Approaches to psychology - Behaviourist and cognitive approaches.

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Approaches to psychology

Behaviourist and cognitive approaches

BIOLOGISTS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS have approached the study of animal behaviour from different perspectives. These differences can be attributed in part to differences in the nature of the questions they ask. The goal of biologists--typically, zoologists and behavioural ecologists--is to understand how animal behaviour contributes to survival and reproductive success. The behaviours of primary interest have been those that are genetically predisposed or those that are typical of the species. One would expect the behaviour of different species to have varied as they evolved in different environments and under different evolutionary pressures. Thus, the goal of research would be to look for patterns or correlations between environmental pressures and evolved behaviour.

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Psychologists, on the other hand, have tended to approach the study of animal behaviour primarily from the perspective of the flexibility of the individual animal. The greater part of naturally occurring behaviour in most animals, especially for those that live in relatively predictable environments, appears to be predisposed (see Boice, 1973), and it is released by external events (e.g., hormones that are produced in response to seasonal variations in sunlight or temperature). But animals have also evolved to adjust their behaviour to environmental variability by reacting to behavioural consequences, and it is this behavioural plasticity that is of primary interest ...

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