TPO 4 Conversation 1
Narrator
Listen to a conversation between a student and a librarian.
Librarian
Can I help you?
Student
Yeah, I need to find a review. It's for my English class. We have to find reviews of the play we are reading. But they have to be from when the play was first performed, so I need to know when that was and I suppose I should start with newspaper reviews and…
Librarian
Contemporary reviews.
Student
Sorry?
Librarian
You want contemporary reviews. What's the name of the play?
Student
It's Happy Strangers. It was written in 1962 and we are supposed to write about its influence on American theatre and show why it's been so important.
Librarian
Well, that certainly explains why your professor wants you to read some of those old reviews. The critiques really tore the play to pieces when it opened. It's so controversial. Nobody had ever seen anything like it on the stage.
Student
Really? Is that a big deal?
Librarian
Oh, sure. Of course the critiques' reaction made some people kind of curious about it. They wanted to see what's causing all the fuss. In fact, we were on vacation in New York. Oh, I had to be, eh, around 16 or so, and my parents took me to see it.
That would've been about 1965.
Student
So that was the year premier, great, but eh, newspaper from back then weren't online, so, how do I…
Librarian
Well, we have copies of all the newspapers in the basement, and all the major papers publish reference guides to their articles reviews, etc. You will find them in the reference stacks in the back. But I start with 1964, so I think the play had been running for a little while when I saw it.
Student
How do you like it? I mean just two characters on the stage hanging around and basically doing nothing.
Librarian
Well, I was impressed. The actors were famous, and besides it was my first time in a real theatre. But you are right. It was definitely different from many plays that we read in high school. Of course, in a small town the assignments are pretty traditional.
Student
Yeah, I've only read it but it doesn't seem like it would be much fun to watch. The story doesn't progress in any sort of logical matter, doesn't have real ending either, just stops. Honestly, you know, I thought it was kind of slow and boring.
Librarian
Oh, well I guess you might think that. But when I saw it back then it was anything but boring. Some parts were really funny, but I remember crying too. But I'm not sure just reading it. You know, they've done this play at least once on campus. I'm sure there is a tape of the play in our video library. You might want to borrow it.
Student
That's a good idea. I'll have a better idea of what I really think of it before I read those reviews.
Librarian
I'm sure you will be surprised that anyone ever found it radical. But you will see why it is still powerful, dramatically speaking.
Student
Yeah, it must be something about it, or the professor wouldn't have assigned it. I'm sure I'll figure it out.
TPO 4 Lecture 1 Biology
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class. The class is discussing animal behavior.
Professor
Ok, the next kind of animal behavior I want to talk about might be familiar to you. You may have seen, for example, a bird that's in the middle of a mating ritual, and suddenly it stops and preens, you know, takes a few moments to straighten its feathers, and then returns to the mating ritual. This kind of behavior, this doing something that seems completely out of place, is what we call a ‘Displacement Activity'. Displacement activities are activities that animal's engaging in when they have conflicting drives. If we take our example from a minute ago, if the bird is afraid of its mate, it's conflicted. It wants to mate but it's also afraid and wants to run away. So, instead, it starts grooming itself. So, the displacement activity, the grooming, the straightening of its feathers, seems to be an irrelevant behavior. So, what do you think another example of a displacement activity might be?
Karl
How about an animal that, um, instead of fighting its enemy or running away, it attacks a plant or a bush?
Professor
That's really good suggestion,
Karl.
But that's called ‘redirecting'. The animal is redirecting its behavior to another object, in this case, the plant or the bush. But that's not an irrelevant or inappropriate behavior. The behavior makes sense. It's appropriate under the circumstances. But what doesn't make sense is the object the behavior‘s directed towards. Ok, who else? Carol?
Carol
I think I read in another class about an experiment where an object that the animal was afraid of was put next to its food – next to the animal's food. And the animal, it was conflicted between confronting the object and eating the food, so instead, it just fell asleep. Like that?
Professor
That's exactly what I mean. Displacement occurs because the animal's got two conflicting drives – two competing urges, in this case, fear and hunger. And what happens is, they inhibit each other, they cancel each other out in a way, and a third seemingly irrelevant behavior surfaces through a process that we call ‘Disinhibition'. Now in disinhibition, the basic idea is that two drives that seem to inhibit, to hold back, a third drive. Or, well, they're getting in a way of each other in a… in a conflict situation and somehow lose control, lose their inhibiting effect on that third behavior, which means that the third drive surfaces, it's expressed in the animal's behavior. Now, these displacement activities can include feeding, drinking, grooming, even sleeping. These are what we call ‘Comfort Behavior'. So why do you think displacement activities are so often comfort behaviors, such as grooming?
Karl
Maybe because it's easy for them to do? I mean, grooming is like one of the most accessible things an animal can do. It's something they do all the time, and they have the stimulus right there on the outside of their bodies in order to do the grooming, or if food is right in front of them. Basically, they don't have to think very much about those behaviors.
Carol
Professor,
isn't it possible that animals groom because they've got messed up a little from fighting or mating? I mean if a bird's feathers get ruffled or an animal's fur, maybe it's not so strange for them to stop and tidy themselves up at that point.
Professor
That's another possible reason although it doesn't necessarily explain other behaviors such as eating, drinking or sleeping. What's interesting is that studies have been done that suggest that the animal's environment may play a part in determining what kind of behavior it displays. For example, there's a bird, the ‘wood thrush', anyway, when the ‘wood thrush' is in an attack-escape conflict, that is, it's caught between the two urges to escape from or to attack an enemy, if it's sitting on a horizontal branch, it'll wipe its beak on its perch. If it's sitting on a vertical branch, it'll groom its breast feathers. The immediate environment of the bird, its immediate, um, its relationship to its immediate environment seems to play a part in which behavior will display.
