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Writing Assignment One--Do primates posses culture?
I think that if culture is defined as learned behavior, than it is reasonable to say that primates posses a form of culture. Primates have been observed making tools to aid in collecting food and developing communication system, both of which are learned behaviors.
It is common in monkeys, apes and humans that behavior and social organization aren’t necessarily programmed into the genes. There have been several cases where an entire troop has learned from the experiences of just a few. In a group of Japanese macaques, for example, a three-year-old female female developed the habit of washing dirt of of sweet potatoes before she ate them. First her mother, and then peers and then the entire troop started washing their potatoes too. Another macaque troop has a similar experience when a group of dominant males learned to eat wheat. Within an hour, the practice had spread throughout the entire group. Changes in learned behavior seem to spread more quickly from the top down than from the bottom up.
For monkeys as for people, the ability to learn is a tremendous adaptive advantage, permitting them to avoid fatal mistakes. Faced with an environmental change, primates don’t have to wait for a genetic or physiological response, since learned behavior and social patterns can be modified.
The extensive usage of too...
Thesis Statement: Despite the rampant protests of animal welfare organizations on encaging primates in zoos since primates typically show abnormal behavior, zoos in the National Capital Region claim that human interaction and enrichment programs help alleviate the stress and trauma primates experience.
An example of primates having culture is their making and use of tools. On page 311 of the Annual Review of Anthropology within the section titled “Culture in Nonhuman Primates?” by W. C. McGrew stated that “Capuchin can do everything that chim- panzees can do, and more, with regard to making and using tools from wood, bone, bamboo, and metal” (McGrew 311). Such a task would be more of a skill that would need to be learned rather than something that is instinctive. This is true because tool making is more extraneous and being able to utilize outside sources in that manor would need to be taught. For instance: where does one find the material, what is the best way to assemble the tool, or how does one use the tool in the best way possible? These questions are too complex to be solved by instinct and could better be answered by trial and error of past generations of primates. McGrew then goes into detail on page 315 about how there have been several field studies where younger primates will observe older primates preforming certain tasks with tools. For example, chimpanzees use sticks to “fish” for insects and there is a factor of timing and how to eat the insects off the stick that take practice in order for it to be done
Quiatt, D., & Reynolds, V. (1993). Primate behaviour: information, social knowledge, and the evolution of culture. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press].
It has been believed that culture is unique to humans and no other groups of animals have culture, but recent evidence refutes this ideology. Before getting into the meat of the argument, it is important to first address the issues regarding the ambiguity of the term, “culture.” What is culture? Many scientists may argue that culture is the way of life for a group of individuals, this definition includes the values, beliefs and traditions of the group (Sapolsky, 2006). Other scientists may argue that culture is the transmission of habits and information by social means (Sapolsky, 2006). Despite the different specifics of what culture is, almost all scientists would agree that culture is transmitted socially through social learning that promotes the transfer of information between members in a group (Boesch and Tomasello, 1998). Based on these notions of culture, it can be justifiably stated that primates have culture. Primates exhibit food preparation techniques, use of tools, communication skills, and most importantly, behaviors of social learning. An exemplar of primates’ capabilities for culture is Koko, the lowland gorilla. Koko, in captivity, was able to learn American sign language, demonstrate self-awareness and the ability to deceive.
"Whereas animals are rigidly controlled by their biology, human behavior is largely determined by culture, a largely autonomous system of symbols and values, growing from a biological base, but growing indefinitely away from it. Able to overpower or escape biological constraints in most regards, cultures can vary from one another enough so that important portion...
If earth were a field and evolution a farmer then the leading and the healthiest crop in his field would be the human or homo sapiens. But this human race would never had flourished into an above average species without assistance from outer space friends. The aliens initialized the primary phase of the advancement process about three million years ago. They did this by means of a monolith, planted on earth on a fateful night. The monolith probed the ape-man's (Austrapethicas Erectus) mind, studied their reactions and finally evaluated their potential. By carefully conducted experiments the monolith altered the molecular makeup of the ape-man's brain making them smarter and providing them with the necessary skills needed to survive in the hostile world. The ape-man changed its shape and size evolving into a new and improved species. It was a slow, cumulative process, and at its end was man. Therefore, without the assistance of helpful extra terrestrial friends, ape-man would never had developed the dexterity to compete for life sustaining rations with rival species and would probably had suffered the same fate as the overgrown lizards. But evolutions success story has constructed tools that have become too hard for even him to handle.
Viewing and observing primates at the zoo and using them as a research subject is crucial to help with the understanding of how humans came to be. Since humans and primates are onwards of 95% genetically similar (Why are Humans Primates), observing them is a great tool to better understand humans and the relationship we share with primates. Though some research done on primates has questioned the morality of such a thing, by not observing our closest ancestors, we would not have many of the answers about humans that we have today. Non-human primates can teach us many things about ourselves, from evolution,to behavioral and social characteristics.
Environmental factors can range from temperature, water, to the surrounding land forms. These factors as a result directly affect the organisms living in that habitat. Concentrating on the environmental factors such as a food resource and the changing seasons to determine the impact on primate social structures and how the social structure incorporates the factor involved. While analyzing how the environmental factors are associated with one another and the social structures.
Studies have proven that no human being is born with knowledge or skills; however, every individual’s has a learned behavior that is either influenced or genetic inherited. Therefore, every individual born into a social and cultural environment are more likely to be effected by, family members, other social groups, religion, as well as languages. Most research psychologists study the genetic inheritance of an individual’s behavior while others focus on an individual’s development stage. However, during the process of psychological research, psychologists also focus on examining the influence that a community can have on one social behavior.
Galef suggested that this behaviour was due to social learning. Given the time period, of 5 years, it is possible that other monkeys had learned this potato washing behaviour by themselves instead of imitating Imo. The observers in this experiment provided the sweet potatoes, and would pay more attention to the monkeys that washed the potatoes. This attention would be a reinforcer of the behaviour causing other monkeys to copy it. Although there is not enough supportive evidence for imitation, some behaviours ca... ...
Anthropologists define the term culture in a variety of ways, but there are certain shared features of the definition that virtually all anthropologists agree on. Culture is a shared, socially transmitted knowledge and behavior. The key features of this definition of culture are as follows. 1) Culture is shared among the members of that particular society or group. Thus, people share a common cultural identity, meaning that they recognize themselves and their culture's traditions as distinct from other people and other traditions. 2) Culture is socially transmitted from others while growing up in a certain environment, group, or society. The transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation by means of social learning is referred to as enculturation or socialization. 3) Culture profoundly affects the knowledge, actions, and feelings of the people in that particular society or group. This concept is often referred to as cultural knowledge that leads to behavior that is meaningful to others and adaptive to the natural and social environment of that particular culture.
Therefore, according to the above a general process learning theory is sustainable even in the presence of biological constraints as behaviour can be reinforced and manipulated in most cases to acquire a desired behaviour.
Behavior and social learning are two theories that are inherently intertwined. Behavior to some extent is taught for social reasons, and social learning can very much shape and create behaviors. While behavior is something intentionally taught, social learning can teach and reinforce many unintentional behaviors, such as dishonesty or aggression. In order to adequately discuss these two interrelated topics, theory exploration is in order.
As human beings, culture has taken a huge part in our lives, it shapes our perspective, beliefs and behaviors. In our lecture on “Culture in Animals,” for a behavior to be considered a culture, it is important for that behavior to spread in a social group. Usually, such behavior is spread through imitation or social learning. It is apparent that imitation and social learning often go together. According to the lecture in class, imitation is the precise replication of a novel motor action in the absence of the demonstrator while social learning is copying the demonstrator or motor matching due to context. Social learning also provides the flexibility of learning and decreases the chances of the animal to make future errors (Zentall, 2003).
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin