Ethologists in the Kindergarten: Natural Behavior, Social Rank, and the Search for the “Innate” in Early Human Ethology (1960s‐1970s)

Odenwald, Jakob

doi:10.1002/bewi.202100022

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…31 See Meyer-Holzapfel 1976, on 29. 32 See also Schurig 2014, on 191;Odenwald 2022 in this issue. 33 In the era of Lysenkoism, researchers were not to focus on hereditary biology, but rather on social-and therefore learned-components of behavior.…”

Section: Finding Ethology's History: Self-reflections Of the 1970 S A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline

Gräfe

Stuhrmann²

2022

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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Ethology is considered the leading biological discipline within behavioral research in the 20th century. Its history is told as a seemingly straightforward narrative: Ethology has its roots in the 1930s in German-speaking countries, a disciplinary heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, after which it slowly lost relevance. It employs a distinct approach to the comparative study of animal behavior, which is characterized by a physiological method of non-invasive, often observational studies of natural behavioral patterns, which were conceived of as shaped by evolution. Ethology contains stories of charismatic research animals such as the jackdaw Tschock or the goose Martina, 1 draws on academic disciplines such as ornithology, ichthyology, and entomology, 2 and also incorporates contexts and practices of animal lovers, bird watchers, and hunters, as well as those involved in animal husbandry, wildlife preservation, and livestock farming, or who work in nature reserves or zoological gardens. 3 Ethology is further connected to the development of certain visual media, such

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Section: Finding Ethology's History: Self-reflections Of the 1970 S A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline

Gräfe

Stuhrmann²

2022

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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“…Each behavior is operationally defined, meaning that it is defined by the criteria that must be satisfied before that behavior can be said to have occurred (Renner, 2018 ). The use of ethological methods to study the behavior of humans (including children) has a long and tumultuous history (Odenwald, 2022 ). In the 1960s and 1970s there were many fascinating attempts to study human behavior using methods developed in research on animals.…”

Section: Research On Exploratory Behavior In Autistic Children Then A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to Actual Behavior – A Modest Proposal on the Example of Exploratory Behavior in Children on the Autism Spectrum

Pisula

2023

Integr. psych. behav.

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Autism spectrum is characterized by difficulties in social communication and interactions and limited, restricted patterns of behavior, interests, and activity. It is diagnosed and described on the basis of behavioral characteristics. Therefore, behavior research plays a critical role in better understanding the functioning of this group of children. Studies on their interests and curiosity take mainly the form of experiments on visual and object exploration. We argue that important aspects of behavior might be neglected within these studies and propose to refine the approach by incorporating the achievements of classic ethology, contemporary measurement and analytical tools, and the theory of integrative levels. We conclude with an outline of the proposed approach in a short list of major methodological postulates.

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Ethologists in the Kindergarten: Natural Behavior, Social Rank, and the Search for the “Innate” in Early Human Ethology (1960s‐1970s)

Odenwald

2022

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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During the 1970s, ethologists at the German Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology in Seewiesen started a series of research projects at several regional kindergartens in search of natural predispositions in human behavior. This so-called "Kindergarten Project" became one of the pillars of research activity at the newly founded Forschungsstelle für Humanethologie (Research Center for Human Ethology) where Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt and a team of researchers set out to explore new fields of research for the discipline of ethology. Taking the research project conducted by biologist Barbara Hold on ranking behavior among kindergarten children as a vantage point, this paper explores the shift in ethology from animal to human behavior which occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. It analyzes how human ethologists coped with the methodological, conceptual, and ethico-political challenges which arose from crossing the human-animal divide. This article thus sheds light on the hitherto unwritten history of human ethology as it was developed at the MPI since the late 1960s.

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Ethologists in the Kindergarten: Natural Behavior, Social Rank, and the Search for the “Innate” in Early Human Ethology (1960s‐1970s)

Cited by 8 publications

References 61 publications

Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline

Histories of Ethology: Methods, Sites, and Dynamics of an Unbound Discipline

Back to Actual Behavior – A Modest Proposal on the Example of Exploratory Behavior in Children on the Autism Spectrum

Ethologists in the Kindergarten: Natural Behavior, Social Rank, and the Search for the “Innate” in Early Human Ethology (1960s‐1970s)

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