At present, beyond the fact that dogs can be easier socialized with humans than wolves, we know little about the motivational and cognitive effects of domestication. Despite this, it has been suggested that during domestication dogs have become socially more tolerant and attentive than wolves. These two characteristics are crucial for cooperation, and it has been argued that these changes allow...

Alcohol intoxication often results in negative consequences; however, specific behavioral and subjective effects vary as a function of individual differences. The present study utilized an alcohol challenge paradigm to examine whether heavy binge social drinkers (HD; n=77), compared to light social drinkers (LD; n=55), exhibit: (1) greater tolerance in psychomotor task performance under the inf...

Socioecology considers that the features of food sources affect female social relationships in groupliving species. Among primates, the tests of socioecological models are largely focused on Old World species and do not evaluate if the use of feeding tools affects the competitive regime over food and females’ relations in wild populations. We studied female social relationships among a wild pop...

Recent research has identified a critical contrast between societies that are tight (i.e., societies that have strong norms and a low tolerance for deviant behavior) and those that are loose (i.e., societies that have weak norms and a high tolerance for deviant behavior). I review differences between tight and loose cultures—from differences in ecological and historical conditions to the streng...

First, a couple of definitions and distinctions: "abuse" according to the American Psychiatric Association describes a pattern of use that causes impairment of social or occupational functioning. Compare that to "dependence," characterized by either tolerance (a need for increasing amounts of a drug, over time, to achieve the same effect) or withdrawal symptoms. "Addiction" is defined by compul...

First, a couple of definitions and distinctions: "abuse" according to the American Psychiatric Association describes a pattern of use that causes impairment of social or occupational functioning. Compare that to "dependence," characterized by either tolerance (a need for increasing amounts of a drug, over time, to achieve the same effect) or withdrawal symptoms. "Addiction" is defined by compul...