Social complexity measures

As our understanding of primate societies has deepened, the expression social complexity occurs more and more frequently. However, it has not been subjected to systematic analysis. Tom Sambrook and I have begun an assault on this task, attempting as far as possible to identify components of social complexity that in principle could be independently measured, even where this is currently difficult in practice (e.g. A. Whiten T. Sambrook, unpublished paper, Am Soc Primatol, July 1994, Sambrook 1995). 

The above factors make prediction of the social behaviour of others complex to predict. One measure of this might be the number of factors needed to predict to a certain level of probability. For example, where such factors as rank and availability of allies needs to be considered in addition to rank of protagonist, there is greater social complexity. 

It is perhaps reassuring to boldly state and accept that safety culture can t be measured, and more fundamentally neither can safety itself. This relieves us of the need to develop ever more complex measures of safety, more convoluted forms and inspection sheets, more detailed policies and procedures, and the bureaucracy that often sits alongside such paper-based approaches that reflect normative concepts of safety culture that don t really work in practice. Instead, this version of safety culture enables us to better prioritise the individual and social aspects that are inherently involved. How people understand safety is important how it is developed, associated and shared by those interacting in the work environment, what they consider significant in their actions and interactions. But we must remain mindful of the fact that this is not something that can be measured either. It is people that contribute and ultimately create the changeable and complicated version of safety culture in practice found on our construction sites. 

This does, however, raise a number of interesting questions about the way in which social skills relate to neocortex volume. There are, for example, at least three reasons why we might find a relationship between group size and neocortex size (assuming that the latter actually does measure computing power). One is that the animal has to remember all the other individuals with whom it interacts a second is that it has to be able to manipulate the information relating to these individuals in a complex cognitive hyperspace a third is that it has more to do with how the individual relates to a smaller subset of special allies. 

Factor analysis. It is a truism that any observation may be a compound of several factors. In analysis one often seeks to hold all but one factor constant and measure the one against some standard.- This approach has much to commend it a result is obtained and the complexities involved in complete understanding of the system are avoided. In other disciplines it has not proven so easy to avoid the complications e.g. in psychology and social science the relative importance of hereditary and environmental characteristics or the relationship between race and intelligence are matters of controversey, and so the field of factor analysis has been developed. The objective is to extract from the data available, the number of independent factors present and their relative importance. 

In our current research project we have identified a series of cognitive outcomes that are defined as active thinking skills. It is not just logical deduction that is necessary to handle more complex and messy social problems but, rather, complex thinking skills. We are exploring a variety of tests and ways of measuring this. The disposition to think critically is one of these skills and is composed of attributes that include openness to new ideas and inquisitiveness. It would seem that these dispositions are particularly important for scientists to possess. 

These state simplifications, like all state simplifications, are always far more static and schematic than the actual social phenomena they presume to typify. The farmer rarely experiences an average crop, an average rainfall, or an average price for his crops. Much of the long history of rural tax revolts in early modern Europe and elsewhere can be illuminated by the lack of fit between an unyielding fiscal claim, on one hand, and an often wildly fluctuating capacity of the rural population to meet that claim, on the other. And yet, even the most equitable, well-intentioned cadastral system cannot be uniformly administered except on the basis of stable units of measurement and calculation. It can no more reflect the actual complexity of a farmer s experience than the... 

Maintenance of independence and prevention of disability are primary goals in the clinical care of persons 65 years of age or older. To achieve these goals, it is necessary that aU health care professionals understand the concept of functional status. Functional status is a proxy measure of a patient s ability to live independently and can be determined in part by inquiring about an elderly person s ability to perform specific tasks. As mentioned previously, there are two types of functional measurements ADLs and the more complex LADLs. d However, to assess functional status fuUy, the patient s psychological state, financial resources, physical function, and social circumstances must be considered as weU. ... 

---