Zur Psychologie des Haushuhns

Social facilitation of pecking and drinking in “satiated” chickens

“…This experiment employed a paradigm (AA-AT) designed to examine the behavior of satiated birds following the introduction of a deprived conspecific (Bayer, 1929;Fischel, 1927;Katz & Revesz, 1909;Tolman, 1965). Thus it was necessary to allow the subjects to satiate in isolation before the companion appeared.…”

“…Since pecking is such a prevalent behavior in chickens, it is not surprising that research on these animals in the area of social influences on consumption has used the peck as the dependent measure. Studies have consistently shown that socially reared chickens eat more in the company of other chickens than they eat when alone (Tolman, 1968a;Tolman & Wilson, 1965;Wilson, 1968), even when subjects are fed to satiation before the introduction of hungry companions (Bayer, 1929;Fischel, 1927;Katz & Revesz, 1909, cited in Tinbergen, 1951Tolman, 1965).…”

“…Accordingly, drinking may provide a more compelling test of social facilitation effects in chickens. The current research employed the "satiation" paradigm reported by Bayer (1929), Fischel (1927, Tolman (1965) and others. Simply put, hungry or thirsty animals are allowed to peck or drink in isolation until there is a substantial diminution of the rate of their consummatory responses.…”

The social life of animals, by W.C. Allee ...

“…Fischel, a German, reports that when hens of known peck-order are released to forage in an orchard the dominant and neardominant birds may or may not be at the apex of the foraging flock. (46) Usually the leadership changes from time to time and moreover the leading bird seems always more or less dependent upon her followers. If she gets too far out ahead the leader turns back and rejoins the flock or waits for them to catch up.…”

Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach.

“…Thus, for instance, in experiments using human subjects, skilled performance on pursuit rotor (Travis, 1925), accuracy in a vigilance task (Bergum & Lehr, 1963), scores on chain-association, vowel cancellation, and multiplication tasks (Allport, 1924;Dashiell, 1930), and latency of word associations (Matlin & Zajonc, 1968) have all been shown to improve under social conditions. Studies using animal subjects found social increments in eating (Bayer, 1929;Fischel, 1927;Harlow, 1932;Tolman & Wilson, 1965), drinking (Bruce, 1941), bar pressing (Stamm, 1961), copulating (Larsson, 1956), exploring (Simmel, 1962), nest building (Chen, 1937), and running (Scott & McCray, 1967).…”