Meerkat (Suricata suricatta) is a mongoose species from South Africa. Insects are the primary food sources of their diet. Meerkat lives in groups of 2?30 individuals with a developed social structure. The group consists of a dominant pair and a different number of helpers of both sexes, which are involved in various forms of cooperation, for example care for cubs, guard service and maintaince of burrow. Meerkats are at risk of predation by mammalian predators, avian predators and snakes. One meerkat always seems to be a sentry and stands guard to keep the gang safe. When the guard senses danger they give a warning bark and the other members run for cover into their burrow. This study was done from June to September 2011 in zoo in Jihlava on a group of meerkats, which consisted of 13 individuals. There was used the method of direct observation by a scanning behaviour (behaviour sampling). Observation was specialized on sentinel behaviour. The main aim of this work was evaluate the results of observation and then compare this results with behaviour in the wild. By monitoring was demonstrably found, that dominant individuals contributed to guarding more frequently and the longest time and the juveniles contributed at least. There wasn´t set order in guarding. The most often was individually guarding or guarding in a group of 2 or 3 individuals.

Research studies conducted in field of prosocial behaviour testify to the existence of situational and dispositional motifs of this kind of acting. Aim of this thesis is firstly to map occurence of three of these motifs, specifically: oportunity to gain recognition, reciprocity expectation and social responsibility. Secondly it is uncovering possible dependence of these motifs on age or level of prosociality of pupils in a seccond grade of grammar school. The research part of this project has a center of gravity in a quantitative approach. In this framework is being found truthfulness of hypoteses, whether each motive has with age decreasing or increasing tendency and what is actually the frequency of their occurence. In combination with the nomination method of prosocial behaviour in classroom is also being uncovered possible dependency of level of prosociality on individual factors. The theoretical framework that precedes the research section of this thesis, discusses the evolution of prosocial behaviour and contemporary social perspective on this behaviour. This historical excursion is supplemented by the definition of terms used, the reflection of the role of social and biological factors and formulation of influence of school and family evironment in shaping child's prosocial orientation.

Obwohl sich aus medienpsychologischer Sicht auch nach der vorliegenden Untersuchung bisher nur eine eingeschränkte Perspektive zur Bewertung von prosozialen Verhaltensweisen in MMORPGs ergibt, zeigen die ersten Ergebnisse, dass die Problematik eine nicht zu unterschätzende Relevanz in der Erklärung sozialer Präsenz in virtuellen Welten hat. Prosoziales Verhalten tritt in allen MMORPGs auf und ist wahrscheinlich ein konstituierender Faktor sozialer Präsenz. Diese wiederum scheint das Spielerlebnis von "World of Warcraft" und ähnlichen Spielen entscheidend zu prägen und erklärt, unter Umständen, ihren Reiz für die Spieler. Daher müssen weitere Anstrengungen unternommen werden, den scheinbaren Widerspruch zwischen prosozialem Verhalten in MMORPGs und deren Regelspielcharakter aufzulösen und das Phänomen Altruismus in virtuellen Welten stärker zu operationalisieren. In diesem Kontext ist anzunehmen, dass Erfolg im Spiel nicht nur durch das Erreichen von expliziten Spielzielen, sondern auch in Form eines verdeckten Prestiges als sozialer Status manifestiert wird. Beide Bewertungskategorien des Erfolges stehen dabei in Interdependenz. Wie in der wirklichen Gesellschaft, kann ich Hilfe in schwierigen Situationen nur erwarten, wenn ich selbst bereit bin zu helfen.

Human infertility is not a new phenomenon, but it is as old as humanity itself. Currently in most developed countries, the number of couples who have a problem with childbearing is growing. This is due, among other things, to the lifestyle associated with career development and postponement of parenthood. While in the past infertile couples usually had only two options to deal with their sterility - childlessness and a substitute life program, or adopting a child. Today, infertile couples have a third option and this is the treatment of infertility using assisted reproduction methods. This year, exactly forty years have elapsed since the birth of the first child by means of extracorporeal fertilization. Already then the assisted reproduction was considered a method that is ethically problematic. Numerous specialists, such as physicians, biologists, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, and others, have been involved in the quest for ethical issues. Not only there has been no solution to some problems during the whole lifetime of assisted reproduction on which most experts and the general public would agree, but with the gradual development of this treatment method new problems have arisen. Today's stage of development of artificial insemination techniques and procedures together with modern...

Involvement of people with experience of disease as a peer consultant in social and health services is a new phenomenon in the care of people with mental illness. The way the peer consultant works and his involvement in the team of experts is related to the different ethical contexts and aspects that each organization must prepare if it wants to implement this position. The experience of peer consultants is also a testimony of the status of people with mental illness in society, stigmatization and the need to help people in a similar situation. Klíčová slova illness, mental, care, psychiatric, altruism, solidarity, society, belonging, ethics, services, social, health, helping, sharing

Charles University Faculty of Humanities Applied Ethics Ethics of Philanthropy Annotation of Doctoral Thesis Mgr. Jan Kroupa Supervised by: prof. PhDr. Jan Sokol, CSc., Ph.D. 2020 ANNOTATION The increase in private wealth in our cultural circuits has been unprecedented which fosters growth in private philanthropy. Charitable giving has been on a rise throughout the western world, including the Czech Republic, where we can document long-term and steady growth in both the number of charitable gifts as well as in the amount donated. In parallel, on the beneficiary side, there is a stabilized sector of well-established civic organizations covering the standard array of charitable topics. We may state that following 1989, the Czech civic sector has been revived, showing - despite all challenges - most signs of healthy maturing. In this paper, we attempted to capture the cultural and social context of philanthropy from the point of view of practical philosophy. We examined the rich roots of philanthropy and described the processes of its institutionalization until now. We paid special attention to describing the current situation of philanthropic giving in the Czech Republic. On basis of the above, we debated some of the dilemmatic questions of today's philanthropy, such as selecting the beneficiary and donor...

Human infertility is not a new phenomenon, but it is as old as humanity itself. Currently in most developed countries, the number of couples who have a problem with childbearing is growing. This is due, among other things, to the lifestyle associated with career development and postponement of parenthood. While in the past infertile couples usually had only two options to deal with their sterility - childlessness and a substitute life program, or adopting a child. Today, infertile couples have a third option and this is the treatment of infertility using assisted reproduction methods. This year, exactly forty years have elapsed since the birth of the first child by means of extracorporeal fertilization. Already then the assisted reproduction was considered a method that is ethically problematic. Numerous specialists, such as physicians, biologists, lawyers, philosophers, theologians, and others, have been involved in the quest for ethical issues. Not only there has been no solution to some problems during the whole lifetime of assisted reproduction on which most experts and the general public would agree, but with the gradual development of this treatment method new problems have arisen. Today's stage of development of artificial insemination techniques and procedures together with modern...

Unterscheidet sich die Ausprägung sozialer Präferenzen zwischen Unternehmern und Nicht-Unternehmern? Beeinflussen die sozialen Präferenzen von Unternehmern welchen Geschäftstyp (soziales vs. kommerzielles Unternehmen) sie gründen? Haben soziale Präferenzen einen Einfluss auf produktive und/oder unproduktive unternehmerische Motive? Spielt die Persönlichkeitsstruktur in diesem Kontext eine Rolle? Die vorliegende Dissertation behandelt diese Fragen anhand von vier experimentellen Studien mit Unternehmern, Landwirten, Studierenden der Betriebs- und Volkswirtschaftslehre, sowie Mitarbeitern, Kollaboratoren und Investoren von Start-up-Unternehmen. Dabei werden unterschiedliche Methoden in Labor, Online, sowie „Lab-in-the field“ Experimenten angewendet. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Unternehmer im Vergleich zu den anderen Testgruppen, generell stärker ausgeprägte soziale Präferenzen besitzen, insbesondere bezüglich kooperativer Eigenschaften. Darüber hinaus wird kein Zusammenhang zwischen den sozialen Präferenzen von Unternehmern und ihrer Entscheidung ein soziales oder kommerzielles Unternehmen zu gründen gefunden. / How do entrepreneurs’ social inclinations compare to those of non-entrepreneurs? Does the social preference structure of entrepreneurs provide us with information regarding the business type they choose to operate (i.e., whether they choose to run a social business versus a commercial business)? Do social preferences relate to (un)productive entrepreneurial motives? Does personality play a role in this context? This dissertation addresses these research questions by conducting four experimental studies with actual entrepreneurs, business and economics students, farmers, and start-up employees, collaborators and investors. Thereby, different methods are applied in laboratory, online, and lab-in-the-field experiments. The findings suggest entrepreneurs to hold generally stronger social tendencies, in particular in relation to cooperation. No link between social preferences and the choice of founding a social or commercial business is found.

Cooperative, altruistic and fairness-exhibiting behavior is an important topic in evolutionary and behavioral biology and the mechanisms leading to its evolution, ultimate as well as proximate precursors, are subject of much research in biological as well as social sciences, theoretical as well as experimental work. In light of the life history theory, I focused on the connection of one's health state and cooperative behavior in humans and tested the hypothesis that more healthy individuals would manifest more cooperative tendencies (as they would have more opportunities of future interactions and long-term benefits), and conversely. The data, obtained from a sample of university students engaged in experimental games (Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Expanded Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, and Reversed Dictator Game) and a health and personality-focused questionnaire, did not corroborate this hypothesis. My other hypotheses - that better memory and lower temporal discounting would be related to more cooperative behavior (stemming from the conditions for reciprocal cooperation) - were supported by the data, albeit only partially in the case of memory. I also used the data from the five experimental games to briefly describe the proportions of different types of behavior (self-regarding, altruistic,...

Die erste Arbeit untersucht die Einschulungseffekte des indischen Midday Meal Scheme, das größte Schulessenprogramm der Welt. Um die kausalen Effekte der Strategie zu isolieren, benutzen wir die schrittweise Implementierung des Programms in Indiens Staaten in öffentlichen, aber nicht privaten Schulen. Wir finden einen substanziellen Zuwachs der Einschulung an Grundschulen. Die zweite Arbeit untersucht die Korrelation zwischen unternehmerischem Versuch und Startup und lokaler religiöser Diversität. Wir finden heraus, dass die Orte mit höherer religiöser Diversität mit einer höheren individuellen Wahrscheinlichkeit assoziiert sind, ein neues Unternehmen zu versuchen zu gründen, aber nicht es zum Erfolg zu führen. Die dritte Arbeit modelliert einen Markt in dem Konsumenten gegenüber den Arbeitern Altruismus empfinden und ein wohliges Gefühl davon ableiten, Produkte von Firmen zu kaufen, die zumindest einen Mindestlohn bezahlen. Symmetrische reine Strategie Equilibria werden analyisiert in einem Zufalls-Nutzenmodell mit einem Kontinuum an Konsumenten und n Firmen. / The first paper is a large-scale assessment of the enrollment effects of India''s midday meal scheme, the largest school feeding program in the world. To isolate the causal effect, we make use of staggered implementation across Indian states in public but not private schools. We find a substantial increase in primary school enrollment. The second paper studies the correlation between entrepreneurial trial and startup and local religious diversity. We find that localities with higher religious diversity are associated with a higher individual probability of trying to set up a new venture, but not of setting it up. The third paper models a market where consumers feel altruism towards workers and derive a warm-glow from buying products of firms that pay at least a minimum wage. Symmetric pure-strategy equilibria are analyzed in a random utility model with a continuum of consumers and n firms.