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Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) conceal visual and auditory information from others.

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) competed with a human for food. The human sat inside a booth, with 1 piece of food to her left and 1 to her right, which she could retract from her chimpanzee competitor's reach as needed. In Experiment 1, chimpanzees could approach either side of the booth unseen but then had to reach through 1 of 2 tunnels (1 clear, 1 opaque) for the food. In Experiment 2, both tunnels were clear and the human was looking away, but 1 of the tunnels made a loud noise when it was opened. Chimpanzees preferentially reached through the opaque tunnel in the first study and the silent tunnel in the second, successfully concealing their taking of the food from the human competitor in both cases. These results suggest that chimpanzees can, in some circumstances, actively manipulate the visual and auditory perception of others by concealing information from them.

Animals↗

Gender, academic achievement, and preferences for cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning among African-American adolescents.

In this study, we investigated the relationships among gender, academic achievement, and student preferences for cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning in a sample of 136 African-American adolescents enrolled in sixth and seventh grades in a school in Georgia. We used the Learning Preference Scale for Students (LPSS; Barnes, Owens, & Straton, 1978) to measure cooperative, competitive, and individualistic preferences. Three two-way ANOVAs (Gender x Academic Achievement) were conducted, in which the three learning preferences were the dependent variables. Gender had a significant effect on the preference for cooperative learning, with girls reporting a higher preference for this method than boys did. For the other two learning preferences, no significant gender differences were found. Academic achievement did not correlate significantly with any of the three learning preferences. A two-way interaction between gender and academic achievement was observed for competitive learning preferences. Girls' preferences for competition increased as academic achievement increased; boys' preferences for competition decreased as academic achievement increased.

Adolescent↗

Distraction sneakers decrease the expected level of aggression within groups: a game-theoretic model.

Hawk-dove games have been extensively used to predict the conditions under which group-living animals should defend their resources against potential usurpers. Typically, game-theoretic models on aggression consider that resource defense may entail energetic and injury costs. However, intruders may also take advantage of owners who are busy fighting to sneak access to unguarded resources, imposing thereby an additional cost on the use of the escalated hawk strategy. In this article we modify the two-strategy hawk-dove game into a three-strategy hawk-dove-sneaker game that incorporates a distraction-sneaking tactic, allowing us to explore its consequences on the expected level of aggression within groups. Our model predicts a lower proportion of hawks and hence lower frequencies of aggressive interactions within groups than do previous two-strategy hawk-dove games. The extent to which distraction sneakers decrease the frequency of aggression within groups, however, depends on whether they search only for opportunities to join resources uncovered by other group members or for both unchallenged resources and opportunities to usurp.

Aggression↗

Maintaining diversity in an ant community: modeling, extending, and testing the dominance-discovery trade-off.

Ant communities often consist of many species with apparently similar niches. We present a mathematical model of the dominance-discovery trade-off, the trade-off between the abilities to find and to control resources, showing that it can in principle facilitate the coexistence of large numbers of species. Baiting studies of dominance and discovery abilities in an ant community from the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona indicate that real communities fail to fit the assumptions of the simple model in several ways: (1) dominance depends on the size of the food resource; (2) for some ants, dominance depends on the presence or absence of specialist parasitoids; (3) pairwise dominance is not an all-or-nothing trait; and (4) a consistent negative relationship between pairwise differences in per capita discovery rates and dominance can be detected for only one bait type. Extended models incorporating these factors successfully predict the coexistence of five of the six most abundant members of this community but fail to accurately predict their relative abundances. Sensitivity analysis indicates that each complicating factor enhances the extent of coexistence.

Animals↗

Stress factors in the development of coronary artery disease.

The epidemiologic evidence that stress contributes to cardiovascular disease is reviewed. No one characterization of stress has been associated with all manifestations of cardiovascular disease, yet specific characterizations have been associated with particular manifestations of disease. Type A behavior pattern is a risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD) and is correlated with the severity and progression of atherosclerosis demonstrated angiographically. Work overload with job dissatisfaction also predisposes to CAD. Socioeconomic disadvantage in a society of urbanization and industrialization increases the risk of hypertension and CAD, while chronic states of anxiety, depression, and helplessness are associated with angina and sudden death. Traumatic life events, especially involving loss of or threat to self-esteem, may precipitate sudden death in patients with preexisting CAD. There is evidence that the mechanism linking the experience of stress and the development of acute coronary events is exposure to sympathetic hyperarousal and a deficit in soothing. Research is needed to determine if work environments can be designed to minimize hyperarousal and provide protective outlets for individuals experiencing such arousal.

Adult↗

Agonistic behaviour and dominance in stoats (Mustela erminea L.).

Behavioural mechanisms underlying distribution in a stoat (Mustela erminea) population were examined experimentally in an enclosure simulating natural habitats with living prey. Agonistic behaviours, displayed by individual stoats of different sex and age while being tested in pairs in various combinations were recorded. Dominance relationships between different categories of stoats (femalefemale, adult and juvenile male male) were examined, as was social dominance between individual stoats of the same sex. In further experiments designed to examine the influence of establishment on the social dominance, the behaviour of established introduced animals was observed.

Aggression↗

Extreme reversed sexual dichromatism in a bird without sex role reversal.

Brilliant plumage is typical of male birds, reflecting differential enhancement of male traits when females are the limiting sex. Brighter females are thought to evolve exclusively in response to sex role reversal. The striking reversed plumage dichromatism of Eclectus roratus parrots does not fit this pattern. We quantify plumage color in this species and show that very different selection pressures are acting on males and females. Male plumage reflects a compromise between the conflicting requirements for camouflage from predators while foraging and conspicuousness during display. Females are liberated from the need for camouflage but compete for rare nest hollows.

Adaptation, Biological↗

Intergroup conflict: individual, group, and collective interests.

Intergroup conflicts generally involve conflicts of interests within the competing groups as well. This article outlines a taxonomy of games, called team games, which incorporates the intragroup and intergroup levels of conflict. Its aims are to provide a coherent framework for analyzing the prototypical problems of cooperation and competition that arise within and between groups, and to review an extensive research program that has used this framework to study individual and group behavior in the laboratory. Depending on the game's payoff structure, contradictions or conflicts are created among the rational choices at the individual, group, and collective levels-a generalization of the contradiction between individual and collective rationality occurring in the traditional mixed-motive games. These contradictions are studied so as to identify the theoretical and behavioral conditions that determine which level of rationality prevails.

Choice Behavior↗

Selective sensitivity of schedule-induced activity to an operant suppression contingency.

The sensitivity of pigeons' schedule-induced activity to operant consequences was studied in two experiments. During a 30-s interval between food presentations, a keylight stimulus brightened incrementally. Stable terminal key pecking and interim locomotor activity developed. An operant "setback" contingency was applied to activity. The contingency arranged for locomotor movements (detected by a nine-panel floorboard) to be followed by a resetting of the keylight brightness to a dimmer value and a 1-s delay of reinforcement (for individual responses). Experiment 1 showed that activity patterns were highly sensitive to their operant consequences. Accompanying key-peck rates were only transiently affected. In Experiment 2, the setback contingency was imposed during restricted portions of the trial, and differential operant control of activity was demonstrated. However, birds in this study produced higher rates of key pecking as activity rates were reduced. These results suggest that although schedule-induced activity arises in response to the temporal arrangement of stimulus events, this behavior may retain considerable sensitivity to response-consequence relations.

Animals↗

Human mate guarding.

Long-term committed mating is a fundamental strategy in the human repertoire. Successful enactment of this strategy requires solving two related adaptive problems--fending off potential mate poachers and preventing a mates from defecting. Mate guarding adaptations evolved to solve these persistent problems. Those who failed in mate guarding risked suffering substantial reproductive costs ranging from genetic cuckoldry to reputational damage to the entire loss of a mate. Because the precise nature of the adaptive problems confronted differed historically for the sexes, men and women evolved corresponding differences in the underlying psychology of mate guarding. Men's mate guarding, relative to that of women's, is strongly triggered as a consequence of being mated to young and physically attractive women, being confronted by interested rivals who have superior economic resources or prospects, and having a mate who displays signs of sexual involvement with a rival. Women's mate guarding, relative to that of men's, is triggered as a consequence of being mated to men high in income and status striving, rivals who are more physically attractive, and having a partner who shows signs of emotional involvement with another woman. Behavioral output of mate guarding adaptations range from vigilance to violence.

Behavior Control↗

[The characteristics of the intragroup behavior of rhesus macaques and hamadryas baboons during the realization of food motivation in a competitive situation].

The aim of the present work is to consider the specific interrelations in "family" units of macaques (Macaca mulatta) and baboons (Papio hamadryas) during food-getting reactions in competitive conditions. Detailed analysis of dyadic interactions revealed that competing partners demonstrate more various types of behaviour tactics at the initial stage of learning. At the final one, only males of both investigated species performed instrumental reactions and received the food reward. All females demonstrated much more vocal reactions in comparison with males. Thus the variety of competing interactions between heterosexual partners, learning and possibility to realize its motivation correspond ro novelty of experimental situation and degree of intraspecies social subordination.

Animals↗