ethological explanation

• What does IRM stand for?

  Innate releasing mechanisms
• What do IRM's do?

  • Network of neurons in the brain
  • They release a series or pattern of behaviours (FAPs)
  • Lorenz believes aggressive energy builds up in an animal but IRMs stop the aggression
• What does FAP stand for?

  Fixed Action Potential
• What are adaptive functions?

  Threat and Appeasement Gestures

  Conflict of Interest

  Increased status
• What do 'Threat and appeasement gestures' mean?

  Prevent an animal being damaged and potentially being killed: facilitates the survival of the wider species as fewer members are killed when engaging in conflict.
• What does 'Conflict of Interest' mean?

  Individuals that win conflicts have  access to resources as there is less direct competition for things such as food as the losers go to other territories
• What does 'Increased Status' mean?

  By establishing dominance hierarchy, access to resources increases
• what is ritualistic aggression?

  Pattern of behavior involving aggressive acts performed in a structured and repetitive manner.
• Lorenz' example of ritualistic aggression:

  • Intra-species fights rarely produce actual aggression
  • Aggressive encounters are mostly prolonged periods of ritualistic signals
  • Encounters end with ritual appeasement behaviour
• How do FAP and IRM interact?

  sign stimulus triggers IRM which triggers FAP
• what does Lorenz argue aggression was, and how does it develop?

  an instinct/drive to ensure only the fittest males would pass into the next generation
• Tinbergen

  showed that Stickleback will automatically attack other males during mating season, when they get red underbellies
• Tinbergen weakness

  generalising findings from fish to humans is very problematic due to biological differences between species
• Slackett Study

  Raised monkeys in isolation to avoid social learning, responded to threatening photographs of other monkeys with aggressive or defensive poses
• Why are genes that promote aggressive behaviour evolutionarily advantageous?

  survival from predators, competition for resources and finding/protecting mates
• Daily and Wilson Study

  Higher murder rates for couples who are about to split up or just broken up.

  Acts of violence highest for women who had a child by another man (cuckolding)