The author of the article is Marina Lvovna Butovskaya, the address of the article is Ethology.ru
Human ethology: subject and objectives of the study
The methodological basis of human ethology is evolutionary biology, general ethology, cognitive and social psychology, psycholinguistics, semiotics, and cultural anthropology. However, human ethology does not duplicate these disciplines and has its own area of expertise and its own subject matter [Eibl-Eibesfe[dt, 1979]. Despite the initial skepticism towards this field of knowledge, by now many experts recognize its full right to exist [Panov, 1989]. The fact that a comparative evolutionary approach is used in human ethology makes it simply indispensable in the general system of human sciences and determines its place in this system.
What is human ethology? I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt [Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989] initially defines human ethology as the biology of human behavior, as it studies the foundations of the formation of human behavior in onto- and phylogeny, the functions of certain forms of behavior, the physiological mechanisms of behavior, tries to restore the selective processes that led to to the formation of a specific behavioral strategy.
An important aspect of research in this area is also the study of human interactions in everyday life and a comparative cross-cultural analysis of behavioral universals, their immediate mechanisms and primary causes [Butovskaya, 1988]. Human ethology also studies culturally specific forms of behavior, especially in cases where their manifestation is in real conflict with the predictions of evolutionary biology [Schiefenhovel, 1997]. These circumstances force us to reconsider the primary definition of this science. In our opinion, human ethology is behavioral anthropology, a science that studies the interaction of the biological and the social in human behavior [Butovskaya, 3]. Ethologists study how general evolutionary trends are realized in the conditions of different cultures. In the future, human ethology can contribute to mutual understanding between the natural sciences and the humanities. This science, as a field of knowledge about human behavior, essentially fills in the gaps that have remained empty until recently and were out of the field of view of psychology, cultural anthropology or sociology. It studies human behavior in a different, evolutionary perspective.
Let us cite as an example data on one of the areas of human ethology — ethological psychiatry. The initial basis for it was ethology itself (the science of the biological foundations of behavior) and kinesics (the science of body language) [Samokhvalov, 1993]. The reason why ethological methods became very popular among psychiatrists is that this approach provided a good knowledge of the norm (for example, an ethogram is a set of elements of non-verbal communication), observations of external behavioral deviations from which greatly facilitated the diagnosis of pathology associated with specific mental diseases [Kornetov et al., 1990]. This is especially true when it comes to patients suffering from a lack of speech and in many respects inadequately responding to surveys and testing. V.P. Samokhvalov [Samokhvalov, 1993, p. 123] indicates that ethology provides a real opportunity to conduct a typological analysis and understand the structure of non-verbal behavior for diagnosis and prognosis; identify the causes of a particular behavior (genetic, biochemical).
Human ethology: schools and trends
At the origins of human ethology are different scientific schools. In Europe, this is, first of all, the school of K. Lorenz (Austro-German tradition), represented today by such names as J. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, W. Schiefenhoevel, K. Gramer, F. Salter) and the school of N. Tinbergen (Dutch-British tradition). A significant number of modern specialists in the field of human ethology came to it from anthropology (W. McGrew), zoology (N. Blairton Jones, D. Morris, R. Hynd), psychology (P. Smith), psychiatry (D. Plog) (most — students of N. Tinbergen), primatology (R. Dunbar). The fundamental difference between the European and American schools is the starting positions. In America, the borrowing of ethological methods by experts from various disciplines that recognize the evolutionary approach and the orientation towards sociobiological approaches in the study of human behavior is more typical [Wilson, 1975; 1994; 19981. In Europe, human ethology is closely related to general ethology. Many ethologists do not accept the classical paradigms of sociobiology and give examples of their failure to explain real behavior [Plyusnin, 1989].
Often no distinction is made between human ethology and sociobiology. This is not entirely true. Both sciences consider evolutionary theory as the initial foundation, however, ethology is engaged in the collection and analysis of empirical data, analyzes, first of all, the direct functions of a particular behavior. Ethologists prefer to work with real material, their data are specific and most often clarify questions about the function and real role of a given behavior for a real individual or group in a really observed situation (conditions). Based on modern biological knowledge, ethologists mainly go from observation to generalization and only then to theory. Sociobiologists prefer to use the basic paradigms of population genetics, formulate theories, build mathematical models on the basis of the latter, and draw theoretical conclusions. Testing the viability of the proposed theory is the last stage of this kind of research. Sociobiologists are much less likely to turn to the collection of field data and prefer to limit themselves to individual examples, which are often borrowed from other studies (including ethological ones). The exception is individual cultural anthropologists who have worked in the field for many years and have proven on their own materials the applicability of sociobiological approaches to explaining a number of social human institutions [Chagnon, 1988; Irons, 1980].
In general, sociobiology can be considered as one of the areas of theoretical biology, working by the method of deduction, while human ethology is a concrete science. It is based on the method of intuition. Ethology is typically a field science, while sociobiology is primarily an armchair science. Of course, the real costs of possible projects using ethological or sociobiological approaches are also associated with this circumstance. The need for field material inevitably makes ethological projects more costly and time-consuming. At the same time, it is real facts and real conclusions, supported by statistics, that make ethological materials an indispensable and extremely important source of information about the presence of biological foundations of human behavior, and only a generalization of empirical data makes it possible to model the evolution of behavioral strategies. The tasks of modern ethology include the analysis of individual and group differences (see, for example; [Butovskaya, Kozintsev, 1998]. As evidenced by the theories of R. Boyd and P. Richardson, it is empirical data of this kind that will make it possible to understand the mechanisms of group selection and the causes, according to which human collectives were selected for reciprocal altruism and cooperation, moral norms were formed that prevented deceit and violation of mutual obligations [Boud, Richardson; 1992].
Ethologists have always noted that behavioral characteristics may not meet the criteria of absolute and maximum adaptability and, therefore, a behavioral strategy may be beneficial for a given person, neutral and even outright harmful. The load may vary depending on the context, the strategy used by a person does not have to be optimal at all. The main paradigm of sociobiology is the notion of final fitness and differential reproductive success as the basis of natural selection [Wilson, 1975]. Sociobiology was originally based on the idea of adaptive behavior. Only relatively recently (modern versions of this science are known in America under the name of evolutionary psychology or behavioral ecology) have sociobiologists recognized the fallacy of such a range of statements (Buss, 1995). In the modern version, the theoretical foundations of sociobiology converge with the views of ethologists: not only human behavior cannot be considered as fully adaptive, the human body is also imperfect. Even an important, from an evolutionary point of view, transformation on the way to hominization — bipedalism — carries a lot of shortcomings that have complicated human existence. These are various diseases of the musculoskeletal system associated with motor loads, and difficulties with childbearing.