Social Behaviors

Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of animals, usually with a scientific focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objective study of animal behavior, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or to trained behavioral responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Throughout history, different naturalists have studied aspects of animal behaviour. Ethologists typically show interest in a behavioral process rather than in a particular animal group, and often study one type of behavior, such as aggression, in a number of unrelated species.