It is not uncommon for different branches of knowledge to cross over to create hybrid disciplines. This is the case of Ethology, a branch of biology that deals with the how and why of animal behaviour .

It is impossible to understand human behavior without first being familiar with the behavior of animals, for this reason the study of ethology is fundamental in the formation of any psychologist who wants to have a holistic vision of human development.

What is ethology?

Ethology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 1920s through the efforts of Konrad Lorenz, Karl von Frisch, and Niko Tinbergen, who in 1973 received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly for their contributions to the study of behavior. They were influenced by the founding work of, among others, ornithologist Oskar Heinroth and ant scholar William Morton Wheeler, who popularized the term “ethology” in a 1902 article.

Ethologists use the comparative methodology to study behaviors such as cooperation, parental investment, conflict , sexual selection, and aggression in different species. Today, ethology as a label has been progressively replaced by others such as behavioural ecology or evolutionary psychology. These areas of knowledge tend to put more emphasis on social relations rather than on 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 behaviour 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 a full explanation of the phenomenon is to be provided:

1. Function

The researcher should ask himself how the behaviour is adaptive . What aspects facilitate their survival and, consequently, that they are more likely to pass their genes on to the next generation.

Mechanism

The researcher has to answer the question of which stimulus or stimuli triggers the behaviour to be studied . Likewise, if the answer has been modified by some recent learning.

3. Development

How does this behaviour change throughout the animal’s life cycle? The experimenter should elucidate whether there are any early experiences that are necessary for the animal to acquire this behaviour.

4. History of evolution

The researcher must find the answer to whether the behavior under study resembles in any way the behavior exhibited by other species. In this sense, it must also be formulated how the behaviour may have evolved through the development of the species or group itself .

Key concepts in ethology

One of the fundamental ideas of ethology is the existence of modal action patterns (MAP) . MAPs are stereotyped behaviours that occur in a rigid sequence, in certain situations in response to a specific stimulus. A kind of “behavioural 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 to its place with its beak. If we were to remove the egg, the goose would still roll an imaginary egg. It will also try to move any object shaped like an egg such as a golf ball, a doorknob, or even eggs too big to have been laid by a goose. He can’t help but do this reflexively because the GPA is imbued in his brain like a circuit.

Behavior as adaptation

Given that ethology is born as a branch of biology, ethologists are very concerned 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 is evolving is limited to small instances of evolution occurring within a species, but we have never directly witnessed behavioral change among chained species. There is a certain level of extrapolation when ethology deals with these issues.

Animals use PAMs to communicate

We have discussed above what ethology calls modal action patterns and how they resemble a reflex. Once GPAs are identified, they can be compared from species to species to contrast similarities and differences in those behaviors that are similar.

A well-known example of how MAPs intervene in animal communication is bees. These fascinating insects communicate with each other through aerial dances in the shape of eight. As they dance, taking the “eight axis and the sun as reference points, they form an angle that tells the other bees in the colony where nectar is, and its duration indicates how far away it is.

Imprinting is a type of learning

A related concept of 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 toward its parents or siblings. The learning cannot occur outside 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 incubators could form an imprint with the first stimulus they perceived at birth, for example, Lorenz’s own footwear.