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Behavior is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli, whether internal
or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.
Behavior does not originate as a deliberate and well-thought strategy to control a stimulus.
Initially, all behavior is probably just a reflex, a response following a particular anatomical
or physiological reaction. Like all phenotypes, it happens by chance and evolves thereafter.
Natural selection favors behaviors that prolong the life of an animal and increase its
chance of reproducing; over time, a particularly advantageous behavior spreads
throughout the population. The disposition (genotype) to display a behavior is innate
(otherwise the phenotype would not be subject to natural selection and evolution),
although it requires maturation and/or reinforcement for the organism to be able to apply
it successfully. Behavior is, thus, the product of a combination of innate dispositions and
environmental factors. Some behaviors require little conditioning from the environment
for the animal to display it while other behaviors requires more.
Pictures illustrating canine social and agonistic behavior. For the classification of the
behavior, please see ethogram below. Behavior is dynamic (not static). All interpretations
are therefore only approximate and as pictures allow.
An organism can forget a behavior if it does not have the opportunity to display it for a
period of a certain length, or the behavior can be extinguished if it is not reinforced for a
period.
Evolution favors a systematic bias, which moves behavior away from maximization of
utility and towards maximization of fitness.
Social behavior is behavior involving more than one individual with the primary
function of establishing, maintaining, or changing a relationship between individuals, or in
a group (society).
Most researchers define social behavior as the behavior shown by members of the same
species in a given interaction. This excludes behavior such as predation, which involves
members of different species. On the other hand, it seems to allow for the inclusion of
everything else such as communication behavior, parental behavior, sexual behavior, and
even agonistic behavior.
Sociologists insist that behavior is an activity devoid of social meaning or social context, in
contrast to social behavior, which has both. However, this definition does not help us
much because all above mentioned behaviors do have a social meaning and a context
unless ‘social’ means ‘involving the whole group’ (society) or ‘a number of its members.’ In
that case, we should ask how many individuals are needed in an interaction to classify it as
social. Are three enough? If so, then sexual behavior is not social behavior when practiced
by two individuals, but becomes social when three or more are involved, which is not
unusual in some species. We can use the same line of arguing for communication behavior,
parental behavior, and agonistic behavior. It involves more than one individual and it
affects the group (society), the smallest possible consisting of two individuals.
Agonistic behavior includes all forms of intraspecific behavior related to aggression,
fear, threat, fight or flight, or interspecific when competing for resources. It explicitly
includes behaviors such as dominant behavior, submissive behavior, flight, pacifying, and
conciliation, which are functionally and physiologically interrelated with aggressive
behavior, yet fall outside the narrow definition of aggressive behavior. It excludes
predatory behavior.
Dominant behavior is a quantitative and quantifiable behavior displayed by an
individual with the function of gaining or maintaining temporary access to a particular
resource on a particular occasion, versus a particular opponent, without either party
incurring injury. If any of the parties incur injury, then the behavior is aggressive and not
dominant. Its quantitative characteristics range from slightly self-confident to overtly
assertive.
Dominant behavior is situational, individual and resource related. One individual
displaying dominant behavior in one specific situation does not necessarily show it on
another occasion toward another individual, or toward the same individual in another
situation.
Dominant behavior is particularly important for social animals that need to cohabit and
cooperate to survive. Therefore, a social strategy evolved with the function of dealing with
competition among mates, which caused the least disadvantages.
Aggressive behavior is behavior directed toward the elimination of competition while
dominance, or social-aggressiveness, is behavior directed toward the elimination of
competition from a mate.
Fearful behavior is behavior directed toward the elimination of an incoming threat.
Submissive behavior, or social-fear, is behavior directed toward the elimination of a
social-threat from a mate, i.e. losing temporary access to a resource without incurring
injury.
Resources are what an organism perceives as life necessities, e.g. food, mating partner, or
a patch of territory. What an animal perceives to be its resources depends on both the
species and the individual; it is the result of evolutionary processes and the history of the
individual.
Mates are two or more animals that live closely together and depend on one another for
survival.
Aliens are two or more animals that do not live close together and do not depend on one
another for survival.
A threat is everything that may harm, inflict pain or injury, or decrease an individual’s
chance of survival. A social-threat is everything that may cause the temporary loss of a
resource and may cause submissive behavior or flight, without the submissive individual
incurring injury. Animals show submissive behavior by means of various signals, visual,
auditory, olfactory and/or tactile.
Le risorse sono tutto quello che un organismo percepisce come necessità vitali, come ad
esempio il cibo, il partner per l'accoppiamento o una parte di territorio. Ciò che un animale
percepisce come risorse proprie dipende sia dalle specie che dall'individuo stesso ed è la
risultante dei processi evolutivi e della storia personale dell'individuo.
I compagni sono due o più animali che vivono a stretto contatto e dipendono l'uno
dall'altro per la sopravvivenza.
Gli alieni (dal latino alienus, cioè soggetto estraneo all'ambiente di riferimento) sono due
o più animali che non vivono vicini e non dipendono l'uno dall'altro per la sopravvivenza.
Una minaccia è tutto ciò che possa danneggiare, infliggere dolore o lesioni, diminuire la
probabilità di sopravvivenza di un individuo. Una minaccia sociale e’ qualsiasi cosa che
possa causare la perdita temporanea di una risorsa, provocare un comportamento
remissivo o di fuga senza che l’individuo remissivo subisca delle lesioni. Gli animali
mostrano un comportamento remissivo mediante vari segnali, visivi, uditivi, olfattivi e / o
tattili.
Il diagramma non include una lista completa dei comportamenti.