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In evolutionary psychology, people often speak of the four Fs which are said to be the four basic and most primal drives (motivations or instincts) that animals (including humans) are evolutionarily adapted to have, follow, and achieve: fighting, fleeing, feeding and fucking (a more polite synonym is the word "mating"). [1]
Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing innate (inborn) elements.The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a corresponding clearly defined stimulus.
Both humans and animals have been observed to measure personality traits, but animals are particularly useful for studying the long-term behavioral-biological relationship of personality. [ 17 ] Another interesting method that has become more sophisticated and affordable to researchers is the method of whole genome expression analysis.
The ethological concept of species-typical behavior is based on the premise that certain behavioral similarities are shared by almost all members of a species. [1] Some of these behaviors are unique to certain species, but to be 'species-typical' they do not have to be unique, they simply have to be characteristic of that species.
Incest avoidance can be seen cross-culturally in humans, and is evident in wild animals. Evolutionary psychologists argue that incest avoidance adapted due to the greater chance of producing children with severe disabilities when mating with relatives, and because genetic variability offers an increase in fitness regarding offspring survival. [ 1 ]
Australia’s wily trash-raiding cockatoos are running up against human ingenuity in a real-time evolutionary “arms race,” a new study has found. The dynamic relationship between cockatoos who ...
Similarities between the behavior of humans and animals have sometimes been used in an attempt to understand the evolutionary significance of particular behaviors. Differences in the treatment of animals have been said to reflect a society's understanding of human nature and the place of humans and animals in the scheme of things.
A biochemist might examine, for instance, the influence of social and ecological conditions on the release of certain neurotransmitters and hormones, and the effects of such releases on behaviour, e.g. stress during birth has a tocolytic (contraction-suppressing) effect.