Ethology
Study of non-human animal behaviour combining laboratory and field science.
Ethology is the study of non-human animal behavior, falling under the broader field of zoology. Its scientific origins trace back to Charles Darwin, as well as to American and German ornithologists from the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, and Wallace Craig. The field blends research done in both labs and natural settings, and it connects closely with neuroanatomy, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The term itself comes from Greek words meaning "character" and "the study of," and was first popularized by the American entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1902. Ethologists focus on understanding behavior through the lens of evolution and natural selection. Darwin’s 1872 book on the expression of emotions in humans and animals was a key early influence. Later pioneers like Whitman, Heinroth, and Craig concentrated on instinctive behaviors that appear in all members of a species under specific conditions. Their method often began with constructing an ethogram, a detailed catalog of behavior types and their frequencies. The modern discipline took shape in the 1930s through the work of Nikolaas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, and Karl von Frisch, who later shared a Nobel Prize for their contributions. Tinbergen famously argued that any behavior requires explanation at four complementary levels: its function for survival and reproduction, the immediate stimuli that cause it, how it develops over an animal’s lifetime, and its evolutionary history compared to related species. After World War II, ethology grew in the United Kingdom, and by the 1970s, the field expanded to include social ethology, which examines group behavior and social structures, influenced by figures like John H. Crook and E. O. Wilson. This led to the rise of behavioral ecology and a closer integration with comparative psychology.
- field
- Zoology (branch of ethology)
- known_for
- Study of non-human animal behaviour; evolution of behaviour; Tinbergen's four questions
- key_figures
- Charles Darwin, Nikolaas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, Karl von Frisch
Lore & Background
Darwin encouraged his protégé George Romanes, who investigated animal learning and intelligence using an anthropomorphic method, anecdotal cognitivism, that did not gain scientific support. Other early ethologists, such as Eugène Marais, Charles O. Whitman, Oskar Heinroth, Wallace Craig and Julian Huxley, concentrated on behaviours that occur in all members of a species under specified circumstances, constructing an ethogram—a description of the main types of behaviour with their frequencies of occurrence—to provide an objective, cumulative database of behaviour. Due to the work of Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen, ethology developed strongly in continental Europe during the years prior to World War II. After the war, Tinbergen moved to the University of Oxford, and ethology became stronger in the UK, with the additional influence of William Thorpe, Robert Hinde, and Patrick Bateson at the University of Cambridge. Crook distinguished comparative ethology from social ethology, arguing that much of the ethology that had existed so far was really comparative ethology—examining animals as individuals—whereas, in the future, ethologists would need to concentrate on the behaviour of social groups of animals and the social structure within them. E. O. D. Hamilton.
Reader's Guide
Ethology is significant as a well-recognized scientific discipline that has shaped the modern understanding of animal behaviour through an evolutionary lens. Its core contribution includes Tinbergen's four questions, which argue that any instance of behaviour requires explanation at four complementary levels: function (how behaviour affects survival and reproduction), causation (the stimuli that elicit the response), development (how behaviour changes with age and early experiences), and evolutionary history (how behaviour compares with that in related species). These explanations are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. The related development of behavioural ecology has helped transform ethology, and a substantial rapprochement with comparative psychology has occurred, so the modern scientific study of behaviour offers a spectrum of approaches. In 2020, Tobias Starzak and Albert Newen from the Institute of Philosophy II at the Ruhr University Bochum postulated that animals may have beliefs.
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