Our approach consisted of a laboratory experiment that standardized all other environmental factors (light cycle, temperature, humidity), allowing us to test directly the influence of perceived population density (social environment) and number of potential mates on the expression of alternative male tactics in the next generation.
Smoking social environment included the number of smokers in the participant's home in addition to himself (none, one, and two or more), parental smoking (yes/no), and indoor smoking (yes/no).
Here we tested this novel prediction by experimentally manipulating the social environment and the number of potential mates experienced by females of the dung beetle O. taurus, and later examining the effects of these maternal treatments on the phenotype of male offspring.
The transposition of the theory in quantitative metrics allowed us also to provide additional evidence to support another well-established theory about the maximum number of stable relationships for individuals in social environments (Dunbar's number [9]).
This indicates that a (perceived) barrier is the result of a complex mental process, in which earlier experiences, beliefs, social environment, and education influence the number of experienced barriers, both in facilitators and in perceived barriers.
Since both abiotic and biotic variables (e.g. ambient temperature, day length, food availability) and the social environment (e.g. the number of potential mates) often vary over the breeding season, desertion behavior, if it depends on some of these variables, should reflect seasonal variation.
The MQE comprises six domains which cover most aspects of the environment (number of items): social support and attitudes (14), income, labour and income security (15), government and public services (27), equal opportunities and political orientations (10), physical environment and accessibility (38), and technology (5).
The workplace might be a promising setting for health promotion with the ability to reach large numbers of people in a natural social environment [ 10, 11].
In this analogy, social forces felt by individuals are moderated by the strength, immediacy and number of other people present in their social environment.
Possible explanations for the strong influence of education on smoking have included knowledge and cognitive resources, social networks, number of smokers and social norms regarding smoking in the social environment, health literacy, psychosocial stress, and health risk perceptions [ 28– 30].
