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Ethology is a branch of zoology that studies the behaviour of non-human animals. It 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 .
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 (e.g. sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and theories about human universals such as gender differences, incest avoidance, mourning, hierarchy and pursuit of possession).
Articles related to ethology, the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. [1]
An example of interaction (as distinct from the sum of the components) involves familiarity from childhood. In a number of species, individuals prefer to associate with familiar individuals but prefer to mate with unfamiliar ones (Alcock 2001:85–89, Incest taboo, Incest). By inference, genes affecting living together interact with the ...
Behavioral ecology, also spelled behavioural ecology, is the study of the evolutionary basis for animal behavior due to ecological pressures. Behavioral ecology emerged from ethology after Niko Tinbergen outlined four questions to address when studying animal behaviors: What are the proximate causes, ontogeny, survival value, and phylogeny of a behavior?
The progress of ethnology, for example with Claude Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology, led to the criticism of conceptions of a linear progress, or the pseudo-opposition between "societies with histories" and "societies without histories", judged too dependent on a limited view of history as constituted by accumulative growth.
Another example of a behavior that has been described as a fixed action pattern is the egg-retrieval behavior of the greylag goose, reported in classic studies by Niko Tinbergen and Konrad Lorenz. [5] Like many ground-nesting birds, if an egg becomes displaced from the nest, the greylag rolls it back to the nest with its beak.
Cognitive ethology is a branch of ethology concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on the behaviour of an animal. [1] Donald Griffin , a zoology professor in the United States, set up the foundations for researches in the cognitive awareness of animals within their habitats.