Konrad Lorenz: Biography And Theory Of The Father Of Ethology
Konrad Lorenz, author of very influential books on animal behavior and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is considered one of the fathers of modern ethology, the science that analyzes the behavior of animals using techniques specific to biology. and psychology.
In this article we will talk about the biography of Konrad Lorenz and his most significant theoretical contributions, especially the concept of imprinting and other key developments in the field of ethology. For this last aspect we will briefly review the founding of the discipline, in which Niko Tinbergen also played a fundamental role.
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was born in Vienna in 1903, when the city was still the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During his childhood, Lorenz already showed a very intense interest in animals that would lead him to dedicate himself to zoology, with special attention to ornithology. Since he was little he had a large number of pets, some of them very unusual.
However, Lorenz’s university career began with medicine; In 1928 he obtained a doctorate in this discipline, and it was not until 1933 when he completed his studies in zoology, also receiving a doctorate in his true vocation. During this time Lorenz studied the behavior and physiology of different animals and gave influential talks on the subject.
Lorenz lived in Germany during Nazism. In this age He sympathized with Hitler’s eugenic ideas and he collaborated with the regime as a psychologist, although he later tried to deny his affiliation to this movement and showed his rejection of the genocide. He participated in the war as a doctor and was a prisoner of the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1948.
After being released, Lorenz returned to Austria, where he was granted important positions in different institutions related to ethology, physiology and psychology; He also founded the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology. In his later years he focused on the application of his ideas to human behavior. He died in 1989 in his hometown.
The foundation of ethology
In 1936 Konrad Lorenz met Niko Tinbergen, who was also an ornithologist as well as a biologist The studies with geese that they carried out together constituted the starting point of the discipline whose founding is attributed to these authors: ethology, based on the scientific study of animal behavior, especially in natural contexts.
Although the contributions of authors such as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck or Charles Darwin are clear antecedents of modern ethology, this science did not begin to develop and become popular in the form in which we know it today until Lorenz and Tinbergen carried out their studies, first in Europe and later also in the United States.
Ethology is subordinated primarily to biology, although it also maintains a very relevant relationship with psychology. In this sense, ethology focuses on the behavior of non-human animals, while comparative psychology is more interested in the similarities and differences between it and that of our species.
A fundamental concept of ethology is that of fixed patterns of behavior, raised by Konrad Lorenz and his teacher Oskar Heinroth. These are instinctive and pre-programmed responses that occur in response to specific environmental stimuli; this would include, for example, the mating rituals of many types of birds.
While observing the behavior of newborn baby ducks and geese, Lorenz detected an extremely striking behavior: when they hatched, the animals followed the first moving object they saw, regardless of whether it was their mother or not. Lorenz called this biologically prepared pattern of behavior “imprinting.”
But the influence of imprinting did not end after birth. Lorenz noticed that the chicks established a very close social bond with the humans on whom they imprinted, to the point that, once they reached maturity, they attempted to mate with members of our species rather than with other birds of their own. The imprint seemed to be irreversible.
The imprint is a phenomenon limited to a small number of species ; It does not occur in all animals, not even in all birds. However, this concept served Lorenz as the basis for his hypothesis about fixed patterns of behavior, which have a broader character, and as the cornerstone of his contributions to ethology in general.
Lorenz’s contributions on imprinting and other similar phenomena opposed behaviorism, which rejected the role of instincts in behavior, especially that of human beings. Ethology has contributed to the understanding of the biological bases of behavior and the closeness between people and other animals.
Implications for Psychology
The works of Konrad Lorenz have served to establish a relationship between zoology and behavioral sciences.
The study of imprinting, in turn, helps to understand that genetics are not usually expressed unilaterally but rather it requires the presence of an environment “foreseen” by evolution but which does not always occur.
