Opinion
Social competence: an evolutionary approach

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2012.09.003Get rights and content

‘Social competence’ refers to the ability of an individual to optimise its social behaviour depending on available social information. Although such ability will enhance social interactions and thus raise Darwinian fitness, its evolutionary and ecological significance has been largely ignored. Social competence is based on behavioural flexibility. We propose that the study of social competence requires an integrative approach that aims to understand how the brain translates social information into flexible behavioural responses, how flexibility might be constrained by the developmental history of an individual or by trade-offs with other (ecological) competences, and how social plasticity feeds back on fitness. Finally we propose a hypothesis of how social competence can become a driver of social evolution.

Section snippets

Behavioural flexibility as phenotypic plasticity

Adaptation to the environment is a universal characteristic of living systems. According to classic evolutionary theory, adaptation by natural selection relies on heritable phenotypic variation produced by genetic variation. However, when the rate of genetic evolutionary change is outpaced by changes in the environment the need for adaptive change without genetic mutation emerges [1]. In this scenario, the evolution of phenotypic plasticity is favoured, that is, a certain genotype produces

Adaptive behavioural flexibility in the social domain

The social domain is arguably the most complex and fluctuating component of an animal's environment as it involves interaction with other behavioural agents with inherently associated higher levels of unpredictability. An animal interacting with its non-social abiotic or biotic environment will often modify this environment, thereby creating ecological feedback on the individual itself forcing it to flexibly adjust its behaviour (e.g., a foraging individual changes the local resource density

Animal social competence

To date the study of social competence has been mainly a domain of the social sciences, with a strong focus on causal relationships between social factors and the development and expression of social competence in humans 12, 18, 19. However, indications of social competence are also well known from non-human animals. Interacting animals respond to the presence of bystanders (‘audience effect’) by changing their signalling behaviour according to the type of audience and social context (e.g., 20,

Social competence versus general cognition

Since social competence can give rise to consistent expression of appropriate flexible behavioural responses across different social contexts, it appears similar to the concept of general intelligence. In humans, performance on diverse cognitive tasks shows robust positive correlations, so that individuals scoring high on one cognitive ability are also likely to score well in others. This positive manifold of correlations has been interpreted as being caused by a latent single factor named

An evolutionary framework for the study of social competence

If we understand social competence as a general ability affecting individual performance in a social environment, it should have the key properties of an ecological performance trait [42], namely (i) the existence of inter-individual variation in performance ranging from low to high, and (ii) this variation should be positively correlated with fitness [43]. Furthermore, for it to be an evolvable trait, potential evolutionary costs, benefits, and trade-offs of social competence should also be

Integrating proximate mechanisms in the evolutionary study of social competence

The idea that social competence – like any other adaptive behaviour – relies on optimal behavioural rules is unrealistic, since its proximate mechanisms will impose constraints and limits to flexible behavioural responses 57, 58. Being a plastic trait, social competence relies on the generation of multiple social phenotypes from the same genotype, a process that is expected to result from interactions between genetic, environmental, and epigenetic processes that lead to neural and behavioural

Concluding remarks

Here we draw attention to the evolutionary importance of adaptive behavioural plasticity in the social domain and propose an integrated framework for its study that combines investigating proximate mechanisms and ultimate consequences. Placing social competence in an evolutionary framework will facilitate exploration of its evolvability and potential evolutionary consequences. For example, if variation between individuals exists in social competence, individuals with a slightly better social

Acknowledgements

During the writing of this paper B.T. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF, Project 31003A_133066) and R.F.O. by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Grants RG-LVT-331-2352 and PTDC/PSI-PCO/118776/2010). We thank Ralph Bergmüller for productive conceptual discussions on this topic that prompted the writing of this paper, and Miguel Simões for helping with the preparation of Figure I in Box 2.

Glossary

Behavioural reaction norm (BRN)
the set of behavioural phenotypes that a single individual produces in a given set of environments [8]. This is in contrast to ‘reaction norms’ describing typically irreversible, developmental plasticity of a single genotype. Thus BRNs describe fast responses (within a life time) by an individual to variation in the environment.
Developmental plasticity
variation in the traits of individuals that results from processes during development as a consequence of

References (83)

  • C. Rutte

    What sets the odds of winning and losing?

    Trends Ecol. Evol.

    (2006)
  • R. Bshary et al.

    Asymmetric cheating opportunities and partner control in a cleaner fish mutualism

    Anim. Behav.

    (2002)
  • R.W. Byrne et al.

    Sociality, evolution and cognition

    Curr. Biol.

    (2007)
  • I. D’Andrea

    Communal nesting, an early social enrichment, affects social competences but not learning and memory abilities at adulthood

    Behav. Brain Res.

    (2007)
  • I. Branchi

    The mouse communal nest: investigating the epigenetic influences of the early social environment on brain and behavior development

    Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev.

    (2009)
  • S.W. Margulis

    Effects of early experience on subsequent parental behaviour and reproductive success in oldfield mice, Peromyscus polionotus

    Anim. Behav.

    (2005)
  • L. Chittka et al.

    Are bigger brains better?

    Curr. Biol.

    (2009)
  • R. Dukas

    Costs of memory: ideas and predictions

    J. Theor. Biol.

    (1999)
  • L. Chittka

    Speed-accuracy tradeoffs in animal decision making

    Trends Ecol. Evol.

    (2009)
  • T.J. DeWitt

    Costs and limits of phenotypic plasticity

    Trends Ecol. Evol.

    (1998)
  • M. Pigliucci

    Evolution of phenotypic plasticity: where are we going now?

    Trends Ecol. Evol.

    (2005)
  • D.F. Clayton

    The genomic action potential

    Neurobiol. Learn. Mem.

    (2000)
  • E.D. Jarvis

    For whom the bird sings: context-dependent gene expression

    Neuron

    (1998)
  • S.S. Burmeister

    Acoustic modulation of immediate early gene expression in the auditory midbrain of female tungara frogs

    Brain Res.

    (2008)
  • R.A. Kroes

    Modeling depression: social dominance-submission gene expression patterns in rat neocortex

    Neuroscience

    (2006)
  • J.L. Goodson

    The vertebrate social behavior network: evolutionary themes and variations

    Horm. Behav.

    (2005)
  • F.A. Champagne et al.

    How social experiences influence the brain

    Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.

    (2005)
  • J.P. Curley

    Social influences on neurobiology and behavior: epigenetic effects during development

    Psychoneuroendocrino

    (2011)
  • E. Adkins-Regan et al.

    Removal of adult males from the rearing environment increases preference for same-sex partners in the zebra finch

    Anim. Behav.

    (2000)
  • I. Branchi

    Birth spacing in the mouse communal nest shapes adult emotional and social behavior

    Physiol. Behav.

    (2009)
  • R. Sharpe

    The influence of the sex of litter-mates on subsequent maternal behaviour in Rattus norvegicus

    Anim. Behav.

    (1975)
  • S.A. Frank

    Natural selection. I. Variable environments and uncertain returns on investment

    J. Evol. Biol.

    (2011)
  • N. Aubin-Horth et al.

    Genomic reaction norms: using integrative biology to understand molecular mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity

    Mol. Ecol.

    (2009)
  • S.J. Shettleworth

    Cognition, Evolution and Behavior

    (1998)
  • S.F. Brosnan

    The interplay of cognition and cooperation

    Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci.

    (2010)
  • S.M. Reader et al.

    Social intelligence, innovation, and enhanced brain size in primates

    Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

    (2002)
  • A. Sih

    Behavioral syndromes: an integrative overview

    Q. Rev. Biol.

    (2004)
  • S.S. Burmeister

    Genomic responses to behavioral interactions in an African cichlid fish: mechanisms and evolutionary implications

    Brain Behav. Evol.

    (2007)
  • K.N. Laland et al.

    Seven reasons (not) to neglect niche construction

    Evol. Dev.

    (2006)
  • J.P. Curley

    Social enrichment during postnatal development induces transgenerational effects on emotional and reproductive behavior in mice

    Front. Behav. Neurosci.

    (2009)
  • K. Dodge

    Facets of social interaction and the assessment of social competence in children

  • Cited by (0)

    View full text