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Functions of the environment in behavioral evolution.

S S Glenn, D P Field

The Behavior Analyst

|April 6, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The environment shapes behavior by acting selectively on behavioral populations and instantiating individual behavioral instances. This evolutionary framework clarifies how environmental factors influence the origin, maintenance, and occurrence of behaviors.

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Area of Science:

Behavioral science
Evolutionary biology
Psychology

Background:

The environment's role in behavior is often analyzed at different levels.
Distinguishing between individual behavioral occurrences and broader behavioral units is crucial for analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore environmental functions in behavior using an evolutionary biology analogy.
To differentiate the environmental influences on operant units versus operant instances.

Main Methods:

Analyzing the environment's selective functions on behavioral populations.
Examining the environment's instantiating functions (evocative and alterative) on operant instances.
Applying an evolutionary framework to behavior-environment interactions.

Main Results:

The environment acts selectively on the origin, maintenance, suppression, and extinction of behavioral populations.
At the instance level, the environment has evocative (e.g., discriminative) and alterative (e.g., conditional, motivative) functions.
Behavioral and organic domains exhibit analogous environmental functions at different analytical levels.

Conclusions:

The proposed evolutionary framework offers a robust model for understanding complex behavior-environment relations.
Maintaining distinctions between levels of analysis is key to accurately explaining behavioral phenomena.
Environmental functions are critical for both the evolution of behavioral repertoires and the occurrence of specific behaviors.