Part 1- The History of animal behavior

No humans have been studying animal behavior to become more efficient hunters and avoid being hunted

• OG animals passed all aspects of human behavior to animals being unthinking

  • Ex: Native Americans categorizing foxes as clever tricksters

Is animal behavior a new area of study?

sponges → humans

• animals closest to humanity had the most complex array of behaviors + those further away have less complex behaviors

Aristotle’s Chain of Being

• Sexual selection can play a major role in animal behavior.

• Sexual selection can also explain why something that is at a “disadvantage” from a purely natural selection point of view may be retained by a species

The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex

He concluded that behavior increased in complexity as the brain increased in complexity

What did Darwin conclude in Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals

Ethology + Comparative Psychology

What 2 subdisciplines did Darwin develop?

Ethology

the approach to the study of animal behavior focused primarily on the evolution and function of behavior.

• Europe

• compares closely related species

Comparative Psychology

the approach to the study of animal behavior focused primarily on the physiology, learning, and development of behavior

• United States

A student of Darwin who supported evolutionary continuity in behavior and created a table of emotions. Considered a founder of comparative psychology.

Who was George Romanes and what was his contribution to animal behavior?

That all nonhuman behaviors were instinctual and explained through tropisms

What did Jacques Loeb propose about animal behavior in 1918?

Tropism

a physiochemical response to a stimulus

Ethology and Comparative Psychology

What are the two main approaches to studying animal behavior in the early 20th century?

1. Mechanism (causation)

2. Development (ontogeny)

3. Survival Value (adaptive value)

4. Evolution (phylogeny)

What are Niko Tinbergen’s Four Questions in Animal Behavior?

Niko Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and Karl Von Frisch

Founders of Ethology

Comparing related species to understand evolutionary traits and behavioral ranges.

• Nuptial gifts evolve from real food to empty cocoons to avoid female predation

What is the Comparative Method in Ethology?

Fixed Action Pattern

An innate motor response triggered by a stimulus and completed fully even if the stimulus is removed.

• Innate, stereotypical, species-specific, not learned, consistent, can be inappropriately triggered

• EX: egg rolling in greylag geese and face washing

Sign Stimulus

The external enviromental factor that initiates an FAP.

• Ex: male Beta fish flaring out his operculs and raises fins to appear more larger and threatening in the presence of the other male (THE SIGN STIMULUS)

Social Releaser

A sign stimulus originating from a conspecific (same species), used in social communication

A sequence of FAPs, where each behavior triggers the next via its own sign stimulus.

• allows complex mating behaviors

  • ex: nest laying in three spine stickleback— defend nest, zig zag into nest, indicate female to enter nest, and nudge base of female tail to release eggs

What is a Chain of Reactions in animal behavior?

The principle that animal behavior should be explained by the simplest possible mechanism, avoiding human-like mental assumptions.

What was Morgan’s Canon?

E. L. Thorndike, using puzzle boxes to study learning.

• measure how long it took to solve then repeat to see if response time increased

Who introduced the idea of trial-and-error learning (Operant Conditioning)?

Operant Learning

an animal would find a solution to a problem (obtaining food, gaining freedom, etc.) accidently at first. Then the experiment would be repeated to see if the subject would learn and be able to cause the solution increasingly faster insuccessive trials.

• “TRAIL AND ERROR LEARNING”

Behaviors followed by positive outcomes are likely to be repeated.

• Ex: pressing lever with food = repeated by hungry animal

What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?

Ivan Pavlov.

Who developed Classical Conditioning?

Classical Conditioning

Learning through association; a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a significant one, producing a conditioned response.

• Ex: Dogs salivating at the sound of a bell bc associate bell w/ food

Behaviorism

A psychological approach focusing only on observable behaviors and quantifiable data.

• attempted to eliminate subjectivity by focusing on identifying the stimuli + cause of behavior to be maintained

learned behaviors can be quantitatively analyzed and evaluated

Why do comparative psychologist focus on learning?

The Skinner box, where rats learned to perform actions (like pressing a lever) to receive food.

• determined that patterns of behavior that are rewarded ten to be repeated

• behavior can be controlled through reinforcement

What tool did Skinner use in his studies?

Physiological Psychology

is a branch of comparative psychology looking the physiological basis of behaviors.

Jean Pierre Flourens who discovered

• the mind is located in the brain

• brain lesions

• diff regions of the brain are responsible for diff functions

Who was the first hysiological psychologist and what did he discover?

Memory is distributed across the cerebral cortex, not localized in one region.

What did Karl Lashley’s research suggest about memory?

Frank Beach

Who is the father of Behavioral Endocrinology?

Behavioral Ecology

examines the evolutionary and ecological basis of animal behaviors.

• Examine the costs and benefits of behaviors in the context of the environment

Sociobiology

focuses on how social behaviors evolve and how seemingly harmful behaviors (like alarm calls) benefit the group’s survival.

that evolutnionary success should measured not only by the number of offspring produced an individual which survive but also by the effects of that individual’s actions on nondescendent kin.

• COINED ALL THE FITNESSES

What did W.D. Hmailtion propose?

is the systematic study of the biological basis of all social behaviors.

Wilson’s defintion of sociobiology

The statistical study of populations (size, density, distribution) and it helps understand social behavior dynamics.

What is demography and why is it important in sociobiology?

Behavioral Genomics

The study of how genes and their products influence behavior.

Specific genes, their activated proteins, and how they influence behavior.

What can behavioral genomics identify?

Behavioral Biology

A modern version of ethology that integrates Tinbergen’s four questions.

To explain behavior in terms of its impact on Darwinian fitness.

• behaviors that decrease fitness are selected against and decline in the population

What is the goal of Behavioral Biology?

Using behavioral knowledge to meet the practical needs of animals in captivity or the wild.

• pets, farm animals, zoo animals, and wild animals

What is Applied Animal Behavior?