Animal Behavior Last Part of Semester

Resource holding potential (RHP)

characteristics that affect an individual’s ability to defend a resource

Conditional strategy

when contestants adjust their fighting strategy depending on the conditions of a particular fight

Asymmetrics in contests

fighting ability, experience, value of resource to each, abritrary asymmetries

Winner effects

when winning an agressive encounder increases the probability of winning future fights (winning streak)

Loser effect

when losing an agressive encounter increases the probability of losing future fights

Surge in _____ hormones in losers

stress

Bystander or “eavesdropper” effect

when observing an aggressive interaction between others changes an animal’s behavior due to its assessment of the fighting abilities of those it observed

Audience effects

When individuals involved in aggressive interactions change their behavior when being observed.

Costs of Dominance

greater energy expenditure, in some cases are increase stress hormones

Benefits of subordinate strategy

avoiding injury from agressor, better alternative than leaving group, alliances with other subordinates to challenge dominants

Play

motor activity that appears to be purposeless , in which motor patterns from other contexts are used in modified form and/or alterned sequence

5 crita for identifying play

1) behavior is incompletely functional 2) behavior is spontaneous, voluntary, or rewarding 3) behavior differs from regular forms of behavior 4) repeatedly observed but not stereotypic 5) behavior is performed in stress-free condition

Play is more common in ______ animals

younger

different types of play

object play, locomotor play, social play

object play

play involving the use of inanimate objects and the pushing, throwing, tearing, and manipulation of objects (consists of enrichment in zoos)

locomotor play

play involving specific motor patterns, used out of their regular context, often in a repeated or exaggered fashion (learing environment and self, improving motor skills)

social play

play involving interaction with conspecifics (or members of another species)

Personality (move viewed in humans)

Looks mainly at open mindedness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, negative emotionality

temperment (used mostly for animals)

individual differences in behavioral patterns, considered permanent

Main Axes of Temperment

Shyness/Boldness (reaction to risk), Exploration/Avoidence (reaction to novel things), Activity level, Agressiveness (towards conspecifics), Sociability (desire for presence of conspecifics)

Behavioral type

consistent, long term behavioral differences between individuals (similarly to personalilty/temperment)

Behavioral syndrome

consistent and/or correlated behaviors (association of behaviors with each other)

Coping style

how an animal handles stress in the environment

Aspects of temperment

1) Consistent behavior over time: behavioral patterns remain the same at different time points. 2) Consistent behavior across contexts 3) Behavioral syndrome: behavioral patterns are consistently different between different individuals

When identifying personality/temperment

Looking for repeatability: when the variation within an individual’s behavior is significantly less than the variation between individuals.

Shyness

a pattern of behavior involving a reluctance to take risks (usually found with avoidance behaviors)

Boldness

a pattern of behavior involving risk taking (found with exploratory behaviors)

activity-impulsivity behavioral syndrome

the number of repeat sequences in the dopamine D4 receptor gene varies between individuals (in humans and in other animals, associated with various personality traits in humans)

epigenetics

environmental influences that can have long term, trans-generational, effects on phenotype (via changes to chromatin structure), can lead to tempermental differences

false beliefs

when others believe things that are not true

intentionally dishonest behavior

controversial, because deceptor needs to understand false beliefs in order to tactically decieve

Observers bias

when testing cognition, have to consider other cues that could drive animal cognition or thinking

Human Bias

Humans are prone to ascribing human-like thoughts and feelings to other animals (anthropomorphism)

Components of understanding of death

Causality, non-functionality, permanence/irreversibility, universitality (including oneself), unpredictability

Corvids understand the ______ aspect of death

causality

Elephants linger over carcasses and bones

exhibit distress, sometimes bury dead, understand permanance

Non-human primates will

inspect, touch, and carry dead infants (prolonged attatchment behavior); curious or protective behaviors, appear to comfort each other, disgust