover, the hearing impaired children, compared to the control group, are more likely to seek a peers’ attention, follow them in their activities, join their play and express positive emotions towards them. The relationship between the characteristics of emotional identification and the categories of individual social behavior was confirmed. Differences were found in the structure of the relationship between the characteristics of emotional identification and the categories of social behavior in hearing impaired and hearing children.

The behaviour and fate of translocated bull African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) into a novel environment

AbstractTranslocation of elephants is used to mitigate human‐elephant conflict in Asia and Africa. However, few studies investigate how translocations affect the movements and social behaviour of individuals following their release, which may have important implications for whether translocated animals survive and succeed. Using GPS‐tracking data, we explored movements of five translocated bull elephants (Loxodonta africana) moved to Tsavo, Kenya, and compared them with five resident bull elephants. Position data was collected hourly for 1 year (March 2018–March 2019), and analysed to investigate home range, displacement rates, problematic behaviour and group size. Of the five translocated elephants, three were illegally killed and one continued to break fences and raid crops. Only one elephant stayed away from human settlement. We found group size and composition to be significantly different, with translocated elephants observed in smaller groups with no female elephant interactions. All elephants showed variation in home ranges and displacement rates, but differences were not significant between resident and translocated elephant groups. For future translocations, we recommend careful consideration of elephant social systems, elephant age, timing, release site and proximity to human settlements that might create human‐elephant conflict. This will improve chance for success of such high‐stake and expensive translocations.

New development trends of “metaverse + psychology” blending virtual and reality

<p align="justify">Metaverse is a hot topic recently, which has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. The possible impact of the metaverse on the field of psychology includes creating a new field of panoramic learning process by creating an educational metaverse, creating a more scientific and novel teaching model by creating a MOOC metaverse, breaking the “magic circle” to alleviate interpersonal avoidance and promote individual social behavior, fostering individual self-identity by shaping the metaverse cyberpunk culture, improving the effectiveness of school mental health education by building a metaverse psychological experience center, creating a metaverse psychological intervention system based on traditional behavioral therapy to improve the effectiveness of psychological counseling, etc. However, the emerging technology represented by the metaverse is a double-edged sword. It is not only necessary to pay attention to this opportunity to create a perfect world or to create miracles, but also to guard against potential harm to the development of human society.<strong></strong></p>

New development trends of “metaverse + psychology” blending virtual and reality

<p align="justify">Metaverse is a hot topic recently, which has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. The possible impact of the metaverse on the field of psychology includes creating a new field of panoramic learning process by creating an educational metaverse, creating a more scientific and novel teaching model by creating a MOOC metaverse, breaking the “magic circle” to alleviate interpersonal avoidance and promote individual social behavior, fostering individual self-identity by shaping the metaverse cyberpunk culture, improving the effectiveness of school mental health education by building a metaverse psychological experience center, creating a metaverse psychological intervention system based on traditional behavioral therapy to improve the effectiveness of psychological counseling, etc. However, the emerging technology represented by the metaverse is a double-edged sword. It is not only necessary to pay attention to this opportunity to create a perfect world or to create miracles, but also to guard against potential harm to the development of human society.<strong></strong></p>