study of behaviour (ethology)

Behaviour may be defined as the outwardly expressed course of action produced in organisms in response to stimuli from a given situation. The action modifies, in some way, the relationship between the organism and its environment and its adaptive significance is the perpetuation of the species. All living organisms exhibit a variety of forms of behaviorism activity deter-mined by the extent to which they are able to respond to stimuli. This varies from the relatively simple action of the growth of a plant stem towards a light source, to the complex sexual behavior patterns of territory defense, courtship and mating seen in birds and mammals. Plant behavior is restricted to movements produced by growth or turgid changes and is stereotyped and predictable. The two main activities associated with plant behavior are tropisms and taxes and details of these are described in section. Animal behavior is far more complex and diverse than plant behavior and therefore it is extremely difficult to investigate and account for with any degree of scientific validity. The three main approaches to behavioral studies are the capitalistic, mechanistic and ethological approaches. 

Vitalistic approach

This seeks to account for behavioral activities in terms of what animals are seen to do, and attempts to relate this to changes in the environment. It involves the total rejection of any study of the animal outside its natural environment. The technique has its foundations in natural history and has provided a wealth of valuable data, but it is essentially non scientific since all the observations relate to past events which cannot be tested experimentally.