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PubMed1980

Public health social work: a training model.

Despite the disparate historical evolution, public image, and traditional approached to problem solving characteristic of the social work profession and the field of public health, the potential for professional collaboration has never been greater. Indeed, the comprehensive management of social-health problems demands an interdisciplinary educational program designed to train upcoming professionals. The 4-year old, joint MSW-MPH program at the University of Minnesota provides a setting in which the public health social work student develops the philosophies, values, and skills of both social work and public health, and applies them to appropriate social-health settings. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Minnesota model and examine its implications for faculty and community professionals interested in developing similar training programs.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1999

The roots of evil: social conditions, culture, personality, and basic human needs.

Evil actions are defined as repeated or persistent, not commensurate with provocation and causing extreme harm, at times due to repetition. Evil develops or evolves. As individuals and groups harm others, they tend to develop characteristics that make further and more intense harmdoing probable. In this article, I explore instigating conditions (difficult life conditions in a society, group conflict); cultural characteristics; the nature of evolution, with its psychological and social processes in individuals and groups; and the passivity and complicity of bystanders that lead to genocide and other collective violence. I consider the question of whether bystanders can be regarded as evil, focusing on the genocide in Rwanda as an example. I examine the socialization and experience of children and youth that lead to aggression and the subsequent evolution of aggression toward greater violence and evil. I explore the way personal characteristics and a system of relationships can lead to sexual abuse by fathers. One organizing concept in understanding the generation of violence that causes extreme harm is the frustration of basic human needs and their subsequent destructive fulfillment.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Recent and simultaneous origins of eusociality in halictid bees.

Eusocial organisms are characterized by cooperative brood care, generation overlap and reproductive division of labour. Traits associated with eusociality are most developed in ants, termites, paper wasps and corbiculate bees; the fossil record indicates that each of these advanced eusocial taxa evolved in the Late Cretaceous or earlier (greater than 65 Myr ago). Halictid bees also include a large and diverse number of eusocial members, but, in contrast to advanced eusocial taxa, they are characterized by substantial intra- and inter-specific variation in social behaviour, which may be indicative of more recent eusocial evolution. To test this hypothesis, we used over 2400 bp of DNA sequence data gathered from three protein-coding nuclear genes (opsin, wingless and EF-1a) to infer the phylogeny of eusocial halictid lineages and their relatives. Results from relaxed molecular clock dating techniques that utilize a combination of molecular and fossil data indicate that the three independent origins of eusociality in halictid bees occurred within a narrow time frame between approximately 20 and 22 Myr ago. This relatively recent evolution helps to explain the pronounced levels of social variation observed within these bees. The three origins of eusociality appear to be temporally correlated with a period of global warming, suggesting that climate may have had an important role in the evolution and maintenance of eusociality in these bees.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Productivity and performance: keys to survival for a hospital-based social work department.

This is the concluding article in a series describing the evolution of a comprehensive accountability structure in the Social Work Department at the University of Minnesota Hospitals. The accountability structure is composed of five features: management by objectives, a time-oriented management information system, a set of standardized client problem definitions, specific service standards for client problems, and a comprehensive staff performance appraisal system. Utilization of information from the system by hospital and department administration, hospital clinic directors, department staff and users outside the hospital is described, as are the various direct and indirect impacts of the system on department functioning.

Efficiency↗
PubMed2003

Parasitic exploitation as an engine of diversity.

Parasitic exploitation occurs within and between a wide variety of taxa in a plethora of diverse contexts. Theoretical and empirical analyses indicate that parasitic exploitation can generate substantial genetic and phenotypic polymorphism within species. Under some circumstances, parasitic exploitation may also be an important factor causing reproductive isolation and promoting speciation. Here we review research relevant to the relationship between parasitic exploitation, within species-polymorphism, and speciation in some of the major arenas in which such exploitation has been studied. This includes research on the vertebrate major histocompatibility loci, plant-pathogen interactions, the evolution of sexual reproduction, intragenomic conflict, sexual conflict, kin mimicry and social parasitism, tropical forest diversity and the evolution of language. We conclude by discussing some of the issues raised by comparing the effect of parasitic exploitation on polymorphism and speciation in different contexts.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Inter-group aggression: the multi-individual organism and the survival instinct.

Inter-group aggression, carried out at the level of the in-groups and out-groups of ethnocentric theory, continued unabated throughout the twentieth century. Its frequency, together with its ferocity, indicates a potent biological cause. We have evolved as social animals, and it is postulated that evolution has proceeded to such an extent that 'multi-individual social organisms', that is, 'social groups that fight each other are self-sustaining, self-replicating whole containing interdependent parts'. This results from the total integration of individuals into the social structure and culture of the in-group; individuals are inseparable from their society and evidence for this proposal is given. Cohesion is given through the collective consciousness and collective memory. The analogy is to multicellular organisms that evolved from the association of single cell organisms. All biological organisms are subject to the survival instinct, which is thus the potent biological cause of inter-group aggression. Groups compete for territory and see other groups as a threat. Prevention of inter-group aggression should come from the insight that threatening behaviour endangers the integrity of the society of out-groups, initiating conflict.

Aggression↗
PubMed1987

The origin of the human mind. A speculation on the emergence of language and human consciousness.

The study of human evolution has attracted scientists of various disciplines, judging by the attendance of the conferences devoted to it, and by the publications concerned. In the course of years I became amazed about the seeming absence of a synthesis of the available information. This article presents an attempt to combine some results of the various publications. The study of human evolution has become particularly focussed on the emergence of language and human consciousness with respect to the social behaviour and mental capacities of our closest relatives: the apes. Social relations imply communication, and mentation underlies the ability to communicate. The more it becomes apparent that the social behaviour of the apes resembles that of man in many respects, the greater the danger that typically, and perhaps even uniquely, human traits are ascribed to anthropoids. Anthropomorphic descriptions of animal behaviour tend to prevent a clear view on animal mentality. It will be argued that there is no direct evolutionary link between the apes' communication systems and language. Neither the language experiments, nor the speculations on the evolution of social behaviour have, so far, presented a basis for the explantation of the corresponding evolution of the neurological substrate of mentality, i.e. the central nervous system. It will be argued, instead, that language and human consciousness are rooted in a socially nonfunctional preadaptation that gave rise to their essentially independent evolution.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed1990

Biculturality and homosexuality.

In an effort to sensitize service providers to bicultural socialization, a small but growing literature has surfaced in which theories are proposed explaining the socialization process, cultural identification, and evolution of self-concept for those functioning in two cultures. In this article, the authors examine the extent to which previously developed explanatory theories of cultural and ethnic identity and bicultural socialization apply to the experience of sexual minorities, and offer a conceptual framework for adequately assessing the experience of homosexual clientele. The multifaceted nature of the practitioner's role is discussed, and gender-sensitive practice methods are given that may assist sexual minorities in developing optimum functioning.

Acculturation↗
PubMed1997

Modelling the evolution of human trail systems.

Many human social phenomena, such as cooperation, the growth of settlements, traffic dynamics and pedestrian movement, appear to be accessible to mathematical descriptions that invoke self-organization. Here we develop a model of pedestrian motion to explore the evolution of trails in urban green spaces such as parks. Our aim is to address such questions as what the topological structures of these trail systems are, and whether optimal path systems can be predicted for urban planning. We use an 'active walker' model that takes into account pedestrian motion and orientation and the concomitant feedbacks with the surrounding environment. Such models have previously been applied to the study of complex structure formation in physical, chemical and biological systems. We find that our model is able to reproduce many of the observed large-scale spatial features of trail systems.

Behavior↗
PubMed2001

Reproductive skew and split sex ratios in social Hymenoptera.

I present a model demonstrating that, in social Hymenoptera, split sex allocation can influence the evolution of reproductive partitioning (skew). In a facultatively polygynous population (with one to several queens per colony), workers vary in their relative relatedness to females (relatedness asymmetry). Split sex-ratio theory predicts that workers in monogynous (single-queen) colonies should concentrate on female production, as their relatedness asymmetry is relatively high, whereas workers in the polygynous colonies should concentrate on male production, as their relatedness asymmetry is relatively low. By contrast, queens in all colonies value males more highly per capita than they value females, because the worker-controlled population sex ratio is too female-biased from the queens' standpoint. Consider a polygynous colony in a facultatively polygynous population of perennial, social Hymenoptera with split sex ratios. A mutant queen achieving reproductive monopoly would gain from increasing her share of offspring but, because the workers would assess her colony as monogynous, would lose from the workers rearing a greater proportion of less-valuable females from the colony's brood. This sets an upper limit on skew. Therefore, in social Hymenoptera, skew evolution is potentially affected by queen-worker conflict over sex allocation.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Causal belief and the origins of technology.

The primary function of the brain is to control movement. Human interactions with the environment, unlike those of other primates, are based on a belief in cause and effect, and this led to technology. Experiments requiring simple manipulations of the environment show that chimpanzees do not have concepts of causes or forces. Children, by contrast, have causal beliefs as a developmental primitive, and these can be demonstrated even in infants. It is proposed that the evolution of causal thinking was essential for the development of tool use, as it is not possible to make a complex tool without understanding cause and effect. This was a great evolutionary adaptive advantage. The evolution of language may have been linked to the same process. It has been technology that resulted from causal beliefs, not social interaction, that has driven human evolution.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed1996

Evolutionary stability in the n-person iterated prisoner's dilemma.

The iterated prisoner's dilemma game has been used extensively in the study of the evolution of cooperative behaviours in social and biological systems. The concept of evolutionary stability provides a useful tool to analyse strategies for playing the game. Most results on evolutionary stability, however, are based on the 2-person iterated prisoner's dilemma game. This paper extends the results in the 2-person game and shows that no finite mixture of pure strategies in the n-person iterated prisoner's dilemma game can be evolutionarily stable, where n > 2. The paper also shows that evolutionary stability can be achieved if mistakes are allowed in the n-person game.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

The evolution of the role of the police with special reference to social support and the mental health statutes.

The role of the police at their formation centred around law enforcement (crime detection and apprehension of criminals) and crime prevention in order to maintain the peace. That role has been changing to keep pace with socio-economic developments. Thus, it has expanded to include the provision of social support. However, law enforcement, crime prevention and provision of social support often overlap. Also, though some studies have shown that much police time is spent on non-crime-fighting activities, other studies have found that lower-rank officers in general see their main role as fighting crime. That apart, the police have always had a role to play under the various mental health statutes: referring mentally disordered people to hospital, retaking absconders from mental hospitals, escorting patients from hospital or prison to court and vice versa, which are all tasks classifiable as provision of social support. Because of the complexity of his work today, the policeman may be described as an 'all-purpose public servant'.

Commitment of Persons with Psychiatric Disorders↗