Human ethology: what is it and what does it study?

A summary of the characteristics of the branch of science known as human ethology.

The human being is, without a doubt, an animal that entails great mysteries. We observe our species with astonishment, incredulous at all the good and bad of which we are capable, feeling like a "critter" different from what inhabits nature. And also, why not say it, as the most important.

This vision, known as anthropocentrism, has been part of our lives for many, many years, promoted by different religions, and promoted by different religions.promoted by different religions, and has prevented us from "assuming" our primitive and natural side. Or, in other words, our animal roots, which come from a lineage of enormous primates to which we are inextricably related.

In recent years, however, the ideas of species evolution have begun to take hold in popular culture. With them, new questions to think about have also arisen: are human beings as free as they believe? to what extent has evolutionary history conditioned our decisions? are we, perhaps, just another animal?

These questions, among many others, try to be answered from the perspective of human ethology.. Despite being a relatively recent discipline, it has already taken its place among the sciences that deal with the human condition. In the present article we will talk about what it is, and on what bases it erects its ample stock of knowledge.

What is ethology?

The word ethology comes from the classical Greek, and more specifically from the terms "ethos" (habit or custom) and "logos" (knowledge or science). It is, therefore, a multidimensional discipline (biology, genetics, medicine, psychology, etc.), whose purpose is to the scientific approach to the behavior of animals in their natural environment, as well as the description of their interactions with other subjects of the group or with their physical environment. group or with their physical environment. For all these reasons, theories such as those of evolution, based on sexual reproduction and adaptation to the environment, are often used.

Ethology differs from psychology not only in its perspective of study, but also in the fact that its field of knowledge focuses only on behavioral aspects, ignoring many of the internal processes that the observed subject could be "reproducing" at a given moment. Its explanatory power lies in phylogeny, that is, in the evolutionary history of the species; it can explain any individual action in the light of the shared experience of the group to which it belongs.

Ethology as a discipline was founded by the Austrian physician Konrad Lorenz (Their work in the Ethological School of Animal Behavior led to the Nobel Prize (shared) in 1973 for their crucial contribution to the understanding of mother-child relationships and for the detailed description of the phenomenon of "imprinting", which was later added to the human behavioral sciences (with the construct of attachment).

In the early days of ethology, ethology focused solely on field (live) research on nonhuman animals. As time went by, and especially when the human being descended from the pedestal he once occupied (to understand himself as just another being in nature), a new branch of ethology emerged to study our species. In this way, and as happened with psychology and/or philosophy, this area of knowledge made its object of study coincide with the subject that observes it.

The branch of human ethology was born at the beginning of the 1970s, with the help of Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldtand focused mainly on social dynamics and the definition of behavioral repertoires that people could use during their exchanges with the environment. He inherited from classical ethology its comparative interspecies method, so that primates would be the creatures chosen for analysis (at least as regards elementary gestures, but not communication or symbolization), emphasizing the behavioral overlap with our ancestors.

In short, human ethology would start from the same premise as the original discipline; and its aims would be the study of the stimuli (both internal and external) that are associated with the initiation of a motivated behavior, the analysis of the usefulness of such actions, the exploration of the origin of the habits that facilitate a correct adaptation and the evaluation of the result according to reproductive or survival criteria. Likewise, all of this would be carried out attending to the evolution of the species itself (phylogeny) and to the unique development of the subject (ontogeny)..

What is human ethology?

Human ethology seeks to understand what is, without a doubt, the most complex animal on the planet.. And this is so, above all, because of our ability to reason and assume self-awareness, made possible by the extraordinary development of the neocortex (the most recent of all brain structures in an evolutionary sense). As a direct consequence of this, our species experienced, at some point, a true cognitive revolution and became the first to be able to coexist in spaces inhabited by thousands or millions of individuals. The social structure of primates was quickly surpassed, and laws or norms emerged to regulate interactions.

Both phenomena, at least in their magnitude, are unique to the human species and explain the relevance of a separate branch of the thick epistemological trunk of ethology. Even so, they share their roots, so that both are planted in the soil.mboth are planted on the ground of the evolution of species proposed by Darwin.. Through this theoretical prism, the aim is to account for human phenomena, being sensitive to the inheritance of our most remote ancestors and the Biological sacrifice for their survival. Issues such as genetic kinship, reproduction and instincts are at the basis of its postulates.

Since the best way to understand the concept of human ethology is through examples, we will now discuss how it interprets certain phenomena. It is important to bear in mind that, given the breadth of its field of study, it must necessarily draw on advances in related sciences (such as sociology, psychology and biology).

Some examples.

In order to clarify what the objective of human ethology is, it is useful to use a few simple examples of the many that could be possible. In the following we will discuss four almost universal assumptions in the life of every individual, and the way in which this science interprets them under the protection of the theoretical models that sustain it.

1. Life's purpose

Most of us like to believe that our lives have a purpose, and every day we strive for precisely that purpose.Most of us like to believe that our lives have a purpose, and every day we strive precisely to achieve it and to be able to feel satisfied. These objectives can be very disparate, and fluctuate over time according to the needs of each evolutionary period, but in any case they give us a deep meaning that goes beyond the mere fact of existing for the sake of existing. Reaching a certain social position, reaching the pinnacle of a profession, building a happy family or just feeling proud of having tried, are common examples of vital objectives that people set for themselves.

However, from an ethological perspective, all of them can be summarized in just one: the transmission of our geneswhich has been coined as reproductive success. At a metaphorical level, living organisms would be just a physical vehicle from which the genes themselves would be maintained over time, this being the ultimate goal of existence. It is perhaps an unromantic view of a reality that has inspired thinkers of all times, but it proposes a useful framework for understanding why we act as we do in certain circumstances.

This reproductive success, or biological efficacy, can be expressed in two waysdirect and indirect. The first depends on the sexual activity itself, through which the genetic baggage is extended to the offspring (children), while the second goes a step further and includes the reproduction of those with whom we share kinship. Both are, for human ethology, the most basic of the motivations that all people harbor in order to live. It is for this reason that it tacitly conditions many of our actions, even if we are not aware of it.

2. Social relationships

Human ethology deals with issues such as altruism or prosocial behavior, which are very often displayed during relationships between two individuals, especially when they belong to the same family. This way of acting would promote the survival of the species by "remedying" the difficulties of the members of the collectivesometimes even life-threatening. For many years it was thought that this explanation was valid to understand why we help each other, but all this changed with the theory of the The Selfish Gene (1976), published by Richard Dawkins. It was a turning point.

This postulate presented an innovative idea to the scientific community, which quickly spread to human ethology and became established at the very heart of the discipline. It posited that acts that benefit groups lack adaptive value, whereas selfish acts would be effective in promoting genetic continuity. Acting in such a (self-centered) way would be more likely to provide the essential resources for survival, but... why do so many people continue to care for others?

This theoretical model posits, for example, that parents may be able to give their lives for their children because it depends on them that their genetic legacy will be maintained in the future. Thus, by privileging their safety over their own, indirect biological efficacy (which we discussed in the previous section) would be reinforced. This view of things applies to many animals, such as primates or cetaceans, and explains why they tend to group into small groups according to inbreeding.

In the case of human beings, it is considered that, although at some point in their extensive evolutionary history it may have been a fundamental explanatory element for their survival, at present its usefulness is questionable. And this is so because our brains allow an unparalleled degree of reasoning, which usually manifests itself in cultural constructions that transcend the limitations of biology and genes, daring to trace paths where other beings only allow themselves to be carried away by the intense flow of biology. All these questions are still, today, the subject of heated debate among ethologists.

3. Interpersonal attraction

Feeling attracted to someone, or even being in love, are two experiences that (if reciprocated) bring enormous happiness. At the moment of feeling romantic curiosity for another person, the truth is that there are many variables that come into play, from how he or she is physically many variables come into play, from their physical appearance to their character to their material resources.. And the fact is that every human being has his priorities at the moment of choosing a partner, and makes them preconditions to mix his chromosomes with those of someone else.

Even so, a large percentage is able to recognize that the "physical" is basic. Thus, it is not uncommon to hear statements such as "I have to get it through my eyes" or "I have to like what I see" when asked what reasons are weighed when deciding on someone. Despite the fact that most people believe this, voices are raised accusing those who express it out loud of being superficial. But does such a question make sense from the prism of human ethology? Obviously, the answer is a resounding yes.

Certain physical attributes, such as stature or muscle and lipid distribution, made it possible in ancient times to infer the genetic quality of the person who possessed them, in antiquity allowed us to infer the genetic quality of the person who possessed them.. Firm buttocks, a broad thorax or corpulent arms indicated that the subject had athletic gifts suitable for hunting, which would allow food to be available even in times of great calamity. Wide hips and generous breasts were, for their part, an unmistakable sign of fertility. All of them became desirable traits in the eyes of women or men, because they facilitated the will to replicate genes. In a way, they are still valid today.

4. Infatuation

Infatuation has also been an object of interest for human ethology. A large part of the population has felt this way at some time in their lives: difficulty to stop thinking about the other person, the need to spend time with them, the feeling of being "distracted", excitement at the idea of the encounter, the desire to have physically intimate contact, etc. And although it is a wonderful sensation, ethology has understood it as a mechanism to promote the contact between two individuals the time it takes for them to reproduce. Thus, in fact, this sensation usually fades after a few years, leaving behind a much more restrained and rational love.

5. Attachment

One of the most important contributions of ethology to the relationship between parents and their offspring is that of imprinting. This is a bond that is traced between two living beings in the moments close to the birth of one of them.The first two will seek a physical proximity that facilitates the survival of the more vulnerable one. This has been observed in many animal species, especially birds. We can all imagine, right now, the bucolic scene of a "mother duck" crossing a road or highway with her chicks. They all move in a straight line and united, forming a compact group that avoids straying.

Well, the phenomenon has been described in human beings through attachment. This concept was formulated by John Bowlby, an English psychiatrist who studied how human offspring relate to their bonding figures during the first years of life, and how they are attached to them. during the first years of life, in search of an essential security that allows exploration of the environment and the development of behaviors such as symbolic play. Attachment is key to understanding the mother-child relationship, and it stands out as a phenomenon that conditions how we will interact with others in adulthood (although it can be modulated by other constructive experiences that are forged beyond childhood).

All these examples are just a discrete brushstroke of the very diverse postulates that are emerging from human ethology in recent years, and that bring to mind something that we should never forget: that we are a primate with a very particular brain, but not a being alien to nature or to the forces that evolution exerts on everything that is alive.

Bibliographical references:

• Leedom, L. (2014). Human Social Behavioral Systems: a Unified Theory. Human Ethology Bulletin. 29, 41-49.
• Martinez, J.M. (2004). Human Ethology. Isagogé, 1, 31-34.