Social Structure Simularities between Humans and Baboons Essay

Social Structure Simularities between Humans and Baboons - Essay Example Most of the sources in this paper are derived from the works of Robert Sapolsky, a professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Dorothy L. Cheney, a professor of Biology and Robert M. Sayfarth, a professor of Psychology. The work of Sapolsky focuses on issues on stress while the work of Cheney and Sayfarth focuses on the evolution of social mind of baboons. Baboons maintain a large group for their survival and reproduction. Each group consists of up to 100 individuals. This is considerably larger than most chimpanzee communities. (Cheney and Seyfarth) In this culture baboons need to work together as one collective unit to create more of their species and to keep their community running. Each member has a obligation to the community, whether that be bearing children, taking care of children, providing food for the clan, or offering protection for the clan. The philosophy behind any community is that not one individual is capable of complete self-sufficiency; support is needed for survival. And within each community is a web of social hierarchy established by power, size, built, aggressiveness and alliances. (Anitei) This dominancy rank affects their stress physiology, feeding behavior, and growth. (Baboon Social Life) And this hierarchy affects male and female differently. For females, the effects of rank a... (Baboon Social Life) For males, there are some periods where high-ranking males enjoy a very great advantage in obtaining a mate. However there are other periods where lower-ranking males obtain more mating opportunities by forming coalitions with other males that succeed in dislodging high-ranking males from their mates. (Baboon Social Life) Baboons are similar to humans in their survival and reproduction rates, granted humans may vary from continent to continent but in general humans co-exist in large communities, cities, residential areas, college campuses, etc. Humans as a species depend on each other for survival whether it is a emotional, physical, or mental support system or in a series of import and export systems to gather goods. Like baboons, our communities are devised up of social hierarchy, for example in India there is a still a caste system and in America, social hierarchy is established based on the economic vale of each family or individual. Furthermore on a global level we as countries are divided by power (nuclear, military, navy, etc) and we have our alliances such as in the united Nations. The dominancy ranks of the local, national, and global level all affect the stress, feeding behavior, and growth of an individual, a family, or a country. For example if a nation does not have the proper economic me ans to support its people then the people will have varied feeding abilities, their stress will increase, and if starvation ensues than the growth of the community will decrease. The difference between ranking among males and females in the human world and in the baboon world, is that in the human world there are rules that govern how an individuals in