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Social Selection (social + selection)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	53%
Psychology	30%
Life Sciences	15%

Selected Abstracts

Disentangling social selection and social influence effects on adolescent smoking: the importance of reciprocity in friendships

ADDICTION, Issue 9 2007
Liesbeth Mercken
ABSTRACT Aims The goal of this study was to examine social selection and social influence within reciprocal and non-reciprocal friendships, and the role of parents and siblings, as factors explaining similarity of smoking behaviour among adolescent friends. A new social selection,social influence model is proposed. Design Longitudinal design with two measurements. Setting Data were gathered among Dutch high school students in the control group of the European Smoking prevention Framework Approach (ESFA) study. Participants The sample consisted of 1886 adolescents with a mean age of 12.7 years. Measurements The main outcome measures were the smoking behaviours of the respondents, best friends, parents and siblings. We tested the social selection,social influence model with structural equation modelling techniques. Findings Social selection and social influence both played an important role in explaining similarity of smoking behaviour among friends. Within non-reciprocal friendships, only social selection explained similarity of smoking behaviour, whereas within reciprocal friendships, social influence and possibly also social selection explained similarity of smoking behaviour. Sibling smoking behaviour was a more important predictor of adolescent smoking behaviour than parental smoking behaviour. Conclusions Social selection and social influence both promote similarity of smoking behaviour, and the impact of each process differs with the degree of reciprocity of friendships. These insights may contribute to further refinement of smoking prevention strategies. [source]

A social network perspective on heroin and cocaine use among adults: evidence of bidirectional influences

ADDICTION, Issue 7 2009
Amy S. B. Bohnert
ABSTRACT Aims While several studies have documented a relationship between initiation of drug use and social network drug use in youth, the direction of this association is not well understood, particularly among adults or for stages of drug involvement beyond initiation. The present study sought to examine two competing theories (social selection and social influence) in the longitudinal relationship between drug use (heroin and/or cocaine) and social network drug use among drug-experienced adults. Design Three waves of data came from a cohort of 1108 adults reporting a life-time history of heroin and/or cocaine use. Setting Low-income neighborhoods with high rates of drug use in Baltimore, Maryland. Participants Participants had weekly contact with drug users and were 18 years of age or older. Measurements Drug use data were self-report. Network drug use was assessed through a social network inventory. Close friends were individuals whom the participant reported seeing daily or rated as having the highest level of trust. Findings Structural equation modeling indicated significant bidirectional influences. The majority of change in network drug use over time was due to change in the composition of the network rather than change in friends' behavior. Drug use by close peers did not influence participant drug use beyond the total network. Conclusions There is evidence of both social selection and social influence processes in the association between drug use and network drug use among drug-experienced adults. [source]

Modeling the genetic and environmental association between peer group deviance and cannabis use in male twins

ADDICTION, Issue 3 2009
Nathan A. Gillespie
ABSTRACT Background Peer group deviance (PGD) is linked strongly to liability to drug use, including cannabis. Our aim was to model the genetic and environmental association, including direction of causation, between PGD and cannabis use (CU). Method Results were based on 1736 to 1765 adult males from the Mid-Atlantic Twin Registry with complete CU and PGD data measured retrospectively at three time-intervals between 15 and 25 years using a life-history calendar. Results At all ages, multivariate modeling showed that familial aggregation in PGD was explained by a combination of additive genetic and shared environmental effects. Moreover, the significant PGD,CU association was best explained by a CU,PGD causal model in which large portions of the additive genetic (50,78%) and shared environmental variance (25,73%) in PGD were explained by CU. Conclusions Until recently PGD was assumed to be an environmental, upstream risk factor for CU. Our data are not consistent with this hypothesis. Rather, they suggest that the liability to affiliate with deviant peers is explained more clearly by a combination of genetic and environmental factors that are indexed by CU which sits as a ,risk indicator' in the causal pathway between genetic and environmental risks and the expression of PGD. This is consistent with a process of social selection by which the genetic and environmental risks in CU largely drive the propensity to affiliate with deviant peers. [source]

Disentangling social selection and social influence effects on adolescent smoking: the importance of reciprocity in friendships

Fear of the Dead as a Factor in Social Self-Organization

JOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 2 2005
AKOP P. NAZARETYAN
The image of dead person returning to life was the most ancient source of irrational fear (i.e. fear not caused by objective menace) appeared in culture. This conclusion is argued with empirical data from archeology and ethnography. Fear has been expressed in funeral rites, the tying of extremities, burning and dismemberment of dead bodies, and ritual cannibalism (compensatory necrophilia) etc. At the same time, it was attended by effective care for helpless cripples, which seems to descend to the Lower Paleolithic as well. Dread of posthumous revenge played a decisive regulative role at the earliest stage of anthropogenesis, as the disparity between artificial weapons (the tools) and natural aggression-retention mechanisms (the instincts) became self-destructive. In the new conditions, individuals with normal animal mind were doomed to catastrophe. Those hominid groups proved viable, in which mystical fear, a product of unnaturally developed imagination, bounded lethal conflicts among kinsmen. The phobias corresponded to the psycho-nervous system's "strategic pathology"; that was a condition for early hominids' self-preservation. As a result, a causal connection between instrumental potential, cultural regulation quality and social sustainability (the techno-humanitarian balance law) was formed, which has been a mechanism of social selection for all of human history and prehistory. [source]

Power and Wisdom: Toward a History of Social Behavior

JOURNAL FOR THE THEORY OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, Issue 4 2003
Akop P. Nazaretyan
Cross-disciplinary studies carried out lately by Russian scholars discovered a causal relationship between the three variables: technological potential, cultural regulation quality, and social sustainability. The patterns called techno-humanitarian balance law, states that the higher production and war technologies' power, the more refined the behaviorregulation means (consolidated values and norms, etc.) that are required for self-preservation of the society. The article shows that the law has controlled social selection for all of human history and prehistory, discarding unbalanced social organisms, as far as they could not cope with ecological and (or) geopolitical crises, which had been caused by their own activities. It also shows how successive growth of instrumental opportunities in long-term retrospection has dramatically led to the consecutive perfection of cultural and psychological regulation mechanisms. Relevant calculations, comparative-anthropological evidence, and historical illustrations are provided. Regularities in mental processes are described that precede and accompany crisis-causing behavior, to certain extent regardless of population's historical and cultural peculiarities. [source]

Colour variation and alternative reproductive strategies in females of the common lizard Lacerta vivipara

JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2007
E. VERCKEN
Abstract Within-sex colour variation is a widespread phenomenon in animals that often plays a role in social selection. In males, colour variation is typically associated with the existence of alternative reproductive strategies. Despite ecological conditions theoretically favourable to the emergence of such alternative strategies in females, the social significance of colour variation in females has less commonly been addressed, relative to the attention given to male strategies. In a population of the common lizard, females display three classes of ventral colouration: pale yellow, orange and mixed. These ventral colours are stable through individual's life and maternally heritable. Females of different ventral colourations displayed different responses of clutch size, clutch hatching success and clutch sex-ratio to several individual and environmental parameters. Such reaction patterns might reflect alternative reproductive strategies in females. Spatial heterogeneity and presence of density- and frequency-dependent feedbacks in the environment could allow for the emergence of such alternative strategies in this population and the maintenance of colour variation in females. [source]

Social and Financial Resources and High-Risk Alcohol Consumption Among Older Adults

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 4 2010
Rudolf H. Moos
Background:, This study examined long-term mutual predictive associations between social and financial resources and high-risk alcohol consumption in later life. Method:, A sample of 55- to 65-year-old older adults (n = 719) was surveyed at baseline and 10 years and 20 years later. At each contact point, participants completed an inventory that assessed social and financial resources and alcohol consumption. Results:, Over the 20-year interval, there was evidence of both social causation and social selection processes in relation to high-risk alcohol consumption. In support of a social causation perspective, higher levels of some social resources, such as participation in social activities, friends' approval of drinking, quality of relationship with spouse, and financial resources, were associated with a subsequent increased likelihood of high-risk alcohol consumption. Conversely, indicating the presence of social selection, high-risk alcohol consumption was associated with subsequent higher levels of friends' approval of drinking and quality of the spousal relationship, but lower quality of relationships with extended family members. Conclusions:, These findings reflect mutual influence processes in which older adults' social resources and high-risk alcohol consumption can alter each other. Older adults may benefit from information about how social factors can affect their drinking habits; accordingly, information about social causation effects could be used to guide effective prevention and intervention efforts aimed at reducing the risk that late-life social factors may amplify their excessive alcohol consumption. [source]

Longitudinal linkages between perceived social support and posttraumatic stress symptoms: Sequential roles of social causation and social selection

JOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, Issue 3 2008
Krzysztof Kaniasty
The authors examined social causation and social selection explanations for the association between perceptions of social support and psychological distress. Data came from a sample of 557 victims of natural disaster in Mexico. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that social causation (more social support leading to less posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]) explained the support-to-distress relationship in the earlier postdisaster phase, 6 to 12 months after the impact. Both causal mechanisms emerged as significant paths in the midpoint of the study (12 and 18 months). Only social selection (more PTSD leading to less social support) accounted for the support-to-distress relationship at 18 to 24 months after the event. Interpersonal and social dynamics of disasters may explain why these two contrasting causal mechanisms emerged over time. [source]

The Facial Integument of Centrosaurine Ceratopsids: Morphological and Histological Correlates of Novel Skin Structures

THE ANATOMICAL RECORD : ADVANCES IN INTEGRATIVE ANATOMY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 9 2009
Tobin L. Hieronymus
Abstract The horned dinosaur Pachyhinosaurus possesses rugose bony bosses across the skull roof in lieu of the projecting bony horn cores seen in most ceratopsians. This elaboration of typical ceratopsian ornaments provides an opportunity to test hypotheses of ceratopsian facial skin morphology and function. We analyze bone morphology and histology associated with several classes of skin features in extant amniotes using a classification tree analysis. We isolate key osteological and histological correlates for unpreserved skin structures, including both a pattern of pitting and resorption characteristic of muskox (Ovibos) frontal horn boss, and a pattern of metaplastic ossification characteristic of rhinoceros nasal horn boss. We also describe correlates for other skin features, such as epidermal scales and horn sheaths. Dermatocranial elements from centrosaurine ceratopsians are then examined for the same osteological and histological correlates. From this comparison we propose that the rugose bosses that replace horn cores in many centrosaurine dinosaurs, most notably Achelousaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus, were covered by a thick pad of cornified skin derived from the caudodorsal side of the primitive horn sheath comparable to the horny boss of extant muskoxen (Ovibos). We examine extant taxa with skin morphologies similar to Pachyrhinosaurus for consistent adaptive relationships between structure and behavior. We determine that high-energy headbutting is consistently associated with the acquisition of thick cornified pads, seen in muskoxen as well as helmeted hornbills [Buceros (=Rhinoplax) vigil] and African buffalo (Syncerus). The association of the bony ornaments of Pachyrhinosaurus with risky agonistic behaviors casts doubt on the role of species recognition as a primary selection pressure driving the diversity of all ceratopsian horns. We conclude that social selection (a broad form of intraspecific competition) is a more appropriate explanation for the diversity of centrosaurine ceratopsian ornaments in the Late Cretaceous. Anat Rec, 292:1370,1396, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]