This possibility is stirring excitement in the medical community; however, it has also brought up ethical concerns. Some people take their curiosity about human behavior in a more scientific direction, such as a career in academic, scientific, or medical research. Typically, though, people are interested in the study of human behavior as it pertains to everyday life.
Graduate online degree programs in this subject area appeal to people in a wide range of professions and positions, from sales managers and marketing analysts to human resource directors and law enforcement officers.
An understanding of human behavior is beneficial in the workplace in many ways. Not only can it help people perform their current duties better, but also it could help someone advance into a management or supervisory role. While human behavior studies are often associated with psychology, other fields also explore the human condition: sociology, anthropology, communication, and criminology.
The study of human behavior at the graduate level can also serve as a foundation for related Ph. While not everyone who studies human behavior goes to the molecular level, the research will continue to inform the field. About our Expert: Dr. Brenda Shook is an associate professor and academic director for the bachelor of arts in psychology program at National University. Shook earned a Ph. In none of these cases does the animal engage in learning or thought when shaping its response.
Figure 1: A rattlesnake, ready to strike Information about where to forage, what prey to select, and how to handle the prey after striking is likely innate in species like this. All rights reserved. Similarly, many of the signals used in animal communication are innate, produced the same way by all members of a species.
The constancy that comes from having the signal and its interpretation genetically encoded makes the message unambiguous. Combinations of facial expressions, hair erection, and tail posture give dogs to other dogs a universal set of messages.
Other animals use combinations of genetic and learned information in forming their signals. Some birds can produce elements of their songs without ever having heard another bird sing, but require hearing songs during development to reproduce the song of their own species correctly.
This last example demonstrates how innate components can be used as building blocks for modifiable behavior, but animal behavior can be innate, reflecting a strong genetic basis. Imprinting involves the ability to learn a specific essential piece of information at the right stage of development. Openness for learning through imprinting is restricted to a short time span, called a critical period. The most famous example of imprinting comes from Konrad Lorenz and his geese.
He found that goslings learn to recognize their mother and to tell her from other geese very early in life. By substituting himself for the mother goose at the right developmental stage, he could get the goslings to imprint on him, and faithfully follow him wherever he went.
The openness of goslings for learning a leader, even if it does not resemble a goose, is intriguing. Imprinting demonstrates how genes can largely shape a behavior, but that evolution can create a window for learning important information about variation in the environment Figure 2. Figure 2: A Canada goose family Imprinting by the goslings on their parents helps to keep the family together.
Imprinting provides an opportunity to learn key variable components in an environment while retaining largely innate behavioral patterns. More flexibility may be shown in the development of food preferences, as food availability can vary from habitat to habitat, or from season to season. Insects may imprint on the chemistry of the leaves they eat as caterpillars; when they become adults they then choose to lay their eggs on plants with a chemistry that matches the leaves they ate when young.
This insures a suitable diet for the next generation. Young birds and mammals often learn food preferences based on food shared by adults, on observations of feeding preferences of adults, and on sampling possible food items. Birds and mammals develop lifelong aversions to specific foods that contain poisons that cause sickness such as monarch butterflies.
In contrast, some preferences and aversions appear to be innate, or at least to be driven by physiological needs for certain nutrients, such as salt. Call, J. Chimpanzee social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5, — Jensen K. What's in it for me? Self-regard precludes altruism and spite in chimpanzees. Proceedings of the Royal Society B , — Path integration in desert ants, Cataglyphis fortis.
PNAS 85, — Plotnik, J. Self-recognition in an Asian elephant. PNAS , — Steele, M. Cache protection strategies of a scatter-hoarding rodent: do tree squirrels engage in behavioural deception? Animal Behaviour 75, — The Diversity of Behavior. How Does Social Behavior Evolve? An Introduction to Animal Communication. Animal Behavior Introduction.
Mating Systems in Sexual Animals. Measuring Animal Preferences and Choice Behavior. Perceptual Worlds and Sensory Ecology. An Introduction to Eusociality. The Ecology of Avian Brood Parasitism. Social Parasitism in Ants. Causes and Consequences of Biodiversity Declines. Disease Ecology. There is no simple answer to this question, because social behaviors, like all human characteristics, are influenced by multiple factors.
Contrary to a common misconception, genes do not cause behavioral or personality traits, they only influence them. Although genes may be linked to certain traits, it is unlikely that researchers will ever find a single gene that is entirely responsible for most complicated behaviors. First, each gene is not linked to one and only one trait; one gene may influence many different personality characteristics.
In addition, many genes work in concert to influence most behaviors, meaning the genetic aspects of a particular trait are the result of small effects over hundreds of individual genes. Even if all of the genes influencing behavior were discovered, behavior still could not be fully explained nor predicted. Factors such as parenting, schooling, trauma, and the prenatal environment, all play critical roles in the development of social behavior. Even the most highly heritable traits, such as height, are influenced by environmental factors, as demonstrated by malnourished children that are very short despite having tall parents.
In this example, environmental factors such as nutritional intake have actually altered the way in which genetically influenced characteristics are expressed. To further understand those factors not due to heredity, the concept of environment can be further broken down.
If two individuals experience the same environmental conditions, they are expected to be similar; at the same time, if two people have different experiences, it is assumed that they will behave differently.
In behavioral genetics, environmental influences that cause family members to be similar are by definition shared, and those influences that cause family members to be different are nonshared. In the case of twins, the prenatal environment can typically be considered shared, since the developmental conditions experienced are nearly identical. Peer relation-ships provide an example of nonshared environment: Even identical twins growing up in the same household can behave quite dissimilarly, and part of the reason for this can be different peer groups.
As already mentioned, it is now widely held that both nature and nurture simultaneously influence traits and that, to some extent, the environment can influence the expression of genes. It is now clear that the reverse is also true, that genetics influence environment, or at least social relationships. In essence, the two forces operate in such a way that children may create their environment based, at least in part, on genetically influenced characteristics.
This is called genotype-environment GE correlation, which can be further explained using the terms passive, active, or evocative. For example, if a mother and daughter share genes that contribute to their extraverted temperaments, this similarity may contribute to open communication between them.
In active GE correlations, the child purposefully seeks out a particular environment, as in the case of children choosing to participate in extracurricular activities that showcase their natural talent. Evocative also called reactive GE correlations result when children elicit responses from others. The importance of parenting on the behavior of children is clear from the extensive literature on the topic.
Until recently, most studies examining parenting and child and adolescent adjustment assumed that associations between parenting and child behavior were the result of purely environmental influences on the child.
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