Ethology and psychology as two independent disciplines
Let us try briefly to understand the general differences between ethology and psychology. Approaches and methods of ethology are typical for the biological sciences, the main foundation of ethology is the evolutionary theory. According to K. Lorenz, “ethology can be briefly defined as the application of evolutionary biology methods to behavioral problems” [Lorenz, 1971, p.280]. He even believed that Charles Darwin should be considered the father of ethology. Ethology differs from psychology on the same points as evolutionary biology. If psychology is concerned with the reflection of reality in the conscious or subconscious, or «activity» (behavior), then in all cases it is interested in the reflection and comprehension of this activity by the subject.
Ethology studies the real manifestations of behavior, and not its reflection in consciousness. The traditional object of study of ethologists is the universal foundations of human behavior, innate behavioral programs and instinctive (unconscious) forms of behavior. Research is primarily focused on identifying universal behavioral strategies and analyzing the mechanisms underlying them. Traditionally, questions are raised about the evolutionary origin of a particular form of behavior, and schemes are proposed that restore the ways in which behavior is formed in phylogenesis. The evolutionary approach to behavior analysis provides researchers with powerful analytical tools, and ignoring these opportunities by modern human sciences can lead to the same negative consequences as the ban on genetic research in Russia during the Lysenko era.
Ethology and psychology have developed historically in close contact with each other, however, they have always been considered as separate disciplines. The main method of research for ethologists is observation in natural conditions and a detailed description of behavior, for psychologists — experimental analysis in artificial laboratory conditions [Smith, Sonnolly, 1972]. Psychologists analyze the processes of socialization and intellectual development and the influence of early experience on the formation of individual behavioral differences, avoiding a detailed description of the external manifestations of behavior. Many categories identified and used by psychologists for work are artificial and represent complexes (behind which a specific motivational structure is already initially expected). As a result, there is a real danger of different interpretations of the same data by different researchers. Part of the behavioral phenomena remains excluded from the analysis, and many hypotheses that could be tested on the basis of a more detailed classification of behavioral acts are simply excluded.
Difficult for natural interpretation, from the point of view of ethologists, are even such categories as “standing near an adult”, “smiling”, “crying”, if they are taken out of the context of behavioral actions. Psychologists were convinced that the categories used were unitary in terms of generality of causes and effects. However, as numerous observations of ethologists have shown, the unitarity of even such categories as “smiles” or “obeys” is far from obvious. Both categories can be broken down into components, and subsequent analysis of behavioral sequences may reveal other, more motivationally justified categories of behavior. An example of such a large category, ignored for a long time by psychologists, is the goo game [Blurton Jones, 1967]. N. Blairton Jones described the individual elements of the goo game behavior and proved that such different patterns as laughter, smile, sniffling, fighting, running away are connected into a single whole and occur in a complex, thereby substantiating the validity of the selected category ( for more details, see the section «Ethology of childhood»).
For example, in the work of E. Berne and G. Kelly [Berne, Kelley, 1934], the behavior of children is described in only six categories (obedient, naughty, interested in contact with the group, cooperative, sociable, kind).
Even under the condition of naturalistic observations (they were carried out in psychology in the 20-30s of our century), differences with ethological approaches are noticeable. For ethologists, it has always been obvious that the presence of an observer, the reaction to the novelty of the situation and the unusual social environment significantly distort the behavior of the objects of study. In setting up psychological experiments, these factors were often insufficiently taken into account.
An essential basis of ethological work is the analysis of chains of actions (or behavioral sequences), taking into account temporary behavioral clusters and direct impact from the environment. Psychologists often operate on frequency or time data without regard to their real situational context [Smith, Connolly, 1972].
The basis of the ethological worldview has always been an evolutionary approach, so the behavior was considered by ethologists in a different perspective, incomparable with psychological approaches. If ethologists were initially focused on the search for universal patterns of human behavior and comparative interspecies and cross-cultural studies, then psychological work in this perspective has almost never been carried out.
Finally, many problems on the path to mutual understanding are created by the use of similar terms, behind which each discipline sees completely different phenomena. Let’s take one typical example. It is often assumed that there is a great similarity between ethologists and psychoanalysts, since both these sciences operate with the concept of the unconscious. However, ethology understands the unconscious as innate (we are usually talking about universal foundations) behavior. The idea that a person has innate prerequisites for behavior is deeply alien to Z. Freud and his followers [Freud, 1989]. Psychoanalysts are convinced that the formation of behavior is solely the result of the influence of the environment. The term unconscious refers to early childhood experiences.