Need for approval from others and face concerns as predictors of interpersonal conflict outcome in 29 cultural groups.

The extent to which culture moderates the effects of need for approval from others on a person's handling of interpersonal conflict was investigated. Students from 24 nations rated how they handled a recent interpersonal conflict, using measures derived from face-negotiation theory. Samples varied in the extent to which they were perceived as characterised by the cultural logics of dignity, honour, or face. It was hypothesised that the emphasis on harmony within face cultures would reduce the relevance of need for approval from others to face-negotiation concerns. Respondents rated their need for approval from others and how much they sought to preserve their own face and the face of the other party during the conflict. Need for approval was associated with concerns for both self-face and other-face. However, as predicted, the association between need for approval from others and concern for self-face was weaker where face logic was prevalent. Favourable conflict outcome was positively related to other-face and negatively related to self-face and to need for approval from others, but there were no significant interactions related to prevailing cultural logics. The results illustrate how particular face-threatening factors can moderate the distinctive face-concerns earlier found to characterise individualistic and collectivistic cultural groups.

The benefits of grouping as a main driver of social evolution in a halictine bee.

Over the past decade, the cause of sociality has been much debated. Inclusive fitness [br in Hamilton's rule (br - c > 0)] has been criticized but is still useful in the organization of a framework by elucidating mechanisms through which br (benefit × relatedness) becomes larger than c (cost). The bee Lasioglossum baleicum is suitable for investigation of this issue because of the sympatric occurrence of both social and solitary nesting in its populations. We show that a large part (approximately 92%) of the inclusive fitness of a eusocial worker can be attributed to the benefits of grouping. A 1.5-fold relatedness asymmetry benefit in singly mated haplo-diploids explains a small part (approximately 8.5%) of the observed inclusive fitness. Sociality enables this species to conduct foraging and nest defense simultaneously, which is not the case in solitary nests. Our results indicate that this benefit of grouping is the main source of the increased inclusive fitness of eusocial workers.