9. Innate behaviour

Question 1

What are innate behaviours?

Answer 1

behaviours which are closely controlled by genes and stimulus with little to no environmental influence.

innate behaviours are rigid and predictable and include basic life functions such as finding food and caring for offspring

Question 2

What are instincts?

Answer 2

The ability for an animal to perform a behaviour the first time it is exposed to the proper stimulus- eg- dogs drooling every time it sees food

Question 3

What is imprinting?

Answer 3

A critical period of time in early animals lives where they form attachments and a concept of identity.

Question 4

Who was Konrad Lorenz and what was his study?

Answer 4

Austrian naturalist Konrad Lorenz was the first to establish the science behind the imprinting programme.

Looked at geese and their attachment to people and objects.

Question 5

What is associative learning?

Answer 5

A learning theory by which things that occur close together become associated- Pavlovian/classical conditioning or operant conditioning

Question 6

What is non-associative learning?

Answer 6

The use of a single stimuli to train an animal. eg- habituation and sensitisation