Behaviour Flashcards
What is the health triad?
Health is the combination of physical, cognitive and emotional health
What are the two types of motivational-emotional systems?
Who described them?
Positive motivational emotions
Negative motivational emotions
Jaak Panksepp described them
What are all the positive motivational emotional systems?
Desire-seeking
Social play
Lust
Care
What are all the negative motivational-emotional systems?
Frustration
Fear-anxiety
Pain
Pain-grief
What is the role of desire seeking behaviours?
a general purpose neuronal system that motivates animalstomore to places where they have potenial of finding and consuming resources needed for survival- food and water
What is the purpose of fear related emotional systems?
Anxiety- relates to the preservation of comfort provided by predictable access to essential resources and the managment of threats to personal or resource security
This intrinsically helps animals to avoid dangers and it is more adaptive to feel to feel anticipatory fear than to be attacked and harmed
What is the role of pain system in normal behaviour of animals?
Pain is related to the maintenance of body integrity and functioning and it is both a distinct sensation and motivation
The activation of this system is a response to the environmental stimuli which are relatedto actual or potential tissue damage
What is the role of the lust emotional system?
Organises the specific reproductive needs ranging from the attraction or the selection of a partner through courtship to any potential bond to mating with a sexual partner
What is the purpose of the care emotional system?
Dedicated to maintaining the bonds to the individual offspring through a recognisable parental care or nurturance towards others
What is the role of the panic-grief system?
This system is related more to the protection of the species rather than the individual; it relates to the safeguarding of the survival of young and protection of the genetic survival of the species
Before young can protect themselves what do yound animals exhibit and why?
Yound animals start to exhibit powerful emotional arousals indicating desperate needs for nuturing care
What is frustrastion and what does it cause?
Triggered by a failure to meet expectations, obtain resources or retain control- this system intensifies and accelerates behavioural responses
What is the fear anxiety emotional system designed to do?
It is designed to take the stimulus away from the animal or the animal away from the stimulus and limit potential damage
This can be achieved by increasing the distance and reducing interaction with the trigger or increasing the information known about the trigger
What happens when a emotional motivation is unsuccesfully responded too?
Frustration
This maybe due to the physical or social environment or due to human interactions and interventions
What can potentially cause ‘agressive’ behaviours
Responses of the panic grief system in association with frustration may be relevant
Possible also when frustration becomes involved in the lust system
Frustration of the social play system commonly results in agression
In false pregnancies the frustration of the care system caused by a lack of puppies can increase risk of aggressive reponses
What are the most important emotions in behavioural medicine?
Pain
Frustration
Fear-anxiety
Panic-grief
Why are problematic behaviours potentially not problematic, when are they a cause for concern?
It is behavioural responses to emotional motivators leading to the behabiour which could be entirely normal
They are a cause for concern when they are present due to:
comprised physical or cognitive health
miscommunication between species
enviornments are sub-optimal- physically and socially
What is emotional stability?
An individuals ability to remain emotionally stable and balenced
What is emotional capacity?
the level of emotional arousal that an individual can tolerate without significant or long lasting negative outcome
What is emotional valence?
Describes the extent to which an emotion is positive or negative
What is emotional arousal?
Refers to the intensity of the emotional motivation
What is emotional resilience?
The ability to adapt to stressful situations and cope with life’s ups and downs. Resilience does not eliminate stress or erase life’s difficultiesbut allows the animal to tackle or accept problems, live through adversity
What people have a specific level of responsibility with emotional stability?
Breeders:
Selection of breeding stock
Caring for pregnant bitches
Early rearing of puppies
Why do guardians have a specific level of responsibility in regards for emotional stability?
Providing an optimal, physical and social environment according to species specific needs
Providing the opportunity for beneficial learning- classical conditioning and operant conditioning
Rewarding appropriate decision making
Setting individuals up to succeed
What is the analogy of emotional capacity?
An emotional sink
What do all the different parts of the sink apply to?
Size of the sink- capacity for arousal
Cold tap- engaging- positive emotions
Hot tap- negative emotions
Mixer tap- emotional conflict
Drain- emotional resiliance
Overflow hole- displacement
What is emotional capacity- size of sink- decided by?
Genetics of parents and emotional health of parents
Experiences <7-8 weeks old
Experiences during the first year or so of life
What are examples of positive- cold tap- and negative emotions- warm tap?
J. Panksepp
Positive- desire seeking, social play, lust, care
Negative emotions- fear-anxiety, pain, frustration, panic-grief
How does emotional resiliance help with emotional stability?
It results in optimal emotional drainage after a trigger has been encountered
It helps to maintain a low level of residual emotion
This maximises the avalability of emotional capacity
How can drainage be achived?
Calming things
Sleeping
Chewing
Grooming
What is the significance of deplacement behaviours?
Normal behaviours in an abnormal context
What is deplacement always associated with?
A high level of emotional arousal- a full sink
When is there a high risk of overflow applied to the sink analogy?
The sink is small (low emotional capacity)
The tap is host when it its not justified (emotional disorder)
The tap is hot when justified (inappropriate physical or social environment)
The tap (hot or cold) is turned on full
There was a high level of residual water in the sink at the time (poor emotional resilience)
The people around do not recognise or act on specific signs of impending overflow
How can emotional overflow be prevented?
Optimising emotional health of the individual:
Creating adequate emotional capacity- appropriate breeding and rearing, positive life experiences
Establishing good socialisation and habituation- reduce salience of everyday stimuli- reduce flow rate, create positive associations with everyday stimuli- create cold tap inflow
Creating optimal emotional resiliance- encouraging drainage behaviours, chewing appropriatley, self directed relaxation
How can emotional overflow be prevented with those interacting with the animal?
Understanding emotional systems
Recognising the need for pets to be able to respond appropriatley and successfully to emotional responses
Learning to read signs of increasing emotional arousal
Understanding the role of deplacment activity
What is emotional intelligence?
The capacity to be aware of, control and express one’s emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judicously and empathetically
How can emotional intelligence be taught to animals?
Involves exposing young mammals to a variety of contexts and establishing suitable emotional associations
Also rewarding appropriate decision making in terms of selecting behavioural responses to negative emotions when they arise
What are some possible behavioural responses to negative emotion?
Repulsion (fight)
Avoidance (flight)
Appeasement (actively gathering information)
Behavioural inhibition (passively gathering information)
Use of information gathering strategies (inhibition and appeasement)
Combination
What is the aim of an animals repulsion?
The aim is to increase distance from and decrease interaction with the trigger- this is achieved by influencing the trigger to take action
Many are reported as problematic: growling, hissing, air snapping, biting
What is the aim of avoidance how is it achieved?
The aim of the response is to increase distance from and decrease interaction with the trigger
This is achieved by the individual taking action
Problematic reports of this are: bolting, moving away from people who want to engage with the pet, taking a wide berth around other dogs, hiding from visitors
Why is avoidance often compromised in domestic species?
Dogs on leads
Dogs in crowded social environments
Cats in carriers
Well intentioned caregivers attempting to comfort pet
What is the aim of appeasement and how is it done?
The aim is to increase information about the trigger
This is achieved by actively interacting to both gather further information about the trigger and offer signs of non-hostility in return
Reported behaviours: juming up at people, attention seeking, urination on greeting
What is behavioural inhibition and when does it happen?
A state of behavioural shut down where the animal does not interact with the threat in any way but continues to gather information about it
Occurs when a threat is overwhelming in terms of: percived magnitude of threat, speed of its approach, proximity of stimulus
How can inhibition often be recognised as ‘being relaxed’ and appeasement as affection and trust?
If a potential threat has some positive qualities the animal may choose to stay in the presence of the stimulus
Inhibition and appeasment allow the dog to gather information while maintaining the potential for positive social interaction
This allows certain dogs a context of social interaction but unfamiliar or conflictual
Inhibition often seen as bein relaxed
Appeasment is often misinterpreted as affection and trust
What behaviours can individuals display at the same time?
Avoidance and inhibition
Avoidance and appeasement
Avoidance and repulsion
Why is cognitive health relevant to preventative behavioural medicine?
Establishing appropriate contextual associations for innate and reflex behavioural responses involved learning
Learning is involved with developing appropriate emotional associations with objects, contexts people and other animals
Developing behaviours which are compatible with the domestic context involves learning
What are the two forms of learning?
Classic- pavlovian
Operant- instrumental
What are the two main features of pavlocian conditioning?
Involuntary or reflex responses
There is no involement of reward
(Pavlovs dogs)
An association between unconditioned stimulus- food- and conditioned stimulus- food leadning to the conditioned response of salivation