STEREOTYPED RESPONSE

unlearned behavioral reaction of an organism to some environmental stimulus. It is an adaptive mechanism and may be expressed in a variety of ways. All living organisms exhibit one or more types of stereotyped response. Additional reading Studies include Jacques Loeb, Forced Movements: Tropisms and Animal Conduct (1918, reprinted 1973); J.D. Carthy, Animal Navigation: How Animals Find Their Way About (1956, reissued 1963); Gottfried S. Fraenkel and Donald L. Gunn, The Orientation of Animals: Kinesis, Taxes, and Compass Reactions, new ed. (1961); and Hermann Schne, Spatial Orientation: The Spatial Control of Behavior in Animals and Man (1984; originally published in German, 1980), written as an overview of the field of orientation for advanced readers in animal behaviour.Stereotypic behaviour, a repetitive behaviour with no obvious goal, is an important behaviour of caged or intensive animals; it may be an indication of poor welfare and is thought to be the animal's attempt to cope with a sterile environment. Alistair B. Lawrence and Jeffrey Rushen (eds.), Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare (1993), covers all the theories of the importance of stereotypic behaviour, the ways in which they are carried out, and the implications for animal welfare.