Humans make several choices a day whether it’s when to eat, what to eat, who to speak with and so on. Unlike humans, animals in captivity have little to no choices in their daily lives because most of their alternatives are made for them by their human caretakers. Due to the lack of control, animals in captivity may develop learned helplessness. This phenomenon learned helplessness is when a person, or a nonhuman ape, internalizes the idea that his or her actions have no effect on the environment. Human caretakers are now finding ways to give some control back to animals by giving them choices in their daily lives and this is highly emphasized throughout the reading. The article in Psychology "Choice and Control for Animals in Captivity"
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One thing she barely mentioned is that the keepers need to be aware of when giving animals choices is the choice paradox this is described as when being given too many choices can actually make humans more stressed, and the same can go for nonhuman apes (894). When there are too many options to choose from there are extremely high levels of anxiety, this can still happen even when all of the options are positive. Therefore the animal needs choices but not too many. The author could have focused on this a lot more because she mentions several times that giving more options is very important, which is true, but not how giving the animal too many choices and actually cause the animal to become more stressed than they were before. A choice Kurtycz discusses is where an animal decides to spend its time. In modern zoos, animals typically have two places to stay, either outside around the public for viewing and a behind-the-scenes space for human caregivers to care for them. She goes on to explain how some animals become less stressed by having both of these places open to them instead of being stuck in one environmental space. An example of this is when a group of polar bears were given the choice on being outside or inside, they showed positive behavioral changes; the polar bear’s positive social behavior increased and their abnormal behaviors, such as pacing, decreased (893). …show more content…
Her article is a fairly easy read that has very little, if any, terms that were difficult to understand but she primarily focused on writing to anyone working with animals, working in zoo, or simply interested in psychology. Although she could give more specific examples, or her own examples, on how zookeepers could add more stimuli or choices for animals rather than giving several examples on others research. By doing this she could focus on a smaller audience, like zookeepers and caregivers looking for a way to decrease stress on an animal. Also most of the research she provided in the article were within the past ten years, except a few were anywhere from 15 years old to 40 years old. The extremely older sources from the 1970s were helpful in her article because it was the original research about learned helplessness by Dweck, D.S. & Reppucci, N.D. in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, and the illusion of control by Perlmuter, L.C. & Monty, R.A. in American Scientist, 759-65, which, both, are important points in her writing. In one section, the author wrote about farm animals and this seemed completely irrelevant and out of place because the focus of the article was about wild animals in captivity, not sheep and goats in a petting zoo. Kurtycz clearly describes the importance of having choices and
One thing she barely mentioned is that the keepers need to be aware of when giving animals choices is the choice paradox this is described as when being given too many choices can actually make humans more stressed, and the same can go for nonhuman apes (894). When there are too many options to choose from there are extremely high levels of anxiety, this can still happen even when all of the options are positive. Therefore the animal needs choices but not too many. The author could have focused on this a lot more because she mentions several times that giving more options is very important, which is true, but not how giving the animal too many choices and actually cause the animal to become more stressed than they were before. A choice Kurtycz discusses is where an animal decides to spend its time. In modern zoos, animals typically have two places to stay, either outside around the public for viewing and a behind-the-scenes space for human caregivers to care for them. She goes on to explain how some animals become less stressed by having both of these places open to them instead of being stuck in one environmental space. An example of this is when a group of polar bears were given the choice on being outside or inside, they showed positive behavioral changes; the polar bear’s positive social behavior increased and their abnormal behaviors, such as pacing, decreased (893). …show more content…
Her article is a fairly easy read that has very little, if any, terms that were difficult to understand but she primarily focused on writing to anyone working with animals, working in zoo, or simply interested in psychology. Although she could give more specific examples, or her own examples, on how zookeepers could add more stimuli or choices for animals rather than giving several examples on others research. By doing this she could focus on a smaller audience, like zookeepers and caregivers looking for a way to decrease stress on an animal. Also most of the research she provided in the article were within the past ten years, except a few were anywhere from 15 years old to 40 years old. The extremely older sources from the 1970s were helpful in her article because it was the original research about learned helplessness by Dweck, D.S. & Reppucci, N.D. in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, and the illusion of control by Perlmuter, L.C. & Monty, R.A. in American Scientist, 759-65, which, both, are important points in her writing. In one section, the author wrote about farm animals and this seemed completely irrelevant and out of place because the focus of the article was about wild animals in captivity, not sheep and goats in a petting zoo. Kurtycz clearly describes the importance of having choices and