Notes on the Elements of Behavioral Science

1 The Study of Behavior: History.- A Brief History.- Some Theory and Terminology.- Warnings, Fallacies, and Pitfalls.- 2 Some Ethological Concepts.- Evolutionary Basis of Behavior.- Ethology’s Objectives.- General Methods.- Fixed Action Patterns (FAPs).- Conflict Behaviors.- Vacuum Activity.- Ritualization and Displays.- 3 Some More Ethological Concepts.- Sign Stimuli, Releasers, and Innate Releasing Mechanisms.- Programmed Learning and Imprinting.- Drive or Motivation.- 4 Assessment of Hereditary Influences.- Indirect Methods.- Direct Methods.- 5 Behavioral Endocrinology: Gonadal Hormones.- Synthesis and Major Sites of Production.- Transport.- Mechanisms of Action.- Organizational Effects During Development.- Activational Effects in Adults.- 6 Behavioral Endocrinology: Stress and Adrenal Hormones.- Definition.- Types of Stress.- The Stress Responses of the Body.- The Adrenal Medulla and Sympathetic Arousal.- The Hypothalamus and the Adrenal Cortex.- Corticosteroid Production.- Corticosteroid Metabolism.- Habituation to Stress.- Functions of Stress.- Psychosomatic Medicine.- Two Psychiatric Syndromes.- 7 Biological Rhythms.- Functions of Biological Rhythms.- Circadian Rhythms (23–26 Hours).- Circatidal Rhythms (12.4 Hours).- Circalunar Rhythms (14.8 Days).- Monthly Rhythms (29.5 Days).- Circannual Rhythms (365 Days).- Rhythms in Human Disease.- 8 Orientation and Navigation.- Orienting Responses.- Navigation.- Migration.- 9 Feeding, Foraging, and Predation.- Feeding Behavior.- Foraging.- Predatory Techniques and Antipredator Defense.- 10 Social Behavior.- Social Systems.- Benefits of Sociality.- Improved Care of Offspring.- Costs of Sociality.- Philopatry and Dispersal.- Evolution of Cooperative Behavior.- Mechanisms of Kin Recognition.- Environmental and CulturalInfluences in Primates.- 11 Communication.- Definition.- Functions of Communication.- “Honesty” and “Deception” in Communication.- Communicatory Signals.- Sensory Channels of Communication.- 12 Agonistic Behavior.- Interspecific Agonism.- Intraspecific Agonism.- Comparisons between Interspecific and Intraspecific Agonism.- Human Aggression.- 13 Sexual Selection.- Asexual and Sexual Reproduction.- Sex Determination.- Sex Ratio (SR).- Theoretical Considerations.- Intrasexual Selection.- Intersexual (Epigamic) Selection.- 14 Courtship and Mating.- Factors Important for the Onset of Courtship and Mating.- Functions of Courtship.- Mating Categories.- Bisexual Behavior.- 15 Parental Behavior and Mating Systems.- Models of the Parent—Offspring Relationship.- Evolution of Parental Care.- Mating Systems.- 16 Nonhuman Primates.- Ethology.- Sociobiology.- Language in Apes.- 17 Humans.- Human Ethology.- Human Sociobiology.- References.- Author Index.