The set of spiritual, mental properties of a person, characterizing the degree of his excitability and manifested in his attitude to the surrounding reality, in behavior.
Each person differs not only in his external features, but also in the nature of his behavior. This is due to his temperament, which reflects a person’s tendency to express a certain reaction to various influences:
- in the degree of emotionality of behavior;
- impulsiveness or restraint;
- sociability or isolation;
- ease of adaptation in society.
Physiological basis of different characters
The scientist physiologist Pavlov explained the manifestation of a certain temperament by the specificity of the ongoing nervous processes. He identified several varieties of the nervous system, dividing them into types, which were based on the properties of the processes occurring within the nervous system.
They appear:
- in the ability of brain cells to withstand exposure to stimuli of varying strengths and their overall performance;
- in the balance of irritative and inhibitory processes;
- in the ability to quickly change excitation to inhibition and vice versa.
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The complex structure of the nervous system gives it the ability to combine properties, combining them in a certain order. Depending on the combination of properties, the nervous system can be classified as:
- to the weak type;
- strong balanced, as well as mobile or inert type;
People who have a weak type of system are not able to withstand strong stimuli. Under the influence of strong irritating factors, the appearance of conditioned reflex reactions is delayed.
People with a strong balanced type have mainly excitation reactions and a small amount of inhibitory manifestations.
The mobile, balanced type is characterized by a rapid succession of reactions of inhibition and irritation, which creates some instability of nerve connections.
The inert, balanced type is also strong, but the ongoing nervous processes are slowed down. Such people are distinguished by external calm and are not subject to excitement.
The type of activity of the nervous system is given to each person from birth. It is the basis of conditionally occurring reactions, which are expressed differently in all people. Temperament is precisely a manifestation of the type of human nervous system through the prism of ongoing connections.
Forms of behavior
Eating behavior
Feeding behavior is common to all animals and is highly variable. It is inextricably linked with various types of activities associated with searching, storing food and metabolism. Search behavior is triggered by arousal processes caused by the absence of food.
Search and food-procuring behavior
Search and food-procuring behavior is extremely diverse and depends on the characteristics of the ecology and biology of the species. Common to animals is increased sensitivity to food irritants. In insect larvae it manifests itself in the form of positive taxis in relation to chemical stimuli.
Animals show selectivity in relation to food. It can manifest itself in the form of strict specialization, as in the slug-eating kite, or in the form of food preference, in which the animal, if it has a choice, gives preference to a certain food object [approx. 2]. Animals often strive to maintain a varied diet [approx. 3].
Among animals that feed on live food (predators[note 4]), two main food acquisition strategies are observed - hunting and grazing.
Hunting is a method of obtaining mobile prey. Hunting strategies depend on the characteristics of the prey and the biology of the hunter. Some predators, such as praying mantises, wait for prey in ambush, while others build traps. Spider traps are well known. Insects also build traps - an example is the antlion. Fast predators, such as squids, implement a special strategy - pursuit. Hunting sedentary and secretive prey requires developed analyzers and special devices for opening and killing it (such prey often has a strong shell).
Stationary and numerous prey eliminates the need to track and kill it. Feeding on such prey—grazing—consists of eating part or individual organs of food organisms. A classic example of a grazing type of predator is large vertebrate herbivores such as sheep and goats.
Taking prey from others—kleptoparasitism—is also common in the animal kingdom. For some species it is a help in unfavorable conditions. For others, such as many skuas, it is a common source of food. Such species are capable of actively and persistently pursuing prey in order to take prey. Kleptoparasitism does not always cause retaliatory aggression, especially with interspecific kleptoparasitism[11].
Saturation
When eating food, inhibitory mechanisms are activated, triggered by both physiological changes and signals from receptors in the mouth, pharynx, stomach and intestines. In highly organized animals, the process of food consumption is controlled with the participation of the central nervous system; in less highly organized animals, this process is controlled by the peripheral nervous system. For example, in flies, food consumption is controlled by a negative feedback principle - as the intestine stretches, the suppression of feeding behavior increases [12]. Among arthropods, external digestion is found. It is characteristic of spiders, fly larvae and dragonflies.
Food storage
It is common among insects to store food for larvae. For example, copra lay eggs in prepared dung balls. Many Hymenoptera and some Diptera lay eggs in the bodies of other animals (mainly insects). The uniqueness of this form of food storage made it possible to distinguish them into a separate ecological category - parasitoids. In some rodents, which include hamsters, bag rats and chipmunks, food storage has become an adaptation to an unfavorable season. Their food storage is timed to coincide with the ripening period of cereals. During the season, an ordinary hamster stores up to 16 kg of plant food[13].
Comfortable behavior
Comfort behavior combines behavioral acts aimed at caring for the body. Comfortable behavior is an integral part of the life of a healthy animal. Violation of comfortable behavior indicates the animal’s distress (illness, hunger or low social status in social animals). Animals can clean their bodies with their limbs, rub against the substrate, shake themselves, and bathe in water or sand.
Behavioral acts that do not have direction, such as adopting a sleeping position, also belong to comfort behavior.
Reproductive behavior
See also: Animal reproductive behavior
Ritual feeding of the Common Tern
Of the two main types of reproduction - sexual and asexual, the first is characterized by an exceptional variety of forms of behavior aimed at finding a partner, forming pairs, recognizing a partner, mating rituals and mating itself. Organisms that reproduce partogenetically also sometimes exhibit complex sexual behavior. Asexual reproduction does not require such adaptations.
Animals living in natural areas with pronounced seasons have an annual breeding cycle. Their sexual behavior is triggered by internal annual (circannual) rhythms, while environmental factors have a corrective effect. For example, in fish living in temperate waters, spawning occurs once a year (in autumn, summer or spring), while in fish living in the tropics it may not be expressed at all.
In mammals, along with the circannual cycle, there is a shorter estrous cycle, determined by physiological processes. These factors determine readiness to mate. Under the influence of sex hormones, animals become sensitive to sexual signals - chemical, sound and visual, and begin to display complexes of actions aimed at finding partners.
Most higher animals begin to mate only after courtship. Courtship is an exchange of special signals - demonstrations. Courtship in animals is highly ritualized and is characterized by exceptional diversity: it can include the presentation of food, like the great grebe, the demonstration of plumage, like birds of paradise, the construction of structures, and mating. Courtship is seen as a mechanism of sexual selection. In general, it promotes the selection of the most suitable partner, and, in addition, prevents interspecific hybridization [14].
Types of Marriage Relationships
Polyandry | Polygyny | |
Monogamy | ♀ | ♂ |
Polygamy | ♂♂♂ | ♀♀♀ |
There are three main types of marriage relationships: polygamy, monogamy and polyandry.
Polygyny, a special case of polygamy in which one male impregnates more than one female, is the most common form of marital relations. The reproductive success of males in this form of mating is not the same. It creates fertile conditions for sexual selection, which has led to the emergence of fancy jewelry, courtship rituals and tournaments, the winners of which receive the right to mate.
Monogamy is a type of marital relationship in which more or less strong couples are formed and both partners participate in caring for the offspring. It is the most common form of mating among birds[15] p. 369. However, monogamy in birds is often combined within a species with other forms of marital relations. For example, monogamous pairs of the Wood Accentor are often diluted with polyandrous, polygynous and polygynandrous groups[16].
Reproduction requires enormous expenses from animals. Therefore, during the breeding season, animals become especially demanding of environmental factors. In addition to the listed forms, reproductive behavior can include protecting the territory and caring for offspring.
Parental behavior
Parental behavior combines behavioral acts associated with the production of offspring. <Complex> parental behavior is observed in birds, mammals and some fish and amphibians. Parental behavior is closely related to reproductive behavior [approx. 5]. For example, in birds, nest construction occurs during the mating season and is a component of courtship. Parental behavior is divided into several successive phases.
Birds
In birds, the first phase of parental behavior is egg laying, followed by incubation. Eggs can be incubated by both male and female alternately, like the common tern, only the male or only the female. Most birds sit on their eggs, warming them with body heat, but some, such as weed chickens, build special incubators.
A necessary condition for the beginning of the transition to incubation is the recognition of eggs [approx. 6]. Selectivity for eggs varies among species. Some birds are ready to incubate dummies that only vaguely resemble their eggs, while others refuse to incubate similar eggs of related species, and sometimes even their own. Considering the prevalence of intraspecific and interspecific nest parasitism - it has been described in more than 230 species - the biological significance of selectivity in relation to eggs becomes clear[15].
After the chicks hatch, the feeding stage begins. Based on the nature of caring for their offspring, two groups of birds are distinguished: nestlings and broodbirds. In nestling birds, the chicks hatch helpless, unable to obtain food on their own, and the parents carefully look after them - feed, warm and protect them. The chicks actively beg for food—in this case, the parent’s beak acts as a releaser. In breeding birds (loons, galliformes, anseriformes and others), the chicks hatch sighted, capable of moving after their parents and feeding independently in the first hours of life. The feeding behavior of parents and chicks is innate.
Mammals
In mammals, parental behavior includes nest building, childbirth, feeding the offspring, caring for the offspring - licking, dragging and training. Feeding their young is of particular importance to them. Baby mammals are born with a sucking reflex. Feeding in mammals is a coordinated process in which both the female and the young play an active role. At the end of feeding, the female is often required to specifically wean the cubs from the breast in various ways, including the use of aggression.
Insects
Parental behavior is not typical for invertebrates, but insects, the most highly organized group of this type, care for the offspring. Care of offspring is a characteristic feature of social insects. The evolution of social lifestyles has even been linked to parental behavior.
A male bedbug from the family Belostomidae with clutch on his back
An exceptional phenomenon is the paternal parenting behavior of bedbugs of the subfamily Belostomatidae, in which females, after copulation, lay eggs on the back of males. The participation of the latter in caring for the offspring is not limited to carrying the clutch: they create a flow of water with the help of their limbs, from time to time they float to the surface to give the eggs access to atmospheric air, and help the nymphs get out of the eggs[17].
Defensive Behavior
Defensive behavior includes actions aimed at avoiding danger. Defensive reactions occur in response to external stimuli and can be active, even attacking, or passive. A classic example of a defensive response is the avoidance response observed in broodbirds in response to the silhouette of a predator.
Aggressive behavior
See also: Aggression (biology) and Aggression (psychology)
Aggressive behavior is destructive behavior directed at another individual. This includes threatening demonstrations, assault and causing injury. Aggression serves to establish hierarchical relationships in social animals, distribute territory and other resources. The question of the admissibility of using the term aggression to describe the relationship between predator and prey remains open.
Aggressive behavior is triggered by the perception of a specific stimulus (releaser), which is usually the smell, sound signals and color elements of another individual. The manifestation of aggressive behavior, or rather sensitivity and selectivity towards releasers, depends on the internal state of the body. In most animals, aggression is observed during the breeding season. This phenomenon has been well studied in birds and territorial fish. In them (males), during the breeding season, aggression is caused by an opponent approaching the boundaries of the territory.
In the absence of specific stimuli, aggression can accumulate. The result of this process is a decrease in the threshold of sensitivity (and selectivity) to releasers.
Social behavior
See also: Deviant Behavior and Group Behavior
Social behavior includes manifestations of mental activity directly related to the interaction between individuals and their groups. There are two main types of social behavior - group, which is characterized by the presence of mutual attraction between individuals, and territorial, in which there is no such attraction. Accordingly, the first type involves the sharing of spatial resources, the second excludes it. The territorial type of behavior can be called solitary. With this type of social relations, representatives of their own species cause aggression, with the exception of a certain period.
Territorial behavior
See also: Territorial behavior
Territorial is behavior associated with the division of accessible territory into individual areas. It includes the allocation of an individual area, marking its boundaries and protection from other individuals. Territory may be marked by sounds like birds, scent marks like cats, and visual marks. Visual marks include excrement, trampled areas, scratches and gnawing marks on tree bark, or in most cases a combination of different marks. For example, bears urinate near trees, rub against them, scratch and gnaw the bark, and also make depressions in the ground[18].
Exploratory behavior
Exploratory behavior includes activity aimed at studying the environment, not related to the search for food or a sexual partner. Higher animals, having found themselves in an unfamiliar environment, begin to actively move, inspect, feel and sniff the surrounding objects. Exploratory behavior is suppressed by hunger, fear response and sexual arousal. There are orienting reactions, in which the animal remains motionless, and active exploration, in which the animal moves relative to the object or territory being studied.
Can a person change his temperament?
Psychological well-being, determined by life circumstances, is mainly associated with the type of personality temperament. But the external manifestation of a person’s condition largely depends on his upbringing, beliefs, attitude towards other people or current events. By mobilizing his energy, he is able to withstand prolonged mental stress, influence the speed of reactions and the overall pace of work.
For example, upbringing and will help a choleric person to be restrained and to switch thoughts to other events and tasks.
By replacing the weak sides of his temperament with a system of volitional training, education and environmental influences, a person can radically change its external manifestation. Under certain living conditions in which a person spends a long time, a choleric person can become inert and slow, while a melancholic person can become energetic and decisive. The true natural properties of temperament can only appear under unexpected strong influence or a dangerous life situation, when the external factors with the help of which it was previously changed lose their meaning.
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Content
- 1 Approaches and directions 1.1 Psychology
- 1.2 Animal psychology
- 1.3 Plant behavior
- 1.4 Comparative psychology
- 1.5 Behaviorism and neo-behaviorism
- 1.6 Ethology
- 2.1 Congenital
- 3.1 Feeding behavior 3.1.1 Searching and food-getting behavior
- 3.3.1 Types of marital relationships
- 3.4.1 Birds
- 5.1 Popular science
Notes
- The “nyctinasties” of plants are well known—the opening and closing of flowers in connection with the change of day and night, phototropisms of leaves, plant movements when hunting animals, hydro- and chemotropisms of roots; Mimosa pudica is capable of folding its leaves very effectively when touched or shaken. Moreover, if you touch the top of the leaf, you can observe a sequential spread of the reaction from top to bottom - first the leaves will fold, then the petioles, then the petiole will drop
- Ecologists define food preference as the excess of a certain food item in the diet over its content in the environment.
- Balanced Preference
- This category in ecology is opposed to detritivores and unites both herbivorous and carnivorous animals (true predators).
- some researchers even classify it as reproductive.
- Some scientists identify egg recognition as a separate phase of parental behavior.
Methods of improper education
There is hardly any need to prove that the development of the human personality requires the most diligent upbringing, and yet, this is given a more academic and social approach than a spiritual and humanistic approach to nurturing the child’s individuality.
Research by psychologists is staggering: young parents, having brought their child from the maternity hospital, do not know what to do with him. And this would be a solvable issue if young parents knew that when giving birth to children they need to have at least some knowledge of parenting skills. Young parents lack education in the profession of “parent, mother, father.” There is no such profession in the world.
There is a direct connection between the development of psychoses, improper upbringing, and the socio-economic burden of society by people with a traumatized psyche. And not a single education system places an emphasis on preparing young people for family and everyday life issues, and especially for raising a child.
In this matter, any doubts are hardly possible if we take into account the peculiarities of the child’s psyche: mental receptivity, newborn-fragile (imprinting) impressionability, undefamed and unprogrammed honesty and truthfulness, which adults distort for the entire fate of the child.
Thanks to amazing suggestibility, including invented fantasy circumstances, which children often mistake for a real event that once happened. Adults treat this circumstance of their psyche as a lie. And by scolding the child for lying, they completely deprive him of the ability to fantasize and form imaginative ideas, which deprives the child of imaginative thinking.
Such phenomena as childhood mental epidemics are also explained by the amazing suggestibility of children. In schools, children's mental epidemics happen all the time. And, worst of all, they are classified as mental disorders or deviant behavior, or disgusting in nature. Having named the object incorrectly, teachers begin to pursue incorrect educational policies. And, most likely, a war against this purely childish state of the emotional sphere.
That is why psychologically unprepared teachers, psychologically illiterate parents and nannies, being the shapers of imprints and learning, become responsible for the mental formation of each generation of children. What we sow is what we reap. Children reflect back to us all the horrors of our upbringing.
Literature
Popular science
- Lorenz Konrad.
Aggression (so-called “evil”). - Lorenz Konrad.
A man finds a friend. - Lorenz Konrad.
King Solomon's ring. - N. Tinbergen.
Social behavior of animals.
- Fabre Jean Henri.
Instinct and customs of insects. - in two volumes. - Dolnik V. R.
Naughty child of the biosphere. Conversations about human behavior in the company of birds, animals and children. - St. Petersburg: Petroglyph, 2007. - Zhukov Boris.
Introduction to behavior. The history of science about what motivates animals and how to understand them correctly. - M.: Corpus, 2020.
Classic monographs
- Charles Darwin.
Expression of emotions in animals and humans. - N.N.
Ladygina-Cats. Chimpanzee child and human child.
Textbooks
- D. McFarland.
Animal behavior. Psychobiology, ethology and evolution. - Moscow: “Mir”, 1988. - Yu.K.
Roshchevsky. Features of group behavior of animals. - tutorial. — Kuibyshev: region. printing house named after Myagi, 1978. - 1,000 copies.
In English
- Graham Scott.
Essential Animal Behavior. - Blackwell Science Ltd, 2005.
Methods of education in adolescence
Most often, improper upbringing in the family consists of several types. All these distortions in upbringing will give their first shoots in adolescence. So, think about your kids. Take care of their well-being in advance, while you are their authority. During adolescence, friends become the authority. And then it is very difficult to influence the child, especially if you have not laid the foundation of your trusting relationship in advance.
Expanding the sphere of parental feelings. This type of improper child rearing is characterized by the parents’ intrusive desire to know absolutely everything about the child. Leaving him nothing personal or secret. Boring him with instructions and advice in matters that the child can and should decide for himself.
The next type of incorrect upbringing is the projection of one’s own undesirable qualities onto the child. Parents scold the child, claiming that they know what he is thinking and what he wants. They declare that they will not allow the manifestation of bad habits or qualities. At the same time, the child does not and never had such manifestations.
Sometimes, improper upbringing manifests itself with increased fear of losing a child. In this case, all the actions of parents are guided by increased anxiety for the health and life of the child. In extreme cases, the child is not even allowed to go outside unaccompanied during adolescence.
And the last type of incorrect upbringing: preference in a teenager for childish qualities. Parents ignore and do not notice the adult traits in their child. They prohibit him from activities and hobbies typical of a teenager. Cultivate children's activities.