The biological basis of human behavior 4018-WYK8-CLASS-OG

The lecture covers the following topics:
• Body plan - similarities and differences between humans and other animals. Why we are
bipedal animals? Effects of bipedality.
• Physiology - Human nutrition – are human carnivores or hebrivores?; Circadian,
monthly,annual rhythms and our physiology; the respiratory and excretory systems and its
functioning.
• Effect of hormones on changes in body function.
• Nervous system - its structure and operation.
• Senses, perception and illusion.
• Construction of the brain and the question of the mind.
• Biology of human attractiveness.
• Sexual behavior and its biological determinants.
• Parental care and its biological role.
• Behaviors associated with competition, aggression and defense.
• Behaviors associated with acquiring, collecting food and feeding behavior. Obesity issues in
evolutionary context.
• Social behavior of animals and signaling.
• Old age and death as a biological phenomenon.
• Cooperative and altruistic behavior.

Type of course

general courses

Learning outcomes

After completing the course, students are expected to know:
- the causes and consequences of the bipedality,
- how the nervous system works, the basic neurotransmitters, the term “Pavlovian
conditioning”,
- the main hormones, their sources, roles in the body, symptoms associated with irregularities
in their secretion,
- the functioning of the digestive, respiratory and excretory systems,
- the functionality of the cerebral hemispheres, the speech centers, the visual cortex, mirror
neurons,
- the structure of human senses and understand why there are differences in the development
of sensory organs in animals in the context of lifestyle,
- the evolutionary context of visual illusions,
- the term "the theory of mind", how to examine self-awareness in animals, what is the difference
between a man and monkey in the linguistic capabilities and tool behavior
- which morphological traits are considered as attractive by humans and darvinian explanation for it,
- the specificity of sexual and parental behavior in the evolutionary context,
- the reasons for the emergence of a long period of human senility, understand terms: "clinical death",
"brain death",
- evolutionary context of aggression and defense behavior of man, and compare them to the analogous
behavior in animals,
- differences in diet of man and animals, indicate the differences in the construction of the
gastrointestinal tract associated with diet, explain the evolutionary causes of obesity,
- few examples of social animals - discuss their system of communication, division of roles.
- biological explanation of the altruistic behavior (kin selection, reciprocal altruism)
- how to explain the behavioral strategies of organisms in the light of game theory.

Assessment criteria

Control of the presence (not more than 2 absences in a semester)
exam

Bibliography

J.R. Krebs, N.B. Davies, 2001, Wprowadzenie do ekologii behawioralnej , PWN
J.Harborne, 1997, Ekologia biochemiczna, PWN,
Ch. Frith, 2011, Od mózgu do umysłu, WUW
J. Wejner, 2003, Życie i ewolucja biosfery, PWN
B.Pawłowski, 2009, Biologia atrakcyjności człowieka, WUW
R. Foley2001, Zanim człowiek stał się człowiekiem, PIW
K.Fiałkowski, T. Bielicki, 2008, Homo przypadkiem sapiens, PWN

Additional information

Information on level of this course, year of study and semester when the course unit is delivered, types and amount of class hours - can be found in course structure diagrams of apropriate study programmes. This course is related to the following study programmes: