Courtship Behaviour (original) (raw)
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What is Behavior? And So What?
New Ideas in Psychology, 2010
This article addresses a longstanding problem in the field of psychology, that of lacking an adequate explication of what is arguably our central concept as a “science of behavior,” the concept of “behavior” itself. The three sections comprising the paper are devoted, respectively, to (a) presenting a conceptual formulation of behavior; (b) discussing this formulation by, among other things, addressing objections to it and noting its advantages over psychology’s currently preferred definition of behavior as observable activity; and (c) relating why having such a formulation is important. The final section includes several uses to which the present formulation has already been and can in future be put, including a sketch of how it may be used to integrate the various subfields of our currently fragmented science of behavior.
I n t r o d u c t i o n The scientific study of animal behavior is also called ethology, a term used first by the nineteenth-century French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire but then used with its modern meaning by the American zoologist Wheeler (1902). Ethology is derived from the Greek ethos, meaning " character. " There is some resemblance with the word " ethics, " which is derived from the same Greek word. This makes sense, seeing that ethics is basically about how humans ought to behave. Unfortunately the word " ethology " is often confused with the word " ethnology " (the study of human peoples), with which it has nothing in common. In fact the very word processor with which we are writing this chapter keeps prompting us to replace " ethology " by " ethnology " ! For whatever reason, the word " ethology " is not used as much as it used to be, although there is still an active animal behavior journal bearing this name. Instead of " ethology, " nowadays many authors use the words " animal behavior " or " behavioral biology " when they refer to the scientific study of animal behavior. A Brief History of Behavioral Biology Early days S cientists (and amateurs) studied animal behavior long before the word " ethology " was introduced. For instance, Aristotle had many interesting observations concerning animal behavior. The study of animal behavior was taken up more systematically mainly by German and British zoologists around the turn of the nineteenth century. The great British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–82), pioneer of the theory of
Tactics Adopted by Animals During Sex
The sexual behaviour in animals is variable not among the members of the same species or within different species. Different types of mating systems have been discovered by the researchers in the animals. The study of animal sexual behaviour is very interesting and is one of the hot topic in which the scientist are indulged with dedication. It is clear that only few animals participate in the sex play like humans. About 1,500 species of animals are believed to be homosexual. The sociobiology and behavioural ecology are the two branches of science which deal with the ways in which the animal societies are oriented towards the sexual behaviour. The mating system gives an idea about the circumstances and clue about the fact that which male with mate with which female.