biopsych chap 2

zeitgeist

the general intellectual climate of our culture

cartesian dualism

Descartes's philosophy became known

john b watson

father of behaviorism

ethology

the study of animal behavior in the wild

instinctive behaviors

behaviors that occur in all like members of a species, even when there seems to have been no opportunity for them to have been learned

physiological-or-psychological thinking

the assumption that some aspects of human psychological functioning are so complex that they could not possibly be the product of a physical brain

primate

species, possess some abilities that were once assumed to be purely psychological and thus purely human

asamatognosia

"the man who fell out of bed" deficiency in the awareness of parts of one's own body

the origin of species

Modern biology began in 1859 with the publication of Charles Darwin's

evolve

undergo gradual orderly change

natural selection

the evolution of species that are better adapted to surviving and repro-

ducing in their particular environmental niche. Darwin called this

fitness

in the Darwinian sense, is the ability of an organism to survive and contribute its genes to the next generation

hierarchy of social dominance

The males of many species establish a stable blank through combative encounters with other males

species

a group of organisms reproductively isolated from other organisms

conspecifics

members of the same species

chordates

are animals with dorsal nerve cords

dorsum

large nerves that run along the center of the back

phyla

into which zoologists group animal species

vertebrae

The spinal bones are called

vertebrates

The spinal bones are called vertebrae and the chordates that possess them are called

mammals

The females of this new class fed their young with secretions from special glands called mammary glands, and the members of the class are called

primates

The order to which we belong is the order

primus

which means first or foremost

apes

(gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees) are thought to have evolved from a line of Old World monkeys.

amphibians

(e.g., frogs, toads, and salamanders) in their larval form must live in the water; only

adult amphibians can survive on land

homini

Primates of the tribe that includes humans are the

convolutions

folds on the cerebral surface

promiscuity

a mating arrangement in which the members of both sexes indiscriminately copulate with many different partners during each mating period.

mating bonds

(enduring mating relationships) with particular members of the other sex

polygyny

an arrangement in which one male forms mating bonds with more than one female

polyandry

a mating arrangement in which one female forms mating bonds with more than one male

monogamy

a mate-bonding pattern in which enduring bonds are formed between one male and one female.