week 8 Flashcards
tinbergen’s 4 questions
- how is it caused?
- how does it develop?
- what is its function?
- what is its origin and how did it evolve
Question 1 - how is it caused
motivation:
casual factors:
- external casual factors
- internal casual factors
question 2 - how does it develop?
- influences from genotype and environment
question 3 - what is its function?
- ultimately, to increase fitness but how?
question 4 - how did it evolve and what was its origin?
natural selection?
motivational system
a set of functionally related behaviours = behaviours with a common goal
external stimuli
sign stimulus -> innate releasing mechanism -> fixed action pattern
sign stimuli
- visual releasers
- auditory releasers
- chemical releasers
learned stimuli
- preferred foods
- spatial learning
- emotionally charged things and places
the id source of 3 energies
- libido
- self-preservation
- death instincts
catharsis
the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from strong or repressed emotions
- anger builds up as an internal energy - aggressive behaviour releases energy
Lorenz (1950) psychohydraulic model applied to aggressive behaviour
action specific energy accumulates with time
- likelihood of aggression increases with time since last encounter
- aggression inevitable
Energy dissipated by action
- intensity of aggression declines through encounter
- motivation low at end of fight (catharsis)
critique of Lorenz’s psychohydraulic model of aggression
- aggression does not always increase with time since last encounter
- once started encounters often escalate, not decline, in intensity
- no evidence for energy accumulation
problems with drive
- drive is a label - to say an individual drinks because it has a thirst drive does not explain anything
- Hull stated that drive energised all responses equally but this is no necessarily so
- ignores feedback from the consequences of behaviour
control theory approach
provides a framework for building theories
- derived from engineering
- feedback essential for control of behaviour
- homeostatic system