Organism -- Behavior -- Behavior and natural selection -- Covariance -- Measurement -- Stability and change -- Stimulus -- Choice and balance -- Verbal behavior and rules -- Social behavior and culture -- Coda for instructors.
Summary:
"No adequate understanding of behavior is possible without evolutionary theory. Evolution due to selection is necessary to understand why behavior and organisms exist, how culture evolves, and how behavior of individual organisms develops. Evolutionary theory permits going beyond everyday folk psychology that views actions as done by an agent for reasons known to the agent and done because of the agent's assessment of consequences. Evolutionary theory provides a foundation for a true natural science of behavior, one in which behavioral events are natural events and are understood in relation to other natural events. We no longer see sunrise and sunset as caused by hidden entities or gods, and a scientific approach to behavior should also not ascribe behavioral phenomena to hidden entities like an inner agent or inner thoughts and feelings. This book takes the perspective of evolutionary biology to present the basics of a science of behavior. It begins by discussing what is an organism and then what is behavior. Once we understand that an organism is a process and that activities of the organism are parts of that process, we are in a position to see how behavior interacts with the environment and adapts to environmental covariances and changes in them. The book covers customary topics like choice, stimulus control, foraging, adaptation, verbal behavior, and social behavior, but it does so according to a non-traditional organization consistent with the natural-science and evolutionary framework"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.