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Behavioral Attributes (behavioral + attribute)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Peer- and self-rated correlates of a teacher-rated typology of child adjustment

PSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS, Issue 6 2007
William A. Lindstrom
External correlates of a teacher-rated typology of child adjustment developed using the Behavior Assessment System for Children were examined. Participants included 377 elementary school children recruited from 26 classrooms in the southeastern United States. Multivariate analyses of variance and planned comparisons were used to determine whether the teacher-rated behavior subtypes could be differentiated and, if so, to create more complete descriptions of each cluster. Self-perceptions of academic, social, and emotional adjustment as well as peer perceptions of behavioral attributes and social status were found to provide convergent evidence for the typology. Divergent evidence emerged related to internalizing difficulties. Parallels between the teacher-rated typology and peer-relations research were drawn. Most notably, peers rated Mildly Disruptive (MD) children as bullying and disruptive, consistent with teacher report. However, peers also rated MD children as "cool" and with high levels of social dominance and social control, consistent with recent reports of popular bullies. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Fallback foraging as a way of life: Using dietary toughness to compare the fallback signal among capuchins and implications for interpreting morphological variation

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009
Barth W. Wright
Abstract The genus Cebus is one of the best extant models for examining the role of fallback foods in primate evolution. Cebus includes the tufted capuchins, which exhibit skeletal features for the exploitation of hard and tough foods. Paradoxically, these seemingly "specialized" taxa belong to the most ubiquitous group of closely related primates in South America, thriving in a range of different habitats. This appears to be a consequence of their ability to exploit obdurate fallback foods. Here we compare the toughness of foods exploited by two tufted capuchin species at two ecologically distinct sites; C. apella in a tropical rainforest, and C. libidinosus in a cerrado forest. We include dietary data for one untufted species (C. olivaceus) to assess the degree of difference between the tufted species. These data, along with information on skeletal morphology, are used to address whether or not a fallback foraging species exhibits a given suite of morphological and behavioral attributes, regardless of habitat. Both tufted species ingest and masticate a number of exceedingly tough plant tissues that appear to be used as fallback resources, however, C. libidinosus has the toughest diet both in terms of median and maximal values. Morphologically, C. libidinosus is intermediate in absolute symphyseal and mandibular measurements, and in measures of postcranial robusticity, but exhibits a higher intermembral index than C. apella. We propose that this incongruence between dietary toughness and skeletal morphology is the consequence of C. libidinosus' use of tools while on the ground for the exploitation of fallback foods. Am J Phys Anthropol 140:687,699, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Neuroscientific approaches and applications within anthropology

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue S47 2008
James K. Rilling
Abstract Many of the most distinctive attributes of our species are a product of our brains. To understand the function, development, variability, and evolution of the human brain, we must engage with the field of neuroscience. Neuroscientific methods can be used to investigate research topics that are of special interest to anthropologists, such as the neural bases of primate behavioral diversity, human brain evolution, and human brain development. Traditional neuroscience methods had to rely on investigation of postmortem brains, as well as invasive studies in living nonhuman primates. However, recent neuroimaging methods have made it possible to compare living human and nonhuman primate brains using noninvasive techniques such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and diffusion tensor imaging. These methods are providing an integrated picture of brain structure and function that was not previously available. With a combination of these traditional and modern neuroscience methods, we are beginning to explore and understand the neural bases of some of the most distinctive cognitive and behavioral attributes of the human species, including language, tool use, altruism, and mental self-projection, and we can now begin to propose plausible scenarios by which the neural substrates supporting these human specializations evolved from pre-existing neural circuitry serving related functions in common ancestors we shared with the living nonhuman primates. Consideration of the process of neurodevelopment suggests plausible mechanisms by which the highly encephalized human brain might have evolved. Neurodevelopmental studies also demonstrate that experience can shape both brain structure and function, providing a mechanism by which people of different cultures learn to act and think differently. Finally, not only can anthropologists benefit from neuroscience, neuroscience can benefit from the more sophisticated concept of evolution that anthropology offers, including an appreciation of evolutionary diversity as well as consideration of the process by which the human brain was formed during evolution. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 51:2,32, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Can Functional Traits Predict Ecological Interactions?

BIOTROPICA, Issue 3 2010
A Case Study Using Rain forest Frugivores, Plants in Australia
ABSTRACT In rain forest, the large numbers of species of fleshy-fruited plants and frugivorous animals result in a large number of potential fruit,frugivore interactions, which are challenging to survey in the field. Yet, knowledge of these relationships is needed to predict consequences of changes in the frugivore assemblage for seed dispersal. In the absence of comprehensive dietary information, it may be possible to delineate between frugivores that disperse different plants using ,functional traits,' or morphological and behavioral attributes of frugivores that interact with differences in salient characteristics of plant species. Here we use data on the consumption of 244 Australian rain forest plant species by 38 bird species to test for associations between patterns of frugivory and birds': (1) degree of frugivory, (2) gape width, and (3) seed treatment (seed crushing or seed dispersing). Degree of frugivory and gape width explain 74 percent of the variation in the sizes of fruits consumed by frugivorous birds. Among birds that consume a substantial dietary proportion of fruit, birds with wider gapes consume larger fruits. In contrast, this relationship was not shown by birds for which fruit is only a minor dietary component. Degree of frugivory and gape width, together with seed treatment, also strongly predict the overall taxonomic composition and diversity of plants consumed by bird species. Functional classifications of frugivore species may prove useful in developing a predictive understanding of fruit,frugivore interactions in other rain forest regions where detailed dietary information is not available for most frugivores. [source]