Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T21:46:44.060Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2009

Charlotte K. Hemelrijk
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
Charlotte Hemelrijk
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

This book contains a collection of studies of social behaviour that are mainly biologically oriented and are carried out from the perspective of emergent effects and of self-organisation. It brings together papers that show emergent aspects of social behaviour through interaction with the environment in the entire range of organisms (from single-celled organisms via slugs, insects, fish and primates to humans). This book treats the broadest range of organisms as regards self-organisation and social behaviour that has been treated so far in one book. It is only followed by the book by Camazine et al. (2001) in which mostly insect societies are emphasised. Most of the papers deal with the direct effect of self-organisation on patterns of social behaviour. We will treat them in increasing order of complexity from slime moulds to humans (Chapters 1–8). A few papers discuss the intricate relationship between evolution and self-organisation (Chapters 9 and 10).

Before treating each of the papers in turn, a few words about self-organisation and emergent effects by interaction with the environment are needed.

Emergent phenomena arise in social systems as a consequence of self-reinforcing effects and of ‘locality’ of interactions, as explained below. Self-reinforcing effects imply that if an event takes place, it increases the likelihood that it will happen again. An example is population growth. The larger a population gets, the more individuals it contains that can bear new offspring.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Axelrod, R. (1997). The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Boerlijst, M. A. and Hogeweg, P. (1991). Spiral wave structure in pre-biotic evolution: hypercycles stable against parasites. Physica D 48, 17–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boerlijst, M. A., Lamers, M. E. and Hogeweg, P. (1993). Evolutionary consequences of spiral waves in a host–parasitoid system. Proc. Roy. Soc. London B 253, 15–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camazine, S., Deneubourg, J.-L., Franks, N. R.et al. (2001). Self-Organisation in Biological Systems. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Cederman, L.-A. (2002). Endogenizing geopolitical boundaries with agent-based modeling. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 99, 7296–7303CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chase, I. D. (1974). Models of hierarchy formation in animal societies. Behav. Sci. 19, 374–382CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chase, I. D., Bartelomeo, C. and Dugatkin, L. A. (1994). Aggressive interactions and inter-contest interval: how long do winners keep on winning?Anim. Behav. 48, 393–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirby, S. (2002). Natural language from artificial life. Artif. Life 8, 185–215CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pfeifer, R. and Scheier, C. (1999). Understanding Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Schelling, T. C. (1969). Models of segregation. Am. Econ. Rev., Papers and Proceedings 59, 488–493Google Scholar
Schelling, T. C. (1971). Dynamic models of segregation. J. Math. Sociol. 1, 143–186CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Charlotte Hemelrijk, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Self-Organisation and Evolution of Biological and Social Systems
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542275.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Charlotte Hemelrijk, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Self-Organisation and Evolution of Biological and Social Systems
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542275.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Edited by Charlotte Hemelrijk, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book: Self-Organisation and Evolution of Biological and Social Systems
  • Online publication: 07 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542275.002
Available formats
×