Essays on Animal Behavior

Dear Editor,

I am a regular reader of National Geographic magazine, and I am writing this letter to express my praise for including articles related to animal behavior. I was excited to read the article, “Why an Eagle Really Grabbed a Kid” by Rachel Becker, published on 12/7/2016. It was about a wedge tailed eagle swooping down to prey on a young boy, at the Alice Springs Desert Park in Australia’s Northern Territory. It was an interesting event and I wished the author provided a more elaborate account of the events, rather than passing around what is already known from ...

Over the years, behavioral scientists have repeatedly attempted to understand, define and explain tool usage by different animal species. However, given the complexities involved in data collection, it has remained an elusive and somewhat difficult to quantify task. Initially people believe that developing tools for different activities such as transportation, food gathering or for defense was what inherently differentiated ‘humans’ from animals . This is because crafting tools for improved productivity and to make daily tasks easier and simpler to perform, required a certain level of intelligence and maturity of thought that scientists believed animals did not possess. The goal ...

Introduction

The field of psychology as an area of study consists of distinctive branches, each of which looks into human experiences, behavior, and mental process from a different point of view. For instance, cognitive psychology focuses on the study of human’s internal processes, such as what goes on in their minds, what motivates them as well as how they perceive people around them. Accordingly, as people’s curiosity in the relationship of the human brain and the behavioral responses in a cognitive task increased, many empirical and theoretical studies were conducted. The study of cognitive psychology has had a ...

Psychology refers to the scientific study of human and animal behavior. The word “psychology” derived from two Greek words psyche and logia. Psyche means breath, spirit and soul while logia means study of something. Medilexicon medical dictionary defines psychology as science and scholarly discipline concerned with the behavior of humans and animals, and related to physiological and mental processes. The complexity of the mind puts into question how psychologists study the mind and brain. Psychology, like other scientific disciplines experiments, to confirm or negate theories and expectations. The raw data for a psychologist is human or animal behavior. Psychologists ...

For ages, humans have used shaping procedures for training their young ones, people around them, as well as their pet animals. Shaping procedure (operant conditioning) in animals and humans uses rewards as stimulants to induce the idea and behavior while targeting the result, which is behavior change. Shaping procedure is the idea of emphasizing on the successive guesses to the final response. The procedure allows a trainer to move from an ‘it cannot be done’ situation to a ‘done’ position. In Most cases, the trainer is forced to shape a behavior pattern in an animal where it does not frequently occur or ...

Abstract

Peoples’ behaviors are many and complex; people are known to cheat, lie, and sometimes kill. Long before even human started to gain interest in studying human behaviors field such as theology, philosophy, and psychology focus was to explain human behavior. However, in the resent past, the development of scientific methods and tools scientists have put in place systematic procedures to be used in the study of human behavior. In this light, scholars and researcher have developed theories that tend to explain human behavior. This theories can be broadly be classified into, behavioral theories, cognitive theories, humanist theories, personality theories, ...

Animal testing is one of much debated issues in modern times. Millions of animals are used every year for the purpose of animal testing across the world. Animals go through a process that causes enormous pain and sufferings during animal testing. A number of issues are related to animal testing and one of them is the extinction of animals. A number of animals are on the verge of extinction and this issue has been raised by various animal lovers and animal rights organizations. This paper presents a succinct analysis of the animal testing along with discussing how animal testing can cause ...

Discussion Questions: Neural Mechanisms and Animal Behavior

1. There are different factors to consider when studying how animals behave and adapt to their surroundings. Different animals have their respective perceptions and their way of encountering information, so the concept of dependent, independent, and controlled variables might come into play (Mackenzie 41). Therefore, examining the perception of each animal may depend on changing situations. One variable important in the study of animal behavior is their circadian mechanisms. Any formulated hypotheses and experimental findings could be critical in studying the adaptation of animals and their methods of stimulus filtering that occur at specific intervals. The concept of personification ...

William Faulner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’ is a literature piece depicting the social interaction in a family setting. The literature piece involves the use of many symbolic applications in the unreal world and other factors from human characters. Faulkner expands his imagination beyond the human character. However, Faulkner uses each and every symbolism in the novel in relation to human character. Furthermore, characterization in the novel is based on human character that can be compared or symbolized through another non-human character. This ability ensures the continuity of the plot as the characters are developed under different archetypes. Faulkner creates ...

Applied behaviour analysis and animal behaviour

According to (Bekoff, 2013), behaviour analysis refers to a scientific approach that helps an individual to understand why animal and people do and behave the way they do. After studying behaviour analysis an individual develops the capacity to understand how both human beings as well as animal’s behaviours are affected by the various events that take place. This includes the event that are there in their physical and their social environments. Teacher’s researchers and parents make use of behaviour analysis to tell how the physical and social environment impacts on behaviour change. The study of behaviour analysis ...

During the early 20th century, when psychology was mainly oriented on mental processes, behavioral psychology was established to improve the ability of the psychologists to make decisions by using better experimental methods. Some of the first pioneers of behaviorism were Watson, Skinner, and Tolman. While cognitive psychology relied on introspective methods to explain human behavior and cognitive processes, those psychologists considered visible behavior the most important element for studying and understanding human behavior. However, their perspectives are different in terms of the emphasis they place on studying different elements of human psychology, and they also have different approaches to ...

The nature of animals and their rights have been a contentious topic for many philosophers. Animal nature has been a complex topic for researchers and scientists and provides a great opportunity for philosophers to come up with theories or concepts that help us understand animals better. It is based on the idea of animals being treated in the same manner as humans such on the basis of being conscious. However, most of the theories agree that animals should no longer be used for clothing, entertainment, research subjects, food, or property. Some of the greatest contributors in this topic include David Hume and ...

Perspectives - Compare and Contrast

Introduction

Psychology is a science that was started by early Greek philosophers who shared Plato’s principles. They mainly focused on the study of the mind’s functions. Behaviorism is a popular form of psychology that was established in the 19th century. It involves learning perspectives that are derived from different aspects of philosophy. Based on behaviorism, all organisms have distinct behavior, which involves thinking, acting and feeling. Behaviorists study how behaviors are learnt and reinforced. The study of behavior psychology began as a phenomenon, which aimed to help in situations like mental therapy and counseling. The methods and concepts of studying ...

This article reviews the rising popularity of nature documentaries and films that was taking place in August; 2007.This is against the backdrop of movies like the Winged Migration and the March of the Penguins. This period also saw the release of films like the Arctic Tale with the release of Elephants of the Okavango, Turtle’s Song and Earth to follow. It also discusses the success of Meerkat Manor by Animal Planet. Following two successful seasons, Meerkat Manor inspired the BBC and Discovery Network to produce their versions (Rebensdorf, 1).

These documentaries have in fact earned themselves the name ‘ ...