The Role of Strong & Weak Ties Among Female Baboons
Sometimes when looking at patterns of socialization and friendships in social networks, we restrict our focus to only humans. However, this is downplaying the complexities of socialization in all different types of species and can hinder explanations for biological behaviors and the health of animals. For instance, among baboons, the number of strong ties an individual female maintains predicts her birth rate, while the number of weak ties she has predicts the 12-month survival and longevity of her offspring.
In class, we learned about Granovetter’s research on the strength of weak ties and the significance they play in an individual’s life. Individuals are more likely to learn about new information from a weak tie because weak ties are in an unfamiliar social bubble and are consuming their information, while strong ties are in a very similar social bubble with exposure to similar information. A common example of this is people learning about new job opportunities through their weak ties rather than their strong ties because the weak ties have exposure to the information you most likely have not been exposed to yourself (Easley and Kleinberg, 2010).
The same principle can be applied to female baboons. McFarland et. al (2017) researched weak ties for female baboons and found that two baboons that do not interact between themselves can be connected by a third baboon that they both interact with. It was found that these weak ties increase overall levels of social integration by strengthening these indirect relationships. McFarland et. al tested this using social network measures of centrality and then compared these to patterns of bondedness using the composite sociality index, showing that females with a larger number of weak social ties occupy more central positions in the social network. More central positions in the social network lead to higher infant survival rates and longevity because the group mates were more likely to nurture and protect the newborns. McFarland et. al found that only a female’s number of weak ties predicted infant survival while strong ties were not a predictor of this. In contrast, the birth rate of females was influenced by the number of strong ties a female had, not the number of weak ties. In the study, the larger number of strong ties did not prevent females from initiating more weak ties and vice versa. This suggests that strong and weak ties serve different functions as previously discussed.
McFarland et. al found that female baboons strategically leveraged the functionality of strong and weak ties to help them and their offspring survive. For instance, they tend to form only weak ties during the season of food abundance, and form both strong and weak ties when food is scarce. Ecological circumstances can attach trade-offs between nurturing strong ties or making weaker ties with each having its purpose. Female baboons are opportunistic in their formation of strong and weak ties, differing investment in social ties based on shifts in demography, reproductive states, health, and ecological conditions.
All in all, McFarland et. al’s research on female baboons is fascinating because it is a direct link to our class discussion on the roles of strong and weak ties, where each has its function in a social network. It’s astounding how female baboons understand the utility of these bonds and strategically form them to ensure the best survival for themselves and their offspring.
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Sources:
Easley, D., & Kleinberg, J. (2010). Networks, crowds, and markets: Reasoning about a highly connected world. Cambridge University Press.
McFarland, Richard, et al. “The ‘strength of weak ties’ among female baboons: fitness-related benefits of social bonds.” Animal Behaviour 126 (2017): 101-106.
https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0003347217300362?token=054AB41832B8B74C52548C9FF6EBBB46516A0D7FC9AB35E8915840FF1BC4D80FF748092F0CA1A58E5214CF176C733C47&originRegion=us-east-1&originCreation=20220910170959