PSYC 2230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ethology

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2230
• Professor: Frank Marchese

Document Summary

Cause effect analysis attempts to do this: william james: instincts are similar to reflexes, occur blindly the first time and are elicited by sensory stimuli. Instinct is an impulse to action and thus considered motivated. Instinct is modifiable through experience: two principled accounts for variability of instinct: 1st is that habit (e. g. , learning) can inhibit an instinct; e. g. , fear may inhibit curiosity, appeasement may inhibit aggression, and thus conflict may arise as to which instinct might occur, 2nd is that instincts are transitory, only useful at certain times at given developmental period; e. g. , newly hatched chick instinctively follows new, moving object early in life, but if exposed the first time later in development it will run away. Thus, critical period exists when instinctive behavior occur automatically but if critical period is past, imprinted behavior does not occur (see p. 45 46: james saw instinct as providing a base from which new behaviors may be built; i. e. , new habits through learning.