Statistical Methods and Software for the Multilevel Social Relations Model

Koster, Jeremy; Leckie, George; Aven, Brandy

doi:10.1177/1525822x19889011

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To account for repeated observations of individuals and dyads, we used Stan code from Pisor et al. (2019) to implement the social relations model ( Kenny and La Voie, 1984 ; Koster et al., 2020 ). See Transparent methods section “The social relations model” for complete details on this model.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cofeeding tolerance in chimpanzees depends on group composition: A longitudinal study across four communities

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary Social tolerance is generally treated as a stable, species-specific characteristic. Recent research, however, has questioned this position and emphasized the importance of intraspecific variation. We investigate the temporal stability of social tolerance in four groups of sanctuary-housed chimpanzees over eight years using a commonly employed measure: experimental cofeeding tolerance. We then draw on longitudinal data on the demographic composition of each group to identify the factors associated with cofeeding tolerance. We find appreciable levels of variation in cofeeding tolerance across both groups and years that correspond closely to changes in group-level demographic composition. For example, cofeeding tolerance is lower when there are many females with young infants. These results suggest that social tolerance may be a “responding trait” of chimpanzee sociality, reflecting individual-level behavioral responses to social changes. Additional, experimental research is needed to better model the causal drivers of social tolerance within and among species.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cofeeding tolerance in chimpanzees depends on group composition: A longitudinal study across four communities

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In essence, the model we outlined is a multi-membership model with an additional varying intercept for dyad ID and is also closely related to the social relations model (Koster et al, 2019(Koster et al, , 2020. We implemented the model in Stan using the cmdstanr interface (Gabry & Češnovar, 2022) and provide helper functions in the accompanying R package bamoso to fit the model from R. The simple implementation with only one response variable/behavior can also be fitted directly with the brms package (Bürkner, 2017).…”

Section: Model Details and Provided Codementioning

confidence: 99%

(De)composing sociality: disentangling individual-specific from dyad-specific propensities to interact

Neumann,

Fischer

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In socially living animals, relationships between group members are typically highly differentiated. Some dyads maintain strong and long-lasting relationships, while others are only connected by weak ties. There is growing evidence that the number and strength of social bonds are related to reproductive success and survival. Yet, few of these analyses have considered that frequent or prolonged affiliative interactions between two individuals are driven by two different processes: namely, the overall gregariousness of the individuals involved and their dyadic affinity, i.e., the preference the members of the dyad have to interact specifically with one another. Crucially, these two axes of sociality cannot be observed directly, although distinguishing them is essential for many research questions, for example, when estimating kin bias or when studying the link between sociality and fitness. We present a principled statistical framework to estimate the two underlying sociality axes using dyadic interaction data. We provide the R packagebamoso, which builds on Stan code to implement models based on the proposed framework and allows visual and numerical evaluation of the estimated sociality axes. We demonstrate the application and some of the critical advantages of our proposed modeling framework with simulated and empirical data: (1) the possibility of checking model fit against observed data, (2) the assessment of uncertainty in the estimated sociality parameters, and (3) the possibility to extend it to more complex models that use interaction data to estimate the relationship between individual-level sociality and individual-level outcomes in a unified model. Our model will help to understand how and why individuals interact with each other and will help address questions about the relationship between variation in sociality and other features of interest, both within and across species.

show abstract

“…As a result, the density of data is uneven across time periods, social groups, and individuals. We incorporated uneven distributions of the data by aggregating the data annually and using adaptations of the multilevel Social Relations Model (Snijders and Kenny 1999;Koster et al 2020) to estimate individual annual estimates of grooming, coalitionary support, and foraging in close proximity (see Supplementary material, Section 3). This method provided estimates of individual social integration that reflect measurement uncertainty, with the uncertainty increasing for infrequently observed individuals.…”

Section: Individual Social Integration Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social integration predicts survival in female white-faced capuchin monkeys

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Across multiple species of social mammals, a growing number of studies have found that individual sociality is associated with survival. In long-lived species, like primates, lifespan is one of the main components of fitness. We used 18 years of data from the Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project to quantify social integration in 11 capuchin (Cebus capucinus) groups and tested whether female survivorship was associated with females’ tendencies to interact with three types of partners: (1) all group members, (2) adult females, and (3) adult males. We found strong evidence that females who engaged more with other females in affiliative interactions and foraged in close proximity experienced increased survivorship. We found some weak evidence that females might also benefit from engaging in more support in agonistic contexts with other females. These benefits were evident in models that account for the females’ rank and group size. Female interactions with all group members also increased survival, but the estimates of the effects were more uncertain. In interactions with adult males, only females who provided more grooming to males survived longer. The results presented here suggest that social integration may result in survival-related benefits. Females might enjoy these benefits through exchanging grooming for other currencies, such as coalitionary support or tolerance.

show abstract

Statistical Methods and Software for the Multilevel Social Relations Model

Cited by 6 publications

References 37 publications

Cofeeding tolerance in chimpanzees depends on group composition: A longitudinal study across four communities

Cofeeding tolerance in chimpanzees depends on group composition: A longitudinal study across four communities

(De)composing sociality: disentangling individual-specific from dyad-specific propensities to interact

Social integration predicts survival in female white-faced capuchin monkeys

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About