History of the Study of Animal Behaviour

History of Studies of Animal Behaviour

• Scala Naturae (Aristotle)• Evolutionary Approach (J.Lamarck;

C.Darwin)• Ethology (K.Lorenz; N.Tinbergen)• Comparative Psychology (C.Morgan;

E.Thorndike; M.&H.Harlow; K.Lashley)• Sociobiology/Behavioural Ecology

(E.O.Wilson; W.D.Hamilton)

Scala Naturae(the great chain of beings)

<-- Humans

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829) Engraving in 1821

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)wedding portrait done in 1841

Evolution according to Lamarck

According to Lamarck, constant use of certain organs led to changes in the organs themselves. For example, stretching of the neck, in the case of the giraffe, led to its gradual lengthening.

Evolution according to Darwin

Darwin maintained that the mechanism of natural selectionwas responsible for the evolutionof longer-necks in giraffes:individuals with longer necks survivedto pass their ‘long-neck’ trait along.

Ethologists Comparative Psychologists

• Evolution, function

• Innate behaviour

• Many species

• Natural habitats

• Species differences

• Mechanisms, development

• Learned behavour

• Few species

• Laboratory

• General laws

The egg retrieval response of the greylag goose

Fixed Action Pattern- a programmed behaviour pattern triggered by a specific environmental stimulus

• It is innate or unlearned

• It is stereotyped

• It is difficult to disrupt

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A gull attempting to incubate a super-egg instead of her own egg

Clever Hans - a horsewith a head for numbers

Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936)Photograph from ca. 1900

Morgan’s Canon

“In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.”

(Morgan 1891, p. 53)

Thorndike’s puzzle box

Margaret and Harry Harlow

Mother-Infant Bonding

Primates have a biological need for contact comfort

Karl Lashley attempted to locate the locus of learning in the cerebral cortex

Sociobiology/Behavioural Ecology

Alarm call by a ground squirrel

•Focus on the function of behaviour

•Cost/benefit analysis of the individual acts

•All behaviour is ultimately selfish (it maximizes individual genetic success)