Ethological Explanations

Question 1

What are the 2 key elements of the ethological approach?

Answer 1

• aggression is an instinct and genetically determined
• ethologists study aggression in non human animals and extrapolate their findings to humans because we are all subject to the same forces of natural selection

Question 2

What is ritualistic aggression?

Answer 2

• refers to behaviours are carried out in a set order
• involves a period of ritualistic signaling such as display of claws and threatening facial expressions
• the aggressive confrontation ends with one member of the species showing acceptance of defeat
• adaptive as it avoids risking physical injury

Question 3

Why are aggressive displays adaptive?

Answer 3

• establish territory/ disperse species: a defeated animal is forced to establish territory elsewhere
  members of the species spread out over a wider area and have to discover resources in a different place which reduces competition pressures
• establish dominance hierarchies: animals that live in social hierarchies need to maintain social order. aggression is used to establish and maintain status amongst others

Question 4

What is an innate releasing mechanism? (IRM)

Answer 4

a built in physiological process or structure e.g a network or neurons in the brain
a sign stimulus e.g another member of species bearing their teeth, triggers the IRM which releases a specific sequence of behaviours

Question 5

What is a fixed action pattern? (FAP)

Answer 5

is the behavioural sequence that is acted out when the innate releasing mechanism is triggered by a stimulus in the environment

Question 6

What are the 6 features of FAP’s?

Answer 6

• (Lea, 1984)
  1. Stereotyped = a relatively unchanging sequence of behaviours
  2. Universal = the same behaviour is found in every individual of a species
  3. Rigid = unaffected by learning/ experience of the individual
  4. Ballistic = once triggered the behaviour sequence runs its course
  5. Single-purpose = behaviour only occurs in a specific situation
  6. Triggered = occurs in the presence of a specific sign stimulus

Question 7

Tinbergen (1951) - stickleback study

Answer 7

Male sticklebacks are highly territorial during mating season and develop a red spot on their underbelly. If another male enters their territory, a sequence of highly stereotyped behaviours is initiated triggered by the red belly markings
When models were placed in the tank with male sticklebacks, Tinbergen found that regardless of shape, the models with red spots resulted in aggressive displays from the male fish
However, models with no red spots (even if the model looked like another stickleback) did not trigger any aggressive behaviours

Question 8

AO3: research into genetic basis of aggression ✅

Answer 8

P: if aggression is an adaptive behaviour as the ethological explanation proposes, then research into a genetic basis for aggression can be used to support the concept of aggression as an innate instinct
E: Tiihonen (2015) studied 900 Finnish prisoners who had engaged in violent behaviour in the past. Each criminal was given a profile based on their offences, which categorised them as either violent or non-violent. Prisoners were also screened for two genes: Low activity MAOA and CDH13. The association between these two genes and previous behaviour was strongest for the 78 who fitted the “extremely violent offender” profile

Question 9

AO3: research support against ritualistic aggression ❌

Answer 9

P: observation of chimpanzees by Goodall (2010) challenged the view of aggression as a relatively harmless ritual that is engaged in to maintain territory whilst risking little physical harm to the self
E: Goodall reported on a ‘four year war’ between two different communities of chimpanzees where chimps from 1 group systematically slaughtered all the members of the rival group, sometimes attacks lasted up to 20 minutes
E: the violence continued despite the victim showing signs of appeasement and defencelessness
L: the fact these signals did not stop the aggressors behaviours does not fit with the ethological view of innate release mechanisms and fixed action patterns

Question 10

AO3: lacks ecological validity ❌

Answer 10

P: ethological research on humans has been extrapolated to humans. however this may be problematic as it leads to an incomplete understanding of human aggression
E: for example, Lorenz did not consider higher mammals such as primates and Tinbergen chose not to study the type of extreme destructive violence featured in human aggression
E: despite this, both made generalisations about aggression in humans, including in warfare
L: this may be argued to severely lack ecological validity, as war does not rely on one fixed action pattern as it happens across multiple countries and is down to much bigger wide scale problems, such as political disputes