It is not uncommon for different branches of knowledge to intersect to create hybrid disciplines. This is the case of Ethology, a branch of biology that deals with the how and why of animal behavior
It is impossible to understand human behavior without first being familiar with the behavior of animals, for this reason the study of ethology is essential in the training of any psychologist who wants to have a holistic vision of human development.
Ethology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1920s through the efforts of Konrad Lorenz, Karl von Frisch, and Niko Tinbergen, who jointly received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for their contributions to study of behavior. They took influence from the foundational work of, among others, ornithologist Oskar Heinroth and ant scholar William Morton Wheeler, who popularized the term “ethology” in a 1902 article.
Ethologists use comparative methodology to study behaviors such as cooperation, parental investment, conflict, sexual selection, and aggression in various species. Nowadays, ethology as a label has been progressively replaced by others such as behavioral ecology or evolutionary psychology. These areas of knowledge tend to place more emphasis on social relationships rather than the individual; However, they still maintain the tradition of field work and are based on the theory of evolution.
Ethological scholars almost always work in the animal’s own environment to carry out experimental research based on hypotheses. The combination of laboratory and field work reflects a very important underlying concept of the discipline: that behavior is adaptive, that is, it allows an animal to fit better into its environment and be more likely to survive and reproduce.
The method of ethology
Ethologists, like most scientists, generate hypotheses about animal behavior. To test them empirically, Tinbergen proposes that any researcher should keep the following four questions in mind when formulating hypotheses if they are to provide a complete explanation of the phenomenon:
1. Function
The researcher must ask in what way the behavior is adaptive What aspects facilitate its survival and, consequently, make it more likely that it will pass its genes to the next generation.
2. Mechanism
The researcher has to answer the question of what stimulus or stimuli triggers the behavior to be studied Also, if the answer has been modified by some recent learning.
3. Development
How does this behavior change throughout the animal’s life cycle? The experimenter must elucidate whether there are early experiences that are necessary for the animal to acquire this behavior.
4. Evolution history
The researcher must find the answer to whether the behavior under study is in any way similar to one exhibited by other species. In this sense, It must also be formulated how the behavior may have evolved through the development of the species or group itself
Key concepts of ethology
One of the fundamental ideas of ethology is the existence of modal action patterns (PAM) PAMs are stereotyped behaviors that occur in a rigid sequence, in specific situations in response to a specific stimulus. A kind of “behavioral reflex” that occurs inevitably and always in the same way.
For example: the goose, whenever it sees one of its eggs outside the nest, will roll the egg back into place with its beak. If we removed the egg, the goose would continue rolling an imaginary egg. It will also try to move any egg-shaped object such as a golf ball, a doorknob, or even eggs too large to have been laid by a goose. You can’t help but do it reflexively because the PAM is imbued in your brain like a circuit.
1. Behavior as adaptation
Since ethology is born as a branch of biology, Ethologists deal a lot with the evolution of behavior in terms of the theory of natural selection It is important to note that this approach is purely speculative. It is not possible to find fossilized behavior nor can we examine geological data to locate it throughout history.
The most concrete evidence for the theory that behavior evolves is limited to small instances of evolution that occur within a species, but we have never directly witnessed a behavioral change between chained species. There is a certain level of extrapolation when ethology deals with these topics.
2. Animals use PAMs to communicate
Above we talked about what ethology calls modal action patterns and how they resemble a reflex. Once the PAMs have been identified, they can be compared from species to species to contrast similarities and differences in similar behaviors.
A well-known example of how PAMs intervene in animal communication are bees. These fascinating insects communicate with each other through aerial dances in the shape of eight. When they dance, taking the “figure eight” and the sun as reference points, they form an angle that tells the other bees in the colony where there is nectar, and their duration indicates how far away it is.
A related concept in ethology is that of imprinting. This is a special type of learning that occurs during a critical period, outside of which it can no longer occur, during which the young animal will learn some pattern of social behavior towards its parents or siblings. Learning cannot occur outside of this critical period.
For example, Konrad Lorenz observed that from birth, birds such as ducks, geese and swans are able to identify their parents and follow them spontaneously He demonstrated how ducklings born in an incubator could form an imprint with the first stimulus they perceived at birth, for example, Lorenz’s own shoes.
