Slides for discussion of The Living World, 7th edition chapter 37, adapted from a compilation by Amy.

2. Behavior

3. What organisms do

4. 39.1-8, 10-12
37.1-8, 10-12

7. Behavior is shaped
by evolution,
like physical traits

8. Behavior is also
flexible enough
to change with
the environment

9. Behavior is
widespread

11. Proximate Cause

12. Genetic or
physiological
mechanism
for a behavior

13. Ultimate Cause

14. Evolutionary, adaptive
cause for a behavior

15. Human taste
and food choice

17. Proximate causes
What regulates hunger cravings?

18. Ghrelin

19. a hormone that stimulates hunger
produced by cells in the stomach
and pancreas

20. Ghrelin level
increases before meals
and decreases after meals
Time of day

21. Dopamine
Pleasure

22. Ultimate causes:
Why did we evolve to like certain
foods?

23. Amount of Sodium in Diet
Late Paleolithic Contemporary American
Sodium (mg) 700 2300-6900

24. Proximate cause
Hormones trigger pleasure in our brain
when eating certain foods
Ultimate cause
Humans evolved to prefer salty food
in a low sodium environment

25. Nature vs Nurture

26. Nature:
- Instinctive/Innate Behaviors
- Behavioral Genetics

27. Fixed Action Pattern
fixed response to a stimulus

28. Konrad
Lorenz

33. Stimulus:
egg outside
of nest
Fixed Action
Pattern:
roll into nest

34. Stimulus:
egg object
outside of
nest
Fixed Action
Pattern:
roll into nest

36. Most behavior
is not fixed, but
can still have a
genetic basis

37. fosB gene controls
maternal care in mice
Mutant fosB allelle Normal fosB allele

38. 38

39. Twin Studies

40. Studies of identical twins show strange
behavioral coincidences:
“Springer and Lewis found they had each
married and divorced a woman named Linda
and remarried a Betty. They shared interests
in mechanical drawing and carpentry; their
favorite school subject had been math, their
least favorite, spelling. They both had sons
whom one named James Alan and the other
named James Allan. And they both owned
dogs which they named Toy.”
University of Minnesota twin study, Bouchard et al

41. Studies of identical twins show strange
behavioral coincidences:
“Oskar was brought up Catholic in Germany
and joined the Hitler Youth. Jack was raised a
Jew and lived for a time in Israel. Yet they had
similar speech and thought patterns, similar
gaits, a taste for spicy foods and common
peculiarities such as flushing the toilet before
they used it.”

43. MAOA “warrior” gene

44. Monoamine
Oxidase A

45. Enzyme breaks down neurotransmitters
in the brain (including adrenaline)
People with an allele for low MAOA activity
tend to respond more aggressively when provoked

46. Nurture:
Learning

47. Learning:
from simple to complex

48. Habituation
repeated stimuli
produce weaker responses

50. Sensitization
repeated stimuli
produce stronger responses

51. Classical Conditioning

53. associating behavior
with a new stimuli

54. Operant Conditioning

56. Associating behavior
with a reward or punishment

57. Imprinting

59. Filial Imprinting:
offspring form innate social attachments

60. Cognition

61. Can non-human animals think?

64. Nature
vs
Nurture

65. Nature
vs and
Nurture

66. White-crowned
sparrow (WCS)

67. In lab experiments,
newly hatched WCS males
were played:
• Normal song
• No song
• Wrong song
Song sparrow song
Peter Marler’s research

68. In lab experiments,
newly hatched WCS males
were played:
• Normal song: sang correct song
• No song: sang poorly developed version of WCS song
• Wrong song: sang poorly developed version of WCS song

69. MAOA “warrior” gene
People with low MAOA activity
who experienced a traumatic event as a child
were more likely to exhibit antisocial, violent
behavior as adults
People with low MAOA activity
who did not experience a traumatic event
were not any more likely to be violent than
control groups