Psychology 3720F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Sociobiology, Psych, Cortisol

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3720F/G
• Professor: Haynes

Document Summary

Concerned with the comparative study of animal and human behaviour. In lorenz"s hydraulic model, he assumed that aggressive energy is produced continuously inside the organism until it is released by an external cue: need outlets to keep the aggressive energy low like sports. It needs to be explained why the trait of inhibition against killing one"s own species does not generalize to humans: lorenz argued that strong inhibitions against intra species killing were superfluous in early history of man kind. Sociobiological view: aggression as a product of natural selection. Sociobiology is concerned with analysing the biological foundation of social behaviour on the basis of the evolutionary principle of natural selection. Evidence cited to support the sociobiological count of aggression comes mainly from studies of animals: hierarchies in packs. Archer and thanzami: studies have also shown positive correlation between aggression and size/height. Arguable, the most controversial contribution of the sociobiological approach is he explanation of sexual aggression.