Chapter 1 – Of Cockroaches and Wolves: Framing Animal Behavior

Abstract

Behavior includes movement, social interaction, cognition, and learning. At its core, behavior provides animals with adaptive mechanisms for adjusting to changes in their environment and for manipulating the world around them. This chapter illustrates that using the four central questions of animal behavior—causation, development, survival value, and evolution—a testable hypotheses can be formed and much deeper understanding of behavior can be achieved. The discussion expands these questions and analyzes how they can be applied. Two animals are discussed in particular—the wolf and the cockroach—that have contributed greatly to the understanding of animal behavior. The chapter concludes with an overview of the history of the study of animal behavior. The discussion appreciates that contemporary studies of animal behavior are rooted in ethology, comparative psychology, sociobiology, and behavioral ecology.