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What is behaviour

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What is behaviour?
Behaviour is the way in which a person acts in response to
a stimulus or situation. These responses can aid survival.

For example, if you hear a loud

noise you put your hands over
your ears. This prevents the
noise from damaging your ears.

The stimulus is the loud noise.

Your response is to cover your
ears.

Some human behaviour is

much more complex.

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What do we respond to?
Humans respond to both internal and external stimuli.

An external stimulus is a
change in the environment
around us. For example, the
heat of an oven.

An internal stimulus is a
change inside the body.
For example, the feeling
of hunger.

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Internal or external?

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Nervous system
The nervous system can coordinate a response to a stimulus,
using nerve cells.
Nerve cells, or neurones are specialized cells that
transmit electrical impulses around the body.

cell body

nucleus

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How are responses coordinated?
If a stimulus is detected your nervous system sends
an impulse along neurones to and from different
parts of the body, to coordinate a response.

1. Specific receptors in a sense organ

detect a stimulus.

2. An electrical impulse is sent to the brain.

3. The brain processes the information.

4. An electrical impulse is sent to an

effector (e.g. a muscle or gland).

5. The effector produces a response.

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The senses

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Parts of the nervous system

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What is a reflex?
Reflex reactions happen without you having to think
about them – they are involuntary. This is because
the central nervous system sends electrical signals to
the muscles before the brain can pick up the message.

Reflexes can stop you from

getting hurt. For example if
you touch a hot surface,
your body automatically
moves your hand away
from the heat, preventing
you from being burnt.

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Knee-jerk reaction

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Reflex arc

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The brain and drugs

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Types of behaviour

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The hormonal system
The hormonal system also coordinate some of the body’s
responses, using hormones.

Hormones are produced by glands.

These chemicals are released into
the blood where they are carried
around the body. A response is gland
produced when the hormone
reaches its target organ. hormone

Hormonal responses are slower and longer lasting

than those coordinated by the nervous system.

Hormones control growth and reproduction processes.

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Hormone glands

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Do humans have innate behaviour?
Humans have some innate or instinctive behaviour.
This is pre-programmed behaviour, which is not learnt.

The fight or flight response is

thought to be a human innate
behaviour. When humans are
threatened or stressed this can
cause a chemical change in the
body. This causes a person to
react or retreat.

This behaviour can help us to

survive in dangerous situations.

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Fight or flight

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Learned behaviour
Learned behaviour is behaviour developed through
experience. Experience allows us to improve or change our
existing responses and develop behaviour to new situations.

Learning can help humans acquire new skills for survival.

For example, from an

early age babies will react
to the positive responses
of their parents.

If a baby displays behaviour that its parents respond to,

the baby will soon learn to continue the same behaviour.

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Learned behaviour
Animals, including humans, can learn to ignore a stimulus
if it is harmless.
There are so many stimuli in
the environment around us
that we can learn not to
respond to those that are
unimportant.
For example, if you live near a
noisy road or airport you soon
stop noticing the noise.
However, other people might find
these noises loud and annoying.

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Complex behaviour
The brain is the site of your consciousness. It is the site of
your thoughts, emotions, ideas, instincts and memories.

cerebral
hemisphere

cerebellum

brainstem

spinal cord
If the brain is damaged it can cause a change in behaviour.

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The brain
Flash from GCSE core
Simplified

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How does behaviour help us to survive?
Complex behaviour, such as speech, emotion and memory, can
help us to communicate and cooperate with each other.

Humans work together

in many aspects of life,
helping us to survive
and reproduce. This is
called cooperative
behaviour.

Can you think of an example of cooperative behaviour

in humans?

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Cooperative behaviour
There are lots of different examples of cooperative behaviour,
as humans are very social animals. Most humans choose to
live together in small family groups or units.

This cooperative
behaviour involves
parents working
together to protect,
feed and teach their
children.

Do you think this

type of behaviour is
innate or learned?

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What determines behaviour?
Some scientists think that people behave in the way they do
because of instincts or innate behaviour that we are born
with. This is called the nature theory of behaviour.

Others believe that people

do and think certain things
because they learn to do
them – they are taught by
others. This is called the
nurture theory of
behaviour.

In reality most behaviour is likely to be a mix of both

nature and nurture. Humans are influenced by both genes
and the environment.

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Nervous or hormonal?

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Glossary

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Anagrams

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Multiple-choice quiz

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