Hormones and Behavior

Abstract

IN this book Prof. F. A. Beach reviews the literature on the "Interrelationships between endocrine secretions and patterns of overt response" in vertebrates, the purpose of the book being "not the exposition of a thesis but the supplying of a body of facts and references". These are classified under the following chapter headings : courtship and mating ; reversal or bisexuality of mating behaviour ; ovi-position, parturition and parental behaviour ; migration ; generalized aggression ; social dominance or submission, and territory defence ; emotion ; conditioning and other types of learning ; general locomotor activity ; homeostasis, metabolism, metamorphosis and moulting ; morphologic structures employed in specific behaviour patterns ; the role of nervous stimulation ; developmental aspects ; major sources of variability ; and interpretations of hormonal effects. The bias of treatment in favour of sexual behaviour reflects, as the author correctly points out, the tendency of experimentalists to concentrate on those phenomena in which behavioural responses to hormonal stimulation are most evident and most specific.

Hormones and Behavior

A Survey of Interrelationships between Endocrine Secretions and Patterns of Overt Response. By Prof. Frank A. Beach. Pp. xv+368. (New York : Paul B. Hoeber, Inc.; London : Hamish Hamilton, Ltd., 1948.) 6.56 dollars.