Proposal of Behavioral Categorization System in CD1 Strain Mice

Abstract

Behavior is a concept that has been tried to be understood since ancient times, its evolution has gone hand in hand with natural sciences, biology, comparative psychology among other disciplines. Psychology is not limited only to the behavioral study of human beings; thus, non-human animal species have been an important part of the study of behavior within this discipline. Animal experimentation has contributed to the understanding of the relationship between the behavioral patterns of different living organisms. This research shows the methodological and theoretical foundations for the development of a system of behavioral categorization with mice of the CD1 strain. An explanatory-observational type of research is used, along with a nomothetical, multidimensional design, which includes a follow up process that applies behavioral records. For the analysis, four independent observers were used, with them it was possible to estimate the "Kappa de Cohen" coefficient, and with the "Chi-Square" test of statistical, independence was estimated.  The results show that the system of behavioral categorization was constructed based on 5 general categories, which are made up of specific behaviors. It is evident from the behavioral records that these are behaviors performed by the biological units of analysis throughout the research days. In turn, the concordance analysis shows that the four observers used coincide almost perfectly with the system created. The significances obtained determine that there is a relationship between the categorization system and the independent observations, thus confirming the hypothesis generated.