The Distribution of Free-Forming Small Group Size

1953 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 569 ◽  
Author(s):  
John James
2010 ◽  
Vol 65 (8) ◽  
pp. 688-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. P. Theall ◽  
R. Scribner ◽  
S. Broyles ◽  
Q. Yu ◽  
J. Chotalia ◽  
...  

AERA Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 233285841770689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Clarke ◽  
Christian T. Doabler ◽  
Derek Kosty ◽  
Evangeline Kurtz Nelson ◽  
Keith Smolkowski ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Srdjan Denic ◽  
Mukesh M. Agarwal

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Human inbreeding is a sociobiological puzzle. Despite widespread knowledge of its potential for genetic disorders, human consanguinity remains surprisingly common. The current reasons explaining its continued persistence in today’s modern world have major shortcomings. <b><i>Summary:</i></b> We propose that the Neolithic Agrarian revolution modified the structure of populations. It increased competition for the limited resources in which a larger group had better chances of survival. As a result, small, drifting, socially open bands of hunter-gatherers were transformed into bigger, less mobile, and more powerful kinship groups (tribes). In this transformation, a central role was played by human trust – an aspect of human altruism which is a universal sociobiological principle of behavior. Altruism (and trust) is an essential premise of social contracts such as economic cooperation, marriage arrangement, and creation of alliances between people. In kinship groups, human trust is limited to kin, so tribes remain small, economically poor, and consanguineous due to lack of nonkin mates. The expanding of trust from kin to that of nonbiological relatives increases the size of human groups, fosters economic wealth, and decreases the rate of consanguinity. <b><i>Key Messages:</i></b> The lack of nonkin altruism leads to: (a) poverty (due to poor economic cooperation with nonkin), (b) maintaining small group size, and (c) inbreeding.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi M. Breivik ◽  
Martin Callanan

In this article, we examine aspects of the Postglacial colonization processes that took place in central Norway during the Early Mesolithic (c. 9500–8000 cal bc). The distribution of sites from this period shows that the colonizers approached and exploited two very different landscapes and resource situations—from archipelagic to alpine. Based on twelve artefact assemblages from central Norway we investigate how colonizing populations met the challenge posed by varying ecozones. Did they organize their settlements and technologies in similar ways or did they modify sites and activities in relation to the different locations? The aspects studied are site organization, artefact composition, projectiles, and lithic raw material use. It appears that the sites are of a similar size and structure across ecozones. Apart from some variations in tool composition, there is no evidence in the lithic material for any technical adaptation towards specific ecozones. We conclude that using a standard, generalized lithic technology, combined with high mobility and small group size, enabled the colonizing groups to overcome the risks and difficulties associated with settling and seeking out resources in new and unknown landscapes.


Author(s):  
Mete Akcaoglu ◽  
Eunbae Lee

Social presence is a difficult to achieve, but an imperative component of online learning. In this study, we investigated the effect of group size on students' perceptions of social presence in two graduate-level online courses, comparing small group versus whole class discussions. Our results indicated that when in small group discussions, students perceived a higher level of social presence in terms of sociability, t(32) = 3.507, p = .001; social space, t(29) = 3.074, p = .005; and group cohesion, t(32) = 3.550, p = .001. We discuss how placing students in small and permanent discussion groups can augment social presence. Designers and educators of online learning can strategically modify group size to promote social presence in asynchronous online discussions.


1995 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-260
Author(s):  
Piers Lyndon

This article introduces the altered psychological dynamic brought about by an increase in group size. It seeks to map out a number of continuities and differences with conventional small-group analysis and looks briefly at the evolution of the larger group process.


Author(s):  
Ronald Peeters ◽  
Fan Rao ◽  
Leonard Wolk

AbstractWe consider a proportional-prize contest to forecast future events, and show that, in equilibrium, this mechanism possesses perfect forecasting ability for any group size when the contestants share common knowledge about the probabilities by which future events realize. Data gathered in a laboratory experiment confirm the performance invariance to group size. By contrast, when realization probabilities are not common knowledge, there are some differences across group sizes. The mechanism operates marginally better with three or four compared to two players. However, this effect is mainly driven by players’ behavior rather than by differences in the beliefs they form about the realization probabilities.


Author(s):  
Takayuki Niizato ◽  
Kotaro Sakamoto ◽  
Yoh-ichi Mototake ◽  
Hisashi Murakami ◽  
Takanori Tomaru ◽  
...  

Integrated information theory (IIT) was initially proposed to describe human consciousness in terms of intrinsic-causal brain network structures. This theory could potentially be used for conceptualising complex living systems. In a previous study, we analysed collective behaviour in {\it Plecoglossus altivelis}. We found that IIT 3.0 exhibits qualitative discontinuity between three and four schools of fish in terms of $\Phi$ values (i.e., group integrity). Other measures, such as mutual information, did not show such characteristics. In this study, we follow up on our previous findings and introduce two new factors. First, we define the global parameter settings to determine a different kind of group integrity. Second, we set several timescales (from $\Delta t =5/120$ s to $\Delta t =120/120$ s). The results showed that we succeeded in classifying fish school according to their group size in terms of the degree of group integrity, despite the small group size. The concrete classification includes the followership for a two-fish school, fission--fusion for a three-fish school, emergence of leadership for a four-fish school, and emergence of Boid-like behaviour for a five-fish school. These minute classifications have never been revealed before. Finally, we discuss one of the longstanding paradoxes in collective behaviour, known as the heap paradox, for which two tentative answers could be provided through our IIT analysis.


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