Effect of body size on aggression in the ant,Cataglyphis niger (Hymenoptera; Formicidae)

In polymorphic ants, such as Cataglyphis niger, sterile individual workers from the same nest show some degree of variation in size and/or morphology. We studied whether worker size and size difference between opponents had an effect on aggression during conspecific encounters. Although the capacity to recognize nestmates was shared by all individuals, some patterns of agonistic behaviors were size related. Escape was mostly displayed by the small workers, and threat, associated with ritualized fights, by the large workers. As game theory predicted, ants of C. niger adjusted their level of aggression as a function of the size of the opponent. However, only large individuals used such assessment strategies, responding with escalation of aggression towards small workers and reduction of aggression towards large ones. On the contrary, small individuals behaved in the same manner whatever the opponent's size. Differences between both morphological castes were discussed with reference to the resource holding assessment models. Aggr. Behav. 25:369–379, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Rapid spatial learning in a velvet ant (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Dasymutilla coccineohirta</Emphasis>)

Spatial learning has been examined in a variety of animals to determine what cues are used to navigate through a complex environment. A common feature of previously studied vertebrates and invertebrates is their need to return to a previously visited site for mating, nesting, foraging or predator avoidance. Velvet ants (Hymenoptera: Mutillidae) are cursorial parasitoids with flightless females that must walk through complex terrain to find ground dwelling host larvae burrows. Velvet ants are not central-place foragers (they do not return to an established nest site) so much of the previous work on spatial learning does not directly apply in this context. It was assumed that females primarily use chemosensory cues for navigation and burrow location instead of visual learning. This study, however, demonstrates that velvet ant females are able to use visual landmarks to find an inconspicuous exit in an aversion-motivation spatial learning task. A significant number of velvet ants learned to locate the exit after seven training trials and went to the previous location of the exit even after the maze had been rotated, showing that landmarks external to the maze were used to learn the escape location.     

压力对“蚁族”群体心理健康的影响:希望的调节作用

以广州市棠下、上社、岑村、赤沙等地340名"蚁族"(高校毕业生低收入聚居群体)为被试,采用成人希望特质量表(ADHS)、压力知觉量表(CPSS)、一般心理健康问卷(GHQ),考察了"蚁族"群体的希望水平,并分析了希望在压力和心理健康之间的调节作用。结果发现:①从整体上看,该群体的希望处于中等偏上水平。②压力对于心理健康水平有显著的负向影响;希望能够起到压力缓冲作用,调节压力与一般健康问题、忧郁情绪和自我肯定感之间的关系。③希望对心理健康的忧郁、自我肯定维度的调节作用大小不同,对于忧郁情绪的调节作用更大,而对自我肯定调节作用较小。     

Are ants sensitive to the geometry of tunnel bifurcation?

The ability to orient and navigate in space is essential for all animals whose home range is organized around a central point. Because of their small home range compared to vertebrates, central place foraging insects such as ants have for a long time provided a choice model for the study of orientation mechanisms. In many ant species, the movement of individuals on their colony home range is achieved essentially collectively, on the chemical trails laid down by their nest mates. In the initial stage of food recruitment, these trails can cross each other and thus form a network of interconnected paths in which ants have to orient. Previous simulation studies have shown that ants can find the shortest path between their nest and a food source in such a network only if there is a bias in the branch they choose when they reach an asymmetrical bifurcation. In this paper, we studied the choice of ants when facing either a symmetrical or an asymmetrical bifurcation between two tunnels. Ants were tested either on their way to a food source or when coming back to their nest, and either in the presence or in the absence of a chemical trail. Overall, our results show that the choice of an ant at a tunnel bifurcation depends more on the presence/absence of a trail pheromone than on the geometry of the bifurcation itself.     

Introducing the Collective Action Recursive Empowerment (CARE) Model: How Small-Scale Protests Led to Large-Scale Collective Action in Armenia's Velvet Revolution

The current study examined the motivations and outcomes of the Armenian Velvet Revolution through the voice of 18 protesters with qualitative interviews, exploring their motivations for joining the collective action, their perceptions of its implementation, and resultant psychological changes. Participants distinguished between individual- and group-level processes and bypassed social divisions through a shared belief in the value of “Rejecting Serzh” (i.e., opposing then President Serzh Sargsyan). Results also illustrated a recursive process of collective action supporting the development of a new theoretical CARE (collective action recursive empowerment) model. The model understands successful social change as a function of both individual and group identity informing collective-action processes: Smaller acts of protest increase individual feelings of shared group identity and empowerment/efficacy beliefs, thus strengthening motivations for continued protest and making large-scale collective action achievable. By linking together multiple time points of a collective-action process in one recursive model, the current work maps out one specific case of successful collective action in recent history, which serves as a basis for broader theoretical generalization and future empirical research.     

心算对内外倾者的心率、T波幅度和呼吸频率的影响

该文旨在探讨内、外倾者在三种不同难度心算时,心率、Ｔ波幅度、呼吸频率变化的差异。通过艾森克个性问卷筛选出１５名内倾者和１５名外倾者作为被试,让其完成三种不同难度的心算任务。实验结果表明,心算时两组被试心率均显著上升,内倾组上升幅度大于外倾组;Ｔ波幅度显著降低,内倾组降低幅度大于外倾组但差异不显著;呼吸频率显著上升,但两组上升幅度差异不显著。此外,从心率变化上看,两组被试对心算均表现出适应,内倾组的适应速度比外倾组慢。本实验表明,焦虑性精神紧张比智力操作性精神紧张对心率的影响更大。     

Compiling Measurement Invariant Short Scales in Cross-Cultural Personality Assessment Using Ant Colony Optimization

Examining the influence of culture on personality and its unbiased assessment is the main subject of cross-cultural personality research. Recent large-scale studies exploring personality differences across cultures share substantial methodological and psychometric shortcomings that render it difficult to differentiate between method and trait variance. One prominent example is the implicit assumption of cross-cultural measurement invariance in personality questionnaires. In the rare instances where measurement invariance across cultures was tested, scalar measurement invariance—which is required for unbiased mean-level comparisons of personality traits—did not hold. In this article, we present an item sampling procedure, ant colony optimization, which can be used to select item sets that satisfy multiple psychometric requirements including model fit, reliability, and measurement invariance. We constructed short scales of the IPIP-NEO-300 for a group of countries that are culturally similar (USA, Australia, Canada, and UK) as well as a group of countries with distinct cultures (USA, India, Singapore, and Sweden). In addition to examining factor mean differences across countries, we provide recommendations for cross-cultural research in general. From a methodological perspective, we demonstrate ant colony optimization's versatility and flexibility as an item sampling procedure to derive measurement invariant scales for cross-cultural research. © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

“蚁族”群体的公正世界信念与幸福感研究

以居住在北京小月河地区的304名“蚁族”为被试,采用公正世界信念问卷、积极消极情感问卷和生活满意度问卷,考察了一般公正世界信念、个人公正世界信念以及幸福感之间的关系,结果表明:(1)“蚁族”的生活满意度偏低,但其情绪状态仍然乐观,积极情感体验较高,且具有较高水平的公正世界信念;(2)公正世界信念对幸福感有显著的正向预测作用,公正世界信念水平越高的“蚁族”越幸福;(3)个人公正世界信念在一般公正世界信念和幸福感间起中介作用,即越相信世界是公正的“蚁族”更倾向于相信自己已经或即将受到的对待是公正的,最终提升幸福感。