Communication and cognition are presented as deeply interrelated aspects of the mind, the means by which animals perceive, respond to, and understand each other as well as their world. This chapter reviews chemosensory, vibrational (acoustic and seismic), visual and tactile sense modalities, the various ways in which people have attempted to exploit these sensory channels to manage problematic behaviors, and the ways in which anthropogenic disturbances and pollutants can interfere with signaling. It then delves into domains such as self-awareness, personality, problem-solving, cooperation, social learning, and culture. The chapter considers intriguing adaptive hypotheses such as that of cognitive buffering, before provoking reflection on the downstream consequences of social disturbance and trauma. Drawing on experimental studies on elephants and a range of other species from honeybees to whales, the comparative perspective positions cognitive abilities within their broader ecological and evolutionary contexts, and highlights why it is crucial to account for phenomena such as social learning and culture in protecting and managing elephant populations.

This chapter considers the coordination of the actions of bionanomachines, such as cluster formation. This task is important to applications such as drug delivery at tumour sites. Mathematical models of cluster formation and system designs are presented, along with computer simulation results demonstrating that bionanomachines can move collectively and form clusters.

Chapter 2 provides the theoretical and methodological foundations for understanding East Asian international relations and demonstrates how facts and theories are constructed. Building on that foundation, the chapter then provides a preliminary review of the merits and demerits of the prevailing theories: realism, liberal institutionalism, constructivism, Marxism, and neo-traditionalism, depending on the research questions we are interested in. The chapter also offers an initial connection between the existing IR theories and theory of evolution. It emphasizes that the theory of evolution does not necessarily replace any existing IR theory but offers instead a different insight and scientific framework, which may be left in the background or be explicitly applied.

Carbon sequestration has become indispensable to achieving the sustainability objectives set out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, within the framework of the concept of ‘net zero’ emissions targets. It includes different prospective techniques, which are nonetheless still in their infancy and not easy to implement. This contribution focuses specifically on carbon sequestration at sea as a test case, aiming to underscore the pros and cons of these measures. It is argued that implementing carbon sequestration at sea requires a cooperative approach, within a context whereby climate change necessitates a synergic rethinking of the Law of the Sea.

In the 1980s and 90s in psychology, many cross-cultural comparisons were made concerning individualism and collectivism with questionnaires and experiments. The largest number of them compared “collectivistic” Japanese with “individualistic” Americans. This chapter reviewed 48 such empirical comparisons and found that Japanese were no different from Americans in the degree of collectivism. Both questionnaire studies and experimental studies showed essentially the same pattern of results. Many researchers who believed in “Japanese collectivism” suspected flaws in those empirical studies. However, none of the suspected flaws was consistent with empirical evidence. For example, although it was suspected that “Japanese collectivism” was not supported because college students provided data as participants, the studies with non-student adults did not support this common view either. It is thus unquestionable that as a whole the empirical studies disproved the reality of “Japanese collectivism.”

This chapter explores the relationship between natives and migrants in the territory transferred from Germany to Poland in 1945 using contemporaries’ memoirs. It shows that migration status and region of origin served as salient identity markers, structuring interpersonal relations and shaping collective action in the newly formed communities. Statistical analysis is used to demonstrate that indigenous villages and villages populated by a more homogeneous migrant population were more successful in organizing volunteer fire brigades than villages populated by migrants from different regions.

This chapter examines the reception of expellees in West Germany. I show that expellees were perceived as foreigners, despite sharing ethnicity and language with the locals. I then document expellees’ exclusion from local voluntary associations and the formation of new associations based on migration status and region of origin. I conclude by analyzing contributions to public goods provision in Bavarian municipalities. I show that the more expellees a given community received, the lower the rates at which it taxed the locals’ property and business.

This chapter introduces cases motivating the book and presents a three-step argument about the effects of forced migration on societal cooperation, state capacity, and economic development. It reviews evidence from post-WWII displacement in Poland and West Germany, discusses the applicability of the findings to other cases, and highlights the main contributions of the book.

Abstract: Chapter 3 delves into the world of peer interactions. I present general patterns of children’s social networks, highlighting the importance of child-to-child ties. I illustrate the key features of this humorous, playful world and examine how peer play facilitates children’s moral learning. In peer play children are developing what I call “the spectrum of moral sensibilities:” They are learning about and engaging in cooperation and care, conflict and dominance, and creating gray areas in between. This poses a stark contrast to the imagery of “the innocent child” permeating in historical and philosophical views of Chinese childhood that fixate on the brighter side of human nature in moral cultivation. Moreover, through deciphering children’s pretend play, I argue that these non-elite children, often relegated to history’s silent margins, have a much richer inner life than my predecessors assumed. Lastly, using a human–machine hybrid approach, I find that young learners’ sensibilities in discerning layered intentions and moral sentiments defeat AI algorithms. This sheds light on the mystery of human sensemaking and inspires reflections on ethnographic epistemology.

When we study technology transitions of the past – the shifts from horses to cars, from cesspools to sewers, from traditional farming to intensive agriculture – we can see how they were enabled and accelerated by government policy. Coordinated action by groups of countries could accelerate change even more – through faster innovation, larger economies of scale, and level playing fields where needed. International cooperation of this kind could dramatically accelerate low-carbon transitions in each of the greenhouse-gas-emitting sectors of the global economy. Until now, it has barely been attempted.

Geopolitical competition between the world’s major powers does not make cooperation on climate change impossible; neither does industrial competition in clean technologies make it unnecessary. In the power, road transport, and steel sectors, there are ways that the United States, China and Europe can work together to accelerate the low carbon transitions – not by avoiding competition, but by shaping it to achieve better outcomes.

Animal behavior is subject to the action of natural selection, favoring individuals that behave in ways that maximize their fitness by promoting individual survival and reproductive success. Cultural evolution plays an important role, with behavioral traits of surprising complexity spreading rapidly through a population. Behavioral ecologists measure the costs and benefits of alternative types of behavior to gain an understanding of basic behavioral processes such as territory defense, foraging, and mating. This cost–benefit approach allows quantitative predictions of behavior tightly tied to fitness, such as how long to guard a mate, or how long to forage at a particular location before moving on. Both physiological factors, such as the need to keep eggs warm, and ecological factors, such as the spatial distribution of resources, can influence the evolution of mating systems. In many species, individuals cooperate with each other in procuring food or defending against predators. Hamilton’s model of indirect selection is one possible explanation for the evolution of behavior favoring relatives, including the astounding degree of cooperation in eusocial animals. But in some species, cooperation is common even among unrelated individuals; in these cases game theory models may help explain the evolution of cooperation.

The contributors to this book represent a wide breadth of scholarly approaches, including law, social and environmental science, and engineering, as well as from the arts and humanities. The chapters explore what environmental violence is and does, and the variety of ways in which it affects different communities. The authors draw on empirical data from countries and regions around the globe, including Ukraine, French Polynesia, Latin America, and the Arctic. The variety of responses to environmental violence by different communities, whether through active resistance or the creative arts, is also discussed, providing the foundation on which to build alternatives to the potentially damaging trajectory on which humans currently find themselves. This book is indispensable for researchers and policymakers in environmental policy and peacebuilding. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.