Psychology 2700 Animal Behaviour
Summer session I 2003
Monday and Wednesday 9:00 - 11:50 a.m.
Room: D 634
Instructor: Joanna Komorowska
How to reach me?
• Office: C 883• Office hours: Wed 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
(or by appointment)• Phone: 329-2436• E-mail: [email protected]
Exams
May 26 Midterm Exam I (33.3%)
Jun 09 Midterm Exam II (33.3%)
Jun 25 Final Exam (time TBA) (33.3%)
• Why study animal behaviour?– Pragmatic reasons– Protection of endangered species– As models of human behaviour– Curiosity
History of Studies of Animal Behaviour
• Scala Naturae (Aristotle)• Evolutionary Approach (J.Lamarck;
C.Darwin)• Ethology (K.Lorenz; N.Tinbergen)• Comparative Psychology (C.Morgan;
E.Thorndike; M.&H.Harlow; K.Lashley)• Sociobiology/Behavioural Ecology
(E.O.Wilson; W.D.Hamilton)
Ethologists Comparative Psychologists
• Evolution, function
• Innate behaviour
• Many species
• Natural habitats
• Species differences
• Mechanisms, development
• Learned behavour
• Few species
• Laboratory
• General laws
Fixed Action Pattern- a programmed behaviour pattern triggered by a specific environmental stimulus
• It is innate or unlearned
• It is stereotyped
• It is difficult to disrupt
Morgan’s Canon
“In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.”
(Morgan 1891, p. 53)
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