You observe scrub jays hiding food and notice that one particular individual only pretends to hide food. Your experiments associate the presence of other scrub jays with the frequency of pretending to cache food. A colleague shows you groups of scrub jays that do not engage in pretend caching. Considering this new information, which of the following is the best hypothesis?
A) Pretending to hide food is learned.
B) The other scrub jays lost this behavior.
C) This was innate behavior in this one scrub jay.
D) This scrub jay learned this behavior from its parents.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Pretending to hide food being learned is the best hypothesis because it accounts for the variability in behavior among different groups of scrub jays. If the behavior was observed in the presence of other jays and not in isolated groups, it suggests a learned component influenced by social context rather than being purely innate or inherited from parents.

You Observe Scrub Jays Hiding Food and Notice That One