This Just In!
Your comprehensive guide to behaviors
Why learn about behaviors?
This newspaper article will provide all of the information you will need to gain a better understanding of animals and humans! In just a few pages, everything will be made clear!
This is the most important part of the article (but please keep reading). Behaviors are the actions that organisms take in response to other stimuli, and greatly vary based on inherited and learned memories.
Nature vs Nuture
There are two main opposing schools of thought. There are questions on whether are behaviors are learned from other peers, or if they are given at birth. There are also questions on the extent of how much we can learn other people without being constrained by genetics. Innate abilities, such as sucking on a teat, breathing, and crying are born abilities to mammals (specifically humans).
Fixed Action Pattern
A fixed action pattern is an instinctive behavioral response triggered by a very specific stimulus. Once triggered, the FAP behavior can’t be stopped ‘midstream’, but must play out to completion. The most observable action is yawning.
Foraging
Foraging is the process of finding food and varies greatly between different organisms. Some will hunt while others tend to go out of their way to find the remains.
Learning
Learning is the process of gaining new information and how to respond to different sources of such information.
Maturation
Maturation is the process of growing older in body and in mind. For one, the body physically grows larger while the mind is more adept a making rational decisions.
Habituation
The process of habituation is when a stimulus fails to instigate the same response over time. A good example is the long term response from drug use.
Imprinting
Imprinting is the process of identifying a certain object (usually the first one seen) as a parental figure.
Conditioning
Conditioning the process of creating unique responses with certain stimuli. The two main types are classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning is the process of manipulating an unconditioned stimulus to guarantee a conditioned response. The Pavlovian dog example is by far the most well known.
Operant Conditioning
In contrast to classical conditioning, operant conditioning uses reinforcement and punishments to gain certain reactions to certain scenarios.
Play
Play incorporates the physical activities needed for good health along with social interaction. For animals it is more of a play battle kind of business, but also teaches about social norms
Kinesis
Kinesis is movement caused by a stimulus and is limited to physical forms.
Taxis
Taxis is instead a response to a stimulus of food of light
Migration
Migration is a periodic or season movement based on finding areas with better weather conditions or food.
Ritual
In biology terms, a ritual is a process usually used in finding a mate.
Signal
A signal is a message sent either literally in a electric sense or through actions and emotions.