ITA | ENG
B001626 - EVOLUTION OF BEHAVIOUR
Main information
Teaching Language
Course Content
Suggested readings
Learning Objectives
Prerequisites
Teaching Methods
Further information
Type of Assessment
Course program
Academic Year 2010-11
Coorte 2010 - Second Cycle Degree in PSICOLOGIA
Course year
First year - First Semester
Belonging Department
Education and Psychology
Course Type
Single education field course
Scientific Area
BIO/05 - ZOOLOGY
Credits
6
Teaching Hours
40
Teaching Term
04/10/2010 ⇒ 22/12/2010
Attendance required
No
Type of Evaluation
Final Grade
Course Content
show
Course program
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Lectureship
Teaching Language
italian
Course Content
The course is focussed on the evolutionary approach to animal and human behaviour, i.e. the adaptive value of a behavioural trait, its historical basis, its costs and benefits in terms of Darwinian fitness. The main topic is the evolution of sexual and social behaviour: male and female roles and strategies, mating systems, parental care, altruism, and finally human sexual behaviour and human family in a socio-biological perspective.
Suggested readings (Search our library's catalogue)
J. Alcock, Animal Behaviour. An evolutionary approach (VIII ed), Sinauer Associates, MA [Chapters I, X, XI, XIV, Glossary].
Matt Ridley (1993) The Red Queen. Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Viking, London [Chapers. I, X].
Matt Ridley (1993) The Red Queen. Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. Viking, London [Chapers. I, X].
Learning Objectives
To frame the diversity of animal behaviour, mind processes, social interactions and mating systems inside an evolutionary background, in terms of costs, benefits, coevolution and alternative hypotheses, and with an appropriate terminology.
Prerequisites
no one
Teaching Methods
I discuss several study cases on sexual and social behaviour through a comparative approach and I try to set the experiments and the debate on Sexual Selection and Eusociality theories against their historical background.
Further information
no one
Type of Assessment
written and oral examination
Course program
Comparative study of animal behaviour and mind processes, in terms of adaptive value and survival: spatial memory, learning, language, consciousness, social mind, play and dreaming. The coevolution and the “Red Queen Hypothesis”. Sexual Selection by Darwin: “ardent males, choosy females”, evolution of sex differences, alternative reproductive strategies and mate selection. Beyond Darwin: sperm competition, promiscuity and cryptic female choice. The adaptive value of social living: costs and benefits, cooperation and altruism, the evolution of eusocial behaviour. The perspective of Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology: the adaptive tactics of parents, nuptial systems and mate choice in humans.