#modal action patterns

[gaurja24510045]

A Baby Face might just be your Get Out of Jail Free Card!

Have you ever looked at a bear in a zoo exhibit and felt the intense urge to pet a bear despite knowing that if you went anywhere near one, it could rip your head off? Neoteny refers to the retention of juvenile features into the adulthood of an animal. Adult animals with baby-like features, such as bears, pandas, or koalas, are the ones that attract the most visitors because of just how damn cute they are. 

Neotenic features in adult humans include a round face, big eyes, flat face, no hair, a small nose, and more. Neotenous adults are perceived to be younger, more innocent and naive, and studies have also found that they elicit more helpful behaviour from others. An interesting consequence of having a babyface that has been found in research, is that in criminal courts, jurors and judges perceive babyfaced defendants to be less guilty of intentional crimes. 

What could explain this? Modal action patterns are response sequences which are typical to a species. Several of these patterns have been identified in animal behaviour, such as courtship behaviour, territorial defense, aggressive behaviour, sexual behaviour, and also, parenting. Being protective of children from threats is a part of the modal action pattern that is parenting. The stimulus responsible for eliciting these behavioural patterns is termed as ‘sign stimulus’ or ‘release stimulus’. The ethologist Konrad Lorenz came up with a set of physical features which are typical of babies, called ‘baby schema’ – large eyes, small nose, round face, chubby cheeks etc. – which elicit parental behaviours such as caregiving, protection from danger, and nurturance. These features being the ‘releasing stimulus’ for parental behaviour explains why neotenous adults possessing these features may be perceived to be less guilty, because would you just look at that face…how could such a cute person possibly do anything wrong?

However, my baby faced readers, hold your horses and don’t just think you can get away with mischief so easily. The downside to this is that you will also be held to a higher standard. The studies about criminal courts also found that in the presence of incontrovertible evidence of a crime against defendants, baby faced individuals tend to face harsher punishments, because the jurors tend to feel betrayed. 

References: 

Barrett, D. (2010). Supernormal stimuli : How primal urges overran their evolutionary purpose. Norton. 

Domjan, M., & Grau, J. W. (2020). The principles of learning and behavior. Wadsworth.

Rilling, J. K. (2013). The neural and hormonal bases of human parental care. Neuropsychologia, 51(4), 731–747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.12.017 

[therainbowpencils]

Anti-LGBTQ+ Claims Versus Modal Action Pattern

I was reading one of my psych books when I found something Interesting that might be of note for realistic worldbuilding in regards to population, biology, psychology, evolution, and perhaps more that I’m forgetting. Or you can use it for what I use it for, which is proving the claims of LGBTQ+ critics wrong!

TLDR: humans lack the survival mechanism that would cause specific universal mating behavior, which counters the argument that only heterosexuality is natural.

Common arguments against the LGBTQ+ involve claims that it is unnatural. These claims usually state that everyone should be naturally drawn to heterosexual relationships for the sake of reproduction, under the belief that reproduction is the only means to contributing to the survival of the species. Similarly, I’ve also heard this argument be used for claiming nuclear families are the only natural and effective families and that we should be drawn to that or something is unnatural about us. 

This implies that humans have a universal mating behavior that helps with our species survival. Such mating behavior would fall under the psychological survival mechanism known as Modal Action Patterns. Modal Action Patterns are a sort of complex, automatic, thoughtless response to the environment that organisms universally share in their species in order to survive. It involves things like bird migration, bear hibernation, and mating behavior. 

Here’s the interesting part though. Humans don’t have Modal Action Patterns. We’re so complex and diverse that we don’t need this survival mechanism as many of us have our own ways of surviving our various environments and we do so, just fine. This completely contradicts the claims that the LGBTQ+ is unnatural as we don’t have a universal attraction or family formation, nor do we need one. There’s plenty of people that can form relationships that make reproduction possible and for those that don’t, they can always adopt or take on other roles that support the survival of the species. Not everyone even needs sexual or romantic attraction, which works too! 

If anything, forcing a mating behavior on humanity is what’s actually unnatural!

So, you can use that as a counter argument or perhaps you can use this in your stories somehow! Perhaps it can make for an interesting societal conflict or you can use Modal Action Patterns, or the lack thereof, to play some important role in the survival and behavior of fictional species. Whatever you’d like to write about!