Transcript What is Behavior?

What is
Behavior?
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Definition
The study of behavior encompasses all the movements
and sensations by which organisms mediate their
relationship with their environment -- physical, biotic and
social.
• Movements and sensations
• Mediate relationship with environment
Mediate relationship
with environment?
Mediate Relationship With Environment
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
NEURAL/
ENDOCRINE
MECHANISMS
DEVELOPMENT
GENETIC
MAKEUP
Mediate Relationship With Environment
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
NEURAL/
ENDOCRINE
MECHANISMS
DEVELOPMENT
GENETIC
MAKEUP
SOLVE
PROBLEMS?
Mediate Relationship With Environment
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
NEURAL/
ENDOCRINE
MECHANISMS
SOLVE
PROBLEMS:
• Find Food
DEVELOPMENT
GENETIC
MAKEUP
• Avoid Predators
• Shelter
• Mate
• Parental Care
Mediate Relationship With Environment
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
NEURAL/
ENDOCRINE
MECHANISMS
SOLVE
PROBLEMS:
• Find Food
DEVELOPMENT
GENETIC
MAKEUP
• Avoid Predators
• Shelter
• Mate
• Parental Care
IF SOLVE
PROBLEMS,
CONSEQUENCES?
Mediate relationship with environment
BEHAVIOR
GENE
POOL
SOLVE
PROBLEMS
GENES
SURVIVE &
REPRODUCE
If she solves en route problems, she experiences a
successful migration. Successful migration?
Survival and Reproductive Success
EN ROUTE PROBLEMS
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Adjust to unfamiliar habitats
Acquire food in short period of time
Contend with competitors
Avoid predators
Resolve conflicting demands
Maintain health
Gain adequate sleep
Finding the right direction
Cope with adverse weather
Mediate relationship with
environment
BEHAVIOR
GENE
POOL
SOLVE
PROBLEMS
GENES
GENES
SURVIVE &
REPRODUCE
Animal Behavior
•
Nature – Nurture
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–
•
Innate behavior: what you are born with naturally
Learned behavior: what you learn from your
environment
Behavioral Ecology: Implications of
Anisogamy
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–
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Why sex?
Why sexes?
Implications?
NATURE – NURTURE:
CONTROVERSIAL?

Genetic Determinism: human nature
might be molded by the genes.

Heritability, Intelligence and IQ Debate

Genetics of Violence

Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is
not a choice (?)
Innate Behaviors
• Can be performed without prior
experience
• Are performed in reasonably complete
form the first time
– Appear even if the animal is deprived of
opportunity to learn it
– Example: Egg eviction behavior in cuckoo
chicks
The cuckoo chick, just hours after it
hatches and before its eyes have
opened, evicts the eggs of its foster
parents from the nest.
The parents, responding to the
stimulus of the cuckoo chick's widegaping mouth, feed the chick,
unaware that it is not related to
them.
Learned Behaviors
• Behaviors modified by experience
• One form of learning is called habituation
– A decline in response to a repeated stimulus
– Prevents wasting energy and attention on
irrelevant stimuli
– Example: Repeated physical stimulation of
sea anemones
Learned Behaviors
• A more complex form of learning is called
trial-and-error learning
– New and appropriate responses to stimuli are
acquired through experience
– Response to naturally occurring stimuli based
on rewards and punishments
– Often occurs during play or exploratory
behavior
PLAY BEHAVIOR
NATURE - NURTURE
• Seemingly innate behavior can be
modified by experience
Example: Herring
gull chicks come to
recognize own
parents as they
mature
NATURE - NURTURE
• Learning may be governed by innate
constraints
• Examples
– Robins learn only songs of adult robins
– Birds imprint only on their “parent” during the
sensitive period in their development
NATURE – NURTURE:
CONTROVERSIAL?

Genetic Determinism: human nature
might be molded by the genes.

Heritability, Intelligence and IQ Debate

Genetics of Violence

Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is
not a choice (?)
NATURE - NURTURE
•
Stephen Pinker. ''The Blank Slate: The Modern
Denial of Human Nature'‘.
•
Tabula rasa (Latin: blank slate) refers to the
epistemological thesis that individuals are born
without built-in mental content and that their
knowledge comes from experience and sensory
perception. Implication: all human minds are
equal because they are equally blank, equally
free of innate, genetically shaped, abilities and
behaviors.
•
Consider child-rearing: children's characters are
shaped by their genes, by their peer group and
by chance experiences; parents cannot mold
their children's nature, nor should they wish to,
any more than they can redesign that of their
spouses. Those little slates are not as blank as
they may seem.
•
If genes do contribute substantially to the
development of personal characteristics such as
intelligence and personality, then many wonder if
this implies that genes determine who we are.
No: Misunderstanding of development.