Animal behaviour

Dogs bark. Dogs like sticks. Dogs sit on their back paws. But why? Is animal behaviour learnt or innate? Behaviour is every activity that animals do. Animal behaviour can be a response to internal or external stimulus. Scientists observe animals in their natural habitat and in laboratories.

According to Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), a Russian scientist, behaviour is learnt. His classical conditioning theory says that we can change behaviour in response to different conditions. Let’s look at the steps in his famous dog experiments: give dogs some food and ring a bell, repeat many times, dogs produce saliva; ring the bell but don’t give dogs any food, dogs produce saliva.

Dogs demonstrate that animals can learn to produce saliva in response to the bell. In nature, they produce it in response to food.

But the greylag geese studies of Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), a 20th century Austrian ethologist, show that animal behaviour changes naturally. Behaviour can change in the same way that body can change. Lorenz’s theory says that, in the first 30 hours, baby animals have a special capacity to learn. This is called imprinting.

Examples of innate behaviour include baby birds; they use their beaks to open their eggshell. Most animal use their instinct to survive and some behaviour, like drinking milk from their mother, is genetically transmitted. Sometimes, animals learn new behaviour to increase their chance of survival.

The reality is that highly evolved mammals use a mix of both innate and learnt behaviours in everyday life.