For this lesson you are going to use a web site created by Dr. Paul Kenyon from the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. This page is part of a much larger web site called "Salmon" (Study and Learning Materials On-line) used to support psychology courses at the University of Plymouth. This web page will provide you with an excellent supplement to your readings. In particular this on-line material will give you more insight into the difference between the proximate and ultimate causes of behavior and the so called "nature vs. nurture" controversy.

Go to the Salmon site and follow the links to the section on “Animal Behavior” web site. Read the assigned sections, answer the questions, and once you are finished send me your work as an email attachment in MS Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (rtf) format.

This brief section will be a review of your text readings and introduce you to some of the more interesting personalities and pioneers in the study of animal behavior.

Characteristics of ethology and comparative psychology

For many years the study of animal behavior was divided into to competing (some would say antagonistic) camps; the ethologists (mostly European) and behaviorists or comparative psychologists (mostly American). Far too much energy was expended by these two groups trying to justify their own approach rather than looking for common ground. However, the two groups do have distinctly different view points on how best to study the behavior of animals.

Read this material and be able to compare these two groups, especially in terms of the importance of evolution, learning and experience, field work vs lab experiments, etc.

Nature and nurture in the development of behaviour

In this section you will study several classic experiments that have brought some common sense to the "nature vs. nurture controversy. Each of these experiments demonstrates the point that even behaviors that seem to be instinctive (highly dependent on the animal's genes) require some important experience to develop properly and conversely behaviors such learning which are often thought to rely primarily on experience are dependent on the genetic background of the species. Study each of these experiments carefully and pick out from each the "nature" or genetic components of the behavior and the "nurture" or experiential components. Most importantly understand how the two must work together to produce the fully formed behavior.

These experiments are:

• Hailman's experiment on the pecking preference in young gulls
• Marler's experiments on the development of birdsong in sparrows
• Wells' experiments on the hunting behavior of sepia (related to squid)
• Cruze's experiments on the pecking behavior of young chicks
• Garcia and Koelling's experiments on taste aversion learning in rats

1. In the section "The four questions ethologists ask about behaviour" (notice the British spelling of "behavior") the author describes the courtship and nesting behavior of the stickleback fish. This is followed with four questions that an ethologists would typically ask about this behavior as the basis for conducting her experiments.

   For this question you are asked to write a short paragraph outlining four questions you think a behaviorist such as Skinner or Watson would ask about the behavior of the stickleback. Your response should demonstrate that you understand the important differences between the behaviorists and the ethologists.

2. Birdsongs have been one of the most popular areas of investigation for scientist looking for ways to study the interactions between genes and experience in the development of behavior. Marler's work was among the first to look at birdsong this way, but there are dozens of scientist doing work in this area today. One interesting result has been that female birds (which normally don't sing) will learn the male song and sing just as males do if they are treated with the male hormone testosterone. These females respond to isolation when young and the other experimental variables in a manner similar to their male counterparts.

   Write a brief paragraph explaining how these results are another example of the point that the development of the correct song requires both experience (learning) and a genetic predisposition to learn the correct song. Here you should be thinking how the genetic differences between males and females (their hormones) influences the development of the song.

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