Animal Behavior

1
Animal Behavior

• Nature vs. Nurture
• Instinct vs. Learning
• Communication
• Social Behavior
• Anthropomorphism

2
5 Types of Behavior

• Foraging How do they find food?
• Social How do they interact with other animals
  both interspecific and intraspecific
• Interspecific interactions with OTHER species
• Intraspecific interaction within their same
  species
• Territorial How do they define and defend their
  spot?
• Cyclic Do they have a routine that cycles
  throughout the year, month, season, etc.?
• Communication How do they communicate with
  other organisms again both interspecific and
  intraspecific

3
Instinct vs. Learning

• Instinct reflexes, reactions, knowledge an
  animal is born with
• Ex.- hunger, fear, motion, imprinting
• Learning must be taught, not born with it
• Ex.- speech, riding a bike, reading

4
Types of Learning

• Habituation animals become less and less
  concerned about or affected by something the more
  they experience it they become desensitized
• Classical Conditioning animals learn to
  associate one thing with another. Ex Pavlovs
  dogs
• Operant Conditioning an animal learns through
  the experience of trial and error, and positive
  or negative reinforcement
• Insight Learning animals take
  knowledge/previously learned skills and put them
  together to solve a new and unique problem

5
How Do Animals Communicate?

• Visually bright colors, expressions, actions,
  body language, etc.
• Vocally different sounds mean different things.
  Ex.- a good mother can tell the difference
  between an Im hungry cry and a change me cry
• Touch grooming habits, showing love, fighting
• Chemically usually through pheromones or other
  scents, ex- a dog peeing on something to mark his
  territory

6
How Do Humans Communicate?

• We have all the communication abilities of any
  other animal, PLUS we have language.
• Does this mean that animals cant speak and/or
  cant understand language? (Discuss)

7
Social Behavior

• Benefits
• provides protection against predators
• helps to raise the young
• increased food
• division of labor
• altruism
• Disadvantages
• Competition
• spread of disease
• stress due to the maintenance of the social
  structure (territorial and dominance behavior)

8
Anthropomorphism

• Definition assuming that animals have the same
  thoughts, emotions, motives, and feelings that we
  do
• For example, do animals think like us? Do they
  feel pain like we do? Can they be happy and sad?
  Are they aware of their place in the world?
• What do you think?

9
Nature VS. Nurture

• CR-1 NATURE VS. NURTURE (16 points)
• Directions
• Use the information below to answer Number 1.
• The idea that behavior must either be innate or
  learned is called the nature vs. nurture
  controversy. However, many animal behaviorists
  believe that a strict dichotomy between the two
  does not exist.
• Differentiate between innate and learned
  behaviors. In your response, be sure to
• Define both types of behaviors.
• Identify two reasons for believing that such a
  strict dichotomy does not exist.
• Explain the evolutionary advantages for animals
  to exhibit both types of behaviors.
• Use appropriate scientific vocabulary and
  specific details when writing your answers.

10
BCR Response

• There has long been a controversy surrounding the
  idea that either nature or nurture controls
  animal behavior however, many animal
  behaviorists believe that a strict dichotomy
  between the two does not exist. Innate behavior
  is behavior that is inherited or preprogrammed.
  These behavior patterns are believed to develop
  in the same way regardless of environment they
  are instinctive. The other aspect of behavior is
  learning, which is a modification of behavior
  through experience.
• Many behavioral scientists believe that behaviors
  cannot develop without experience and that all
  forms of behavior depend on an interaction of the
  organism and environment. Other behavior
  scientists believe that many complex sequences of
  behavior are not learned and appear to be
  programmed. This nature vs. nurture debate is
  exemplified in the male white-crowned sparrow,
  which must learn the song of its species by
  hearing the song of its father. If it is hand
  reared it will develop an abnormal song. If it
  hears recordings of other white-crowned sparrows
  within the first couple months after hatching, it
  will learn to sing normally. However, if it hears
  recordings of another species of sparrow, it does
  not learn the song. It innately knows that this
  is not its species and therefore cannot learn the
  song. It is programmed to only learn songs from
  the male of its species. If it were to learn the
  song of another species, there would be behavior
  chaos, females of the other species would be
  attracted to the white-crowned sparrow they
  would be unable to mate. There are evolutionary
  advantages for animals to exhibit both kinds of
  behaviors. Natural selection favors both innate
  and learned behaviors to eliminate these kinds of
  errors and thus allow species to survive and
  reproduce.