Apes
Apes, like many primates, exhibit some aspect of socialization. One article that clearly explains this amazing phenomenon got done by Andrew Whiten and Erica Van De Waal. The journal is cited as Whiten, Andrew, and Erica van de Waal. “The pervasive role of social learning in primate lifetime development.” Behavioral ecology and sociobiology vol. 72,5 (2018): 80. doi:10.1007/s00265-018-2489-3. The article, having been done under the US national health library, has a lot of detail on the ape’s social behavior. As it is a matter of national research, verification of the information obtained has higher integrity as compared to other articles. The national health library has an unlimited availability of resources to conduct research and thus making its results more reliable. Also, the article does discuss an interesting topic in ape’s sociology. One of the aspects that link humans to apes is their ability to bond and live as a community. The article sheds some light on the ape’s ability, which makes it a fascinating topic for any living soul. The authors of the work are great intellects. Whiten Andrew, who is a professor of evolutionary and developmental psychology, obtained his degree in zoology from The University of Sheffield and a Ph.D. in psychology from Bristol University. On the other hand, Erica earned her Bachelor in Science in Biology at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland; she later earned her Ph.D. in Biology specializing in behavioral ecology in the same university.
In my opinion, the ape’s ability to socialize is an exciting topic of study. I would, therefore, carry out a survey of the same. My main focus would be trying to understand the communal holdings of the apes. For any community to thrive, there must exist a particular form of governance. The apes which are considered to have a functional brain are likely to have such a structure. Understanding the hierarchical order of the ape community would be very interesting. For the apes to live in harmony, there exists an aspect of communication. In furthering the research already conducted by the two, I would try and understand the ape’s way of passing messages. In their study, Andrew and Erica established that the mother is the first one to introduce socialization to their young ones. Just like in humans, the infants are breastfed by their mothers, and thus forming a bond between the two is curved. One of the unanswered questions in their hypothesis was role defining among the apes. Like any other kingdom, different members of the community perform various functions. However, in this particular community, the researchers couldn’t find any documentation. If the roles are established, the hypothesis that was generalized by these two amazing scientists will be proven to be true. Due to the great admiration that I have on their work, I would wish to continue working on this excellent course. Pursing the research further will significantly contribute to the understanding of the social behavior of apes and thus understand how close to a human being they are.
The research on the topic would take around six months. Research requires a lot of accuracies. To obtain such levels of efficiency, one needs to put their facts right. As there exists a lot of documentation on the same, I will be required to check on previous works to avoid redundancy. In any new research, I will be required to travel and collect the data. Some of the research in point, such as behavioral observation, might require a great deal of time. One needs to take into consideration different patterns and places to avoid generalization.
References
Whiten, Andrew, and Erica van de Waal. “The pervasive role of social learning in primate lifetime development.” Behavioral ecology and sociobiology vol. 72,5 (2018): 80. doi:10.1007/s00265-018-2489-3