Ethological Explanation

Question 1

Outline the ethological explanation

Answer 1

• Stresses the adaptative value of animal behaviour
• The study of the behaviour patterns of animals but animal studies can be generalised to humans as we’re all subject to the same forces of natural selection

Question 2

Describe Lorenz’s key idea in the ethological explanation

Answer 2

He argues aggression is ‘fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species’

Question 3

What does Lorenz’s key idea imply in the ethological explanation?

Answer 3

• This means that aggression is in instinct and as it occurs in all members of a species without learning, aggression is innate.
• Aggression serves to distribute resources like food, mates and territory

Question 4

Describe ritualistic aggression

Answer 4

• Ethologists have shown not all aggression involves fighting but may be ritualised in the form of threat displays, making physical aggression less likely.
• It would not be an adaptive advantage if we always fought our species to death as there would be none left.

Question 5

What are appeasement displays?

Answer 5

During conflict, to prevent it escalating, the weaker individual may show appeasement displays. e.g. wolves show their neck to surrender

Question 6

What is the instinctive inhibition?

Answer 6

Animals have an instinct to inhibit aggression to prevent the killing of their species (resulting in appeasement displays)

Question 7

Link the instinctive inhibition to humans

Answer 7

• Lorenz argues humans don’t have power natural weapons so they didn’t need to develop strong instinctive inhibitions against killing each other.
• However science and technology have developed weapons of destructive power without the instinctive inhibitions against them

Question 8

What is an innate releasing mechanism? (IRM)

Answer 8

An inbuilt physiological structure (network of neurons in the brain)

Question 9

What are fixed action patterns? (FAPs)

Answer 9

An environmental stimulus triggers the IRM which then releases a specific sequences of behaviours, knowns as FAPs

Question 10

What are the 5 main features of FAPs?

Answer 10

Lea argues
- Stereotyped (relatively unchanging sequences of behaviours)
- universal (found in every individual)
- independent of individual experience (innate)
- ballistic (once the behaviour is triggered, it can’t be stopped)
- specific triggers (behaviour only occurs in response to a specific sign stimulus)

Question 11

Describe the hydraulic model

Answer 11

• Each FAP has a reservoir of ‘action- specific’ energy (ASE) that builds up over time. If the ASE is full, and the animal sees a sign stimulus, the IRM releases the FAP
• If the ASE is empty, the FAPs can’t be performed again until the ASE has built back up

Question 12

Describe the procedure of Tinbergen’s research

Answer 12

• He presented a series of wooden models to sticklebacks
• Some models were accurate in shape to a stickleback but didn’t have a red underbelly. Others weren’t accurate in shape but did have a red underbelly
• Tinbergen observed to see whether each wooden model would trigger the IRM and then the FAP

Question 13

Describe the findings of Tinbergen’s research

Answer 13

• Regardless of the shape, if the model has a red underbelly, the male stickleback would display aggression
• If there was no red underbelly, there was no aggression, even if the shape was accurate
• So, the red underbelly was the sign stimulus that triggers the IRM in sticklebacks
• The aggressive FAPs were unchanging across encounters and, once triggered, always ran its course

Question 14

Give evaluation of the ethological explanation (support from the anthropological evidence)

Answer 14

• e.g. Chagnon found that, among the Yanomamo people of South America, chest pounding and club fighting contests can settle a conflict.
• This shows that, rituals have the effect of reducing actual aggression and preventing injury or death.
• This provides support for the applicability ritualistic aggression to understanding human aggression

Question 15

Give evaluation for the ethological explanation (criticism of the applicability of the ethological explanation to humans)

Answer 15

• As our environment changes so rapidly, aggression may no longer be adaptive. The flexibility of human behaviour has proven more effective than the production of fixed patterns of behaviour, as proposed by the ethological explanation.
• This suggests that, although non-human species may respond aggressively to specific sign stimulus, human behaviour is more varied and less predictable than the ethological explanation suggests.

Question 16

Give evaluation for the ethological explanation (conflicting evidence for the hydraulic model within the ethological explanation)

Answer 16

• Lorenz believed that when ASE levels reached a peak, it would lead to the FAP, and then the reduction in the likelihood of aggression.
• However, von Holst showed that the performance of aggression itself could be a further stimulus, making aggression more likely
• This contradicts the idea that aggression is less likely directly after an aggressive behaviour; calling into question the accuracy of the hydraulic model.

Question 17

Give evaluation for the ethological explanation (criticism of the ethological claim that predator species have instinctive inhibitions)

Answer 17

• There’s contradicting evidence of that among predator species the killing of members of the same species must be accidental
• In some predator species, the killing of conspecifics is more systematic than accidental. e.g. male lions kill off the cubs of other males.
• Therefore, this casts doubt on the claim that much of animal aggression is ritualistic