Sort each behavior by whether it is a Fixed Action Pattern or flexible, learned behavior.
Groups: Fixed Action Pattern · Flexible / learned behavior
- A dog learns to sit only after being rewarded many times
- A male stickleback attacks any red-bellied model on sight
- A goose keeps rolling toward the nest even after the egg is taken away
- A gull chick pecks a red spot to beg, in a stereotyped sequence
Hints
- A FAP is innate, stereotyped, and triggered by a specific cue; learned behavior is shaped by experience and adjusts.
- If the behavior needs reinforcement or changes with circumstances, it is not a FAP.
Show the answer
Fixed Action Pattern: A goose keeps rolling toward the nest even after the egg is taken away, A male stickleback attacks any red-bellied model on sight, A gull chick pecks a red spot to beg, in a stereotyped sequence
Flexible / learned behavior: A dog learns to sit only after being rewarded many times
FAPs are innate, stereotyped, and released by a sign stimulus (egg-rolling, red-belly attack, red-spot pecking); behavior that requires reinforcement or flexibly adapts to circumstances (learning to sit, updating a route) is not a FAP. The discriminator is innate-and-ballistic versus learned-and-flexible.
Practise Fixed Action Patterns
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
More questions on Fixed Action Patterns
- A gull chick pecks harder at a striped stick than at a realistic model of its parent's head. Tinbergen called…
- Select every statement that is TRUE about sign stimuli and supernormal stimuli.
- A goose that has begun the egg-rolling fixed action pattern will stop mid-movement if the egg is taken away.
- A greylag goose whose egg is taken away mid-retrieval finishes the rolling sweep with nothing under her bill.…
- Order the causal chain of a Fixed Action Pattern, from trigger to completion.