Shifts In Social Context Research Articles

Social context modulates how the winner effect restructures territorial behaviour in free-living woodpeckers

Animal interactions such as competition are mediated by complex social strategies, which consist of behaviours and cognitive mechanisms that guide their production. As a result, behaviour is highly flexible. This poses a challenge to understanding how competition plays out in natural systems, because the course of a contest can essentially be rewritten by prior experience and/or changes in social context. Here we addressed this gap by studying how both of these factors interact to reconfigure competitive strategies used in territorial defence by a wild bird. After experimentally inducing the winner effect, a cognitive-behavioural phenomenon in which winning a contest increases the probability of winning again in the future, we found that male red-bellied woodpeckers, Melanerpes carolinus, adopted a new social strategy marked by more flexible transitions between different aggressive displays, as well as increasing overall aggressive output. However, this effect was mitigated by the arrival of the female social mate; in response to this momentary shift in social context, males decreased their use of territorial drum displays and became less likely to move around the territory or switch display modes during competition. In other words, the winner effect increased spatiotemporal diversity of territorial strategies, such that males frequently changed their location and display output. A female's arrival, however, reversed this effect. More specifically, males tended to revert to advertisement and social vocalizations on female arrival, which suggests that the need to attend to the social mate may supersede the threat of territorial intrusion. This is consistent with a model in which competitive outcomes are impacted by the interactive effects of an individual's past experiences and shifts in present-day social context, which may allow monogamous animals to effectively manage the competing demands of driving off intruders and attending to the social mate.

Immediate early gene activation throughout the brain is associated with dynamic changes in social context

ABSTRACTSocial competence is dependent on successful processing of social context information. The social opportunity paradigm is a methodology in which dynamic shifts in social context are induced through removal of the alpha male in a dominance hierarchy, leading to rapid ascent in the hierarchy of the beta male and of other subordinate males in the social group. In the current study, we use the social opportunity paradigm to determine what brain regions respond to this dynamic change in social context, allowing an individual to recognize the absence of the alpha male and subsequently perform status-appropriate social behaviors. Replicating our previous work, we show that following removal of the alpha male, beta males rapidly ascend the social hierarchy and attain dominant status by increasing aggression towards more subordinate individuals. Analysis of patterns of Fos immunoreactivity throughout the brain indicates that in individuals undergoing social ascent, there is increased activity in regions of the social behavior network, as well as the infralimbic and prelimbic regions of the prefrontal cortex and areas of the hippocampus. Our findings demonstrate that male mice are able to respond to changes in social context and provide insight into the how the brain processes these complex behavioral changes.

An Exploration of Decision-Making Processes on Infant Delivery Site from the Perspective of Pregnant Women, New Mothers, and Their Families in Northern Karnataka, India.

This study was conducted to explore the decision-making processes regarding sites for delivery of infants among women, their husbands, and mothers-in-law in a rural area of northern Karnataka state, south India. Qualitative semi-structured, individual in-depth interviews were conducted in 2010 among 110 pregnant women, new mothers, husbands and mothers-in-law. Interviews were conducted by trained local researchers in participants' languages and then translated into English. Decisions were made relationally, as family members weighed their collective attitudes and experiences towards a home, private or public delivery. Patterns of both concordance and discordance between women and their families' preferences for delivery site were present. The voice of pregnant women and new mothers was not always subordinate to that of other family members. Still, the involvement of husbands and mothers-in-law was important in decision-making, indicating the need to consider the influence of household gender and power dynamics. All respondent types also expressed shifts in social context and cultural attitudes towards increasing preference for hospital delivery. An appreciation of the interdependence of family members' roles in delivery site decision-making, and how they are influenced by the socio-cultural context, must be considered in frameworks used to guide the development of relevant interventions to improve the utilization and quality of maternal, neonatal and child health services.

Who’s Your Daddy?

This paper provides a brief explanation and illustration of the phenomenon of semiotics. It then describes the conceptual tools of semiotics and how lawyers can use semiotics in law to create compelling arguments. Last, the paper applies the tools of semiotics to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Ferguson v. McKiernan, 940 A.2d 1236 (Pa. 2008), to reveal the shift in social context that made the lines of legal reasoning behind the outcome appear “self-evident.”

Trajectories of smoking among freshmen college students with prior smoking history and risk for future smoking: data from the University Project Tobacco Etiology Research Network (UpTERN) study

Little is known about smoking during the transition to college. The current study examined trajectories of smoking among college freshmen, how trajectories predicted later smoking and the social context of smoking. Weekly assessments of daily smoking were collected via the web during the first year of college for a large cohort with a previous history of smoking. A total of 193 college freshmen from a large public university with a previous history of smoking who smoked frequently enough to be included in trajectory analysis. Measures included weekly reports of daily smoking, family smoking, perceived peer attitudes and smoking, social norms and social smoking environment. Seven trajectories were identified: one of low-level sporadic smoking, one of low-level smoking with a small increase during the year, two classes with a substantial decrease during the year, two classes with relatively small decreases and one class with a substantial increase in smoking. Trajectories of smoking in the freshman year predicted levels of sophomore year smoking, and some social context variables tended to change as smoking increased or decreased for a given trajectory class. The transition into college is marked by changes in smoking, with smoking escalating for some students and continuing into the sophomore year. Shifts in social context that support smoking were associated with trajectories of smoking. Despite the focus of developmental models on smoking in early adolescence, the transition into college warrants further investigation as a dynamic period for smoking.

Puti kul'turnogo importa. Trudy po russkoi literature XVIII veka by Joachim s> Klein (review)

REVIEWS 309 Klein, Joachim. Puti kul'turnogo importa.Trudy po russkoiliterature XVIII veka. lazyki slavianskoikul'tury,Moscow, 2005. 576 pp. Notes. Bibliographies. Index. Price unknown. THIs is a collection of Joachim Klein's work published originally between I984 and 2003 mainly in Zeitschrift fur Slavische Philologie and XVIII vek.The firstpart of a tripartitevolume is, however, a Russian translationof his I988 monograph on the pastoral poetry of Russian classicism. The second part, prefacedwith a linkingarticle'Truba,svirel',lirai gudok(poeticheskiesimvoly russkogoklassitsisma) (I984)',gathersarticleson the three main representatives of Russian classicism, Trediakovskii, Sumarokov and Lomonosov, and the third part is devoted to their successors in the last third of the eighteenth century. In the introductionthe reader is advised that the volume is intended to be read selectively since recurrentthemes might appear needlessly repetitive if the collectionwere read frombeginningto end as a coherent argument.However , the main strengthand appeal of the collection is in its pursuanceof key, determiningfactors,identifiedin the early monograph, and common to most of the writersdiscussed.The centralfeature is that indicated in this volume's title; eighteenth-century Russian literature provides ample material for the studyof culturalimportationfromFrenchand Germansources.However, this was not passiveborrowing.In the new context of post-PetrineRussia,Western Europeanvalues developed new functionsand new associationsleading eventuallyto the formationof a distinctRussianpresence on the Europeanliterary scene. Reception, ratherthan questionsof influence, is the main concern. That reception was modified by two main factors.Firstlythe shiftin social context was considerable.The salonwith its gallantryand feminine influence that provided the natural audience for French pastoralpoetry was unknown in Russia. Indeed, in the case of the panegyric idyll, it was the seminarythat proved to be its main breedingground. Secondly, Russianpractitionersof the genre treated it not as primarily entertainment, but as a suitable medium for pursuing the polemics on the nature of a Russian literarylanguage that Klein suggestsmay be taken as a Russianvariantof the Frenchquarrelof the ancients and moderns. For Sumarokov,it is argued, the pastoralprovided a vessel for demonstratingthe validityof colloquialRussian. Furthermore,with theiroutlookguided by the optimisticspiritof the post-Petrinebelief in beneficial progressand education, the Russiansdid not reproducethe often critical tone of the European pastoral that contrastedthe bliss of bucolic ignorance with the sordidnessof contemporarysociety. These factors inform the essays in the second part. The significance of the shift of context in developing Russia's own variant of neo-classicism is illustratedby 'Reforma stikha Trediakovskogov kul'turno-istoricheskom kontekste (1995)' which shows why Trediakovskii'sverse reforms rejected French models and followed, but without any acknowledgement,the example of German reform.The importanceof Russia'scourt theatre is demonstrated in 'Lomonosov i tragediia(2002)' which explainswhy Lomonosov'stragedies, with their baroque tendencies linked with pre-classical school drama and 310 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 exotic elements, although having greater appeal for the emerging reading public than Sumarokov's,failed to meet the court's taste despite his efforts. This ensured the pre-eminence of Sumarokov as the exemplary writer of tragedies. His renown as the 'northern Racine' is explained in 'Liubov' i politikav tragediiakhSumarokova(200i)' by the Russian court's eighteenthcentury view of a 'tendreRacine' opposed to the heroic Corneille. Two articleson Sumarokov'smediation of Boileau's L'Art poetique,'RusskiiBualo? EpistolaSumarokova"O stikhotvortse" v retsepsiisovremmenikov(1993)' and 'Sumarokov i Bualo: Epistola "O stikhotvorstve"i "Poeticheskoeiskusstvo" (I990)' explain how the differencein their social and historicalcontext meant that Sumarokovappearedas a shadow of his mentor, devoid of his authority. Boileau's urbanity and mild, witty satire flowed from the communicative norms cultivatedby his salonsociety. Russian court society, albeit aping European externals,differedlittle in its culturalbehaviourfrom the rude mass. So Sumarokovis hectoring in tone, imposing rules and displayingsatiricvencim. The meticulous and sympathetic analysis of both French and German originals and their Russian offspring is a constant feature of these articles and remains so in the concluding third section. Maikov is the pivotal figure, representedby two articles'K problematikei spetsifikerusskogoklassitsizma: ody VasiliiaMaikova(I987)', co-authoredwith V. M. Zhivov,and 'Buntprotiv maner: "Elisey,ili RazdrazhennyyVakkh"V. I. Maikova (2000)'. It is argued that howevermuch Maikovwished to followhis predecessors'classicalcanons, he could not escape the influence of pre-classicalnative traditions.This duality , of which writerswere unaware,was the key element in the specificnational formof Russianclassicism.Furtherfissuresin the classicaledificeareidentified in 'Bogdanovich i...

Ambiguity and ambivalence in A'ara personality descriptors

The conceptual organization of personality descriptors in the A'ara language of Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands, is represented in a combined dimensional and hierarchical model. The model reflects both universal dimensions and cultural ideals described for other Melanesian societies. Variation in descriptor meanings is examined through measurement of ambiguity in terms of a hierarchical structure and through semantic shifts in social context. Shifts in the evaluative significance (“ambivalence”) of trait descriptors show that traits of “dominance” become more positive when attributed to leader statuses. This finding depicts cultural processes associated with problems of political legitimacy discussed by ethnographers elsewhere in Melanesia.