The origin and functions of adjunctive behavior |
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| Authors: | John L Falk |
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| Institution: | 1. Psychology Building, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, 08903, New Brunswick, New Jersey
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| Abstract: | The major determinants of schedule-induced or adjunctive behavior are reviewed briefly. Adjunctive behavior and its ethological equivalent, displacement activity, has a stabilizing function on agonistic, mating, parental, and intermittent-feeding behavior when any of these activities are in unstable equilibrium with an escape vector. This buffering action of adjunctive behavior is analogous to the diversity-stability rule of ecology in which an increase in the diversity of species stabilizes the populations of the component species, thereby preventing extinction. Opposing behavioral vectors in unstable equilibrium can function to exaggerate certain behavioral adjuncts that preexist in a situation. The resulting increase in diversification (information) augments the overall stability of the opposing-vector circumstance, conserving the context. This strengthening process is discussed in relation to ritualization and the preadaptation of exaggerated behavior to new functions. |
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