Defensive burying and approach-avoidance behavior in the rat

Abstract

In Experiment 1, rats used bedding to bury a mousetrap (unset) or a flashbulb (unflashed), but not a wooden dowel, when the objects were first encountered in a familiar test chamber. Rats also buried wire-wrapped wooden dowels that had been the source of electric shock (Experiment 2) or wooden dowels dipped in cadaverine (Experiment 3), but they did not bury comparable control objects. In each of the three experiments, the objects that were buried were the same ones that were the focus of approach-avoidance sequences. The fact that both burying and approach-avoidance behavior tended to be directed at the same objects in a variety of situations supports the position that burying behavior in rats, both conditioned and unconditioned, is most appropriately viewed as a defensive response. © 1980, The psychonomic soceity, inc.. All rights reserved.