Ethology

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour considered as a branch of zoology. A scientist who practises ethology is called an ethologist.

Tinbergen's four questions for ethologists

Lorenz’s collaborator, Niko Tinbergen, argued that ethology always needed to pay attention to four kinds of explanation of any instance of behaviour:

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• function: how does the behaviour impact on the animal’s chances of survival and reproduction?
• causation: what are the stimuli that elicit the response, and how has it been modified by recent learning?
• development: how does the behaviour change with age, and what early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown?
• evolutionary history: how does the behaviour compare with similar behaviour in related species, and how might it have arisen through the process of phylogeny?