Social Behaviour

Question 1

Types of social group

Answer 1

Collective intelligence (don’t require knowledge of others):
Gregarious
Sophisticated social groups

Knowledge of who’s who and what others know:
Machiavellian
Hierarchies

Question 2

Advantages of social groups

Answer 2

Physical (warmth)
Protection
Predation (hunt in packs)

Question 3

Disadvantages of social groups

Answer 3

Disease
Competition
Subordination (meerkats)

Question 4

Two examples of teaching and definition

Answer 4

Doing something differently to help student learn

Meerkats: five disabled scorpions to young - do this less and less as they get older

Chimps: use slow, deliberate movements and different stance when teaching young to open nuts with rocks

Question 5

Local enhancement

Answer 5

Any species able to identify conspecifics can use local enhancement
Leads to individual learning
Applies to observation for afar

Eg. chimps and stick poking

Question 6

Stimulus enhancement

Answer 6

Exposure to stimulus allows observer to learn outcome

Eg. Bee and flower colour

Question 7

Social learning

Answer 7

Bottom up account
Tapping knowledge of others is a shortcut to acquiring information
Stimulus enhancement (observers attention drawn)
Response enhancement (observer readier to perform particular action)
Affordance learning (observer learns what can be done)
Imitation (observer learns specific sequence of actions)

Question 8

What does social living allow?

Answer 8

Retention of expertise

Accumulation of information