Ethological explanations Flashcards
What is the ethological explanation ?
An explanation that seeks to understand the innate behaviour of animals by studying them in their natural environment.
What does the ethological explanation suggest about aggression ?
It suggests aggression is adaptive.
What is 1 adaptive functions of aggression ;
It is beneficial to survival because a ‘defeated’ animal is rarely killed but rather forced to establish territory elsewhere.
What happens if defeated animals have to find territory elsewhere ?
Members of a species spread wider and discover resources in different places, which reduces competition pressure and possibilty of starvation.
What is another adaptive function of aggression
To establish dominance heirachies.
Eg. Male chimpanzee’s use aggression to climb their troop’s social hierarchy.
What does dominance give ?
A special status , which happend in humans too .
Research (adaptive functions )
Gregory pettit et al. studies groups of young children and observed how aggression played an important role in the development of dominance hierarchies.
This is adaptive because dominance over others brings benefits such as access to resources
What is a ritual
A series of behaviours carried out in a set order.
Research ; Ritualistic aggression
Konard Lorenz. observed fights between animals of the same species produced little actual physical damage. Most aggressive encounters consisted of a prolonged period of ritualistic signalling(facial expressions,showing claws,teeth,)
What did Lorenz find ?
The intra-species confrontations end with ritual appeasement displays, which indicates acceptance of defeat and inhibit futher aggressive behaviour in the victor.
Eg. of ritual appeasement
At the end of an aggressive confrontation, a wolf will expose its neck to the victor. This is a submissive gesture making itself vulnerable to a single bite to its jugular vein.
Why is the gesture a wolf does adaptive ?
This is adaptive because if every aggressive encounter ended with the death of one of the combatants, that could threaten the existence of the species
What is an innate releasing mechanism (IRM)
An inbuilt physiological structure/ process which is activated by an external stimulus that in turn triggers a fixed action pattern.
Fixed action pattern
A sequence of stereotyped preprogrammed behaviours triggered by an in IRM
6 Features of FAP
-Stereotyped, or relatively unchanging sequences of behaviours.
-Universal; same behaviour is found in every individual of a species
-Unaffected by learning,the same for every indivdual regardless of experience
-‘Ballistic’, once a behaviour is triggered it follows an inevitable course and cannot be altered before it is completed.
-Single-purpose , the behaviour only occurs in a specific situations and not in any other.
-A response to an identifiable specific sign stimulus
