Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or to trained behavioural responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Throughout history, different naturalists have studied aspects of animal behaviour. Ethology has its scientific roots in the work of Charles Darwin and of American and German ornithologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The modern discipline of ethology is generally considered to have begun during the 1930s with the work of Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch, the three recipients of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Ethology combines laboratory and field science, with a strong relation to some other disciplines such as neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Ethologists typically show interest in a behavioural process rather than in a particular animal group, and often study one type of behaviour, such as aggression, in a number of unrelated species.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior. He developed an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth.
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior.
Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species from insects to primates.
John Hurrell Crook was a British ethologist who filled a pivotal role in British primatology.
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, CBE, FBA, FRCP, FRCPsych was a British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Bowlby as the 49th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Cognitive ethology is a branch of ethology concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behaviour of an animal. Donald Griffin, a zoology professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cognitive awareness of animals within their habitats.
William Homan Thorpe FRS was Professor of Animal Ethology at the University of Cambridge, and a significant British zoologist, ethologist and ornithologist. Together with Nikolaas Tinbergen, Patrick Bateson and Robert Hinde, Thorpe contributed to the growth and acceptance of behavioural biology in Great Britain.
Robert Aubrey Hinde was a British zoologist, ethologist and psychologist. He served as the Emeritus Royal Society Research Professor of Zoology at the University of Cambridge. Hinde is best known for his ethological contributions to the fields of animal behaviour and developmental psychology.
Anecdotal cognitivism is a method of research using anecdotal, and anthropomorphic evidence through the observation of animal behaviour.
Attachment theory, originating in the work of John Bowlby, is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory that provides a descriptive and explanatory framework for understanding interpersonal relationships between human beings.
Judith L. Hand is an American evolutionary biologist, animal behaviorist (ethologist) and a novelist. She writes on a variety of topics related to the science of animal and human behavior, including the biological and evolutionary roots of war, gender differences in conflict resolution, the empowerment of women, and the steps for ending war.
Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt was an Austrian ethnologist in the field of human ethology. In authoring the book which bears that title, he applied ethology to humans by studying them in a perspective more common to volumes studying animal behavior.
Human ethology is the study of human behavior. Ethology as a discipline is generally thought of as a sub-category of biology, though psychological theories have been developed based on ethological ideas. The bridging between biological sciences and social sciences creates an understanding of human ethology. The International Society for Human Ethology is dedicated to advancing the study and understanding of human ethology.
Premastication, pre-chewing, or kiss feeding is the act of chewing food for the purpose of physically breaking it down in order to feed another that is incapable of masticating the food by themselves. This is often done by the mother or relatives of a baby to produce baby food capable of being consumed by the child during the weaning process. The chewed food in the form of a bolus is transferred from the mouth of one individual to another, either directly mouth-to-mouth, via utensils, hands, or is further cooked or processed prior to feeding.
Olwen Anne Elisabeth Rasa was a British ethologist, known for her long-duration study of the social behaviour of the dwarf mongoose in Kenya. She had studied aggression among coral reef fish under the pioneering ethologist Konrad Lorenz. Her fieldwork in Kenya's Taru Desert led to a book, Mongoose Watch: A Family Observed, and to a popular German television series, Expedition ins Tierreich. She later studied social behaviour in the yellow mongoose and the sub-social tenebrionid beetle Parastizopus armaticeps.
Robert D. Martin is a British-born biological anthropologist who is currently an Emeritus Curator at The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. He is also an adjunct professor at University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and University of Illinois Chicago. His research spans the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology and human reproductive biology. Additionally, he writes a blog on human reproduction for Psychology Today.
Margret Else Schleidt was a German human ethologist. She worked at the Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltensphysiologie, which has now become the Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology.
Wolfgang M. Schleidt is an Austrian scientist specializing in the areas of bioacoustics, communication and classical ethology. He was assistant to Konrad Lorenz, professor of zoology at the University of Maryland (1965–1985) and director at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Ethology, Vienna of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was an early pioneer of bioacoustics and of the quantitative analysis of behavior.
