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An ethological approach to the study of behavioral disorders provides key information on functional aspects of behavior that characterize certain pathologies. The purpose of this study was to describe non-verbal behavioral units presented by a group of 14 women with social phobia (SP) and a control group of 13 women during a clinical interview and to evaluate the possible differences between these two groups. The 19 behavior units were selected with the index of concordance between the observers tau Kendall = 0.795 (p = 0.000). People with SP supported the way they spoke with their hands and placed their hands on their legs, in comparison with the control group. People with SP nodded more often, touched their faces, pressed their lips, licked their lips and touched their hair more frequently than the control group. The article suggests that a systematic evaluation of non-verbal behavior may be important in conducting a full evaluation of patients with SF in a clinical environment, and may contribute to evaluating the efficiency of the treatment. Copyright © Sociedad Iberoamericana de Información Científica (SIIC), 2012.

Very few works in our literature have been devoted to human ethology and social ethology, particularly of children. Psychological-pedagogical approaches predominate; these are based on an assessment of verbal information and on the results of experimental or educational inputs. But such studies should rest on knowledge of the distinctive features of a person's immediate behavior, and these can be ascertained solely through objective study, in which every directed input is precluded.

This paper addresses a new perspective to waste minimization and recycling scenarios by combining ecological and economic aspects with facts and trends of human ethology. The work is based on the avoidable and recyclable shares of household waste fractions, which are called "potentials". The people's approval of measures exploiting these "potentials"—such as less consumption or separate collection-described as "acceptance". This "acceptance" was assessed by opinion polls that were conducted over several years, and the results were superimposed on the corresponding "potentials". This has made it possible to assess how much of the "potentials" can actually be exploited. This resulting share of exploitable minimization and recycling potentials for household waste is termed "effectiveness". The first part of this article approaches the chances of success of minimization and recycling strategies from the theoretical angle. In the second part, "effectiveness" is evaluated on the basis of data for the City of Vienna and used as a model for future trends. The results show that, on average, the household waste fractions can be reduced by 10% due to waste minimization, and by 40 to 50% due to recycling.

Objectives. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the goal of our research in human ethology is to investigate the adaptive dynamics of small groups in isolation and confinement with a particular emphasis on unexplored environments, from circumpolar missions on earth to interplanetary missions in space. Study design. The ethological observations were designed to monitor the polar teams on the Subantarctic islands, the Antarctic continent and the Arctic Ocean. The working hypothesis viewed the periodic changes in the groups’ organization as optimal behavioural strategies in extreme living and working conditions. Methods. The general methodological feature is a quantitative description of observable events based on the motor activity of individuals, interactions and communications among individuals and spatial mapping in collective areas. Results. We observed group organization, group disorganization and group reorganization over extended time periods in the polar stations. Cultural grouping and gender-based individualities were observed as well. Focusing on the Tara Expedition in the Arctic, we observed variations in spatial indicators, including inter-individual positions, and in temporal indicators, like collective times, as behavioural strategies for preventing the monotony of social life. Conclusion. The ethological approach, using non-invasive techniques of observation, description and quantification of spontaneous human behaviour, offers an innovative and complementary tool for sociocultural approaches, enhancing the knowledge of contemporary circumpolar micro-societies. With the changing of environmental context, the Arctic natives would undertake changes in their group organization for maintaining their behavioural health. Such social adaptation could be investigated with this new approach in the field. (Int J Circumpolar Health 2011; 70(2):109–112) Keywords: methods, human ethology, social group, isolated and confined environment (ICE), polar missions, human colonization

This article proposes that features of human biology and behavior that are often considered unique are associated with the evolution of complex society, in humans. These features are often analogous to physiological and behavioral differences found in other animals with complex societies (some species of ants, wasps and bees). The process of social evolution is itself a selective agent and produces parallel features in animal species across genera and distinguishes those with complex societies from closely related species within their own genera in ways that make them appear unique (1). This is especially seen in humans as we have become a species with complex society in a short period of time, only one species has survived and achieved complexity and this complexity has had what seems to be a dramatic effect on the environment. Because human features that are considered unique are relatively new in human evolution or have unknown dates of origin (2) the conditions leading to their appearance is of interest. Aspects of mammalian social systems (e.g. monogamy & polygyny) have been shown to vary due to a number of factors (3). It is apparent, however, that we are ignorant of how quickly other complex animal societies appeared and what their immediate effect was on the environment. Some features of complexity that seem "unique" may also be associated with domestication. This approach is an advance in anthropology as it places recent human evolution in the context of the evolution of social complexity of other animal species who have achieved food production and domestication of other species and it reasserts Boasian emphasis of uniformitarianism of evolution over resurgent concepts of "The Great Chain of Being" or man as the "crown of creation".

This paper develops a proposal for an anthropological study of communication, one based on a certain reading of Wittgenstein. The proposal supplements work in various related areas of language inquiry and provides an orientation for explorations of language in non-human primates. Its basic conception is that of a language-game: a patterned form of human interaction—a custom—in which words or other symbol-tokens play a role. The aim of the study is a genealogy of language-games, tracing adult uses of words back to their roots in childhood. Using a pilot diary study as a source of illustrative material, I present details of two early language-games, and survey six others. It is suggested that a number of early language-games are found in every human culture. Finally, I consider consequences of the Wittgensteinian model for the question of the origin of language. (Ethnography of speech, language socialization, human ethology, primatology, language acquistion, Wittgenstein.) What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of human beings; we are not contributing curiosities however, but observations which no one has doubted, but which have escaped remark only because they are always before our eyes. (Wittgenstein)

The laugh- and/or smile-evoking potency of laughter was evaluated by observing responses of 128 subjects in three undergraduate psychology classes to laugh stimuli produced by a “laugh box.” Subjects recorded whether they laughed and/or smiled during each of 10 trials, each of which consisted of an 18-sec sample of laughter, followed by 42 sec of silence. Most subjects laughed and smiled in response to the first presentation of laughter. However, the polarity of the response changed quickly. By the 10th trial, few subjects laughed and/or smiled, and most found the stimulus “obnoxious.” Although other research has described canned-laughter effects, it did not consider the hypothesis confirmed here, that laughter itself evokes laughter, perhaps by activating a laughter-specific auditory-feature detector. This result is relevant to the neurological basis of social communication, human ethology, and theories of speech production and perception.

Este artigo aparece como uma tentativa de compreensão do fenômeno da agressão em seus múltiplos aspectos, tarefa para a qual contaremos com os referenciais teóricos advindos da Etologia e da Antropologia Social. Para melhor expressar as idéias aqui expostas utilizaremos o cinema como recurso etnográfico. Neste sentido, destacaremos alguns trechos do filme Sob o Domínio do Medo (1971), os quais serão trabalhados em maiores detalhes. This article is as an attempt to comprehend the phenomenon of aggression in its multiple aspects. In such a task we will take into account the theoretical references of Ethology and Social Anthropology. In order to better illustrate the ideas exposed here, cinema will be used as an ethnographical resource. Therefore, some parts of the movie Straw Dogs (1971) are going to be analyzed in more details. Cett’article est un essai pour comprendre les multiples aspects du phénomène de l’agression avec l’aide des référentiels téoriques de l’Éthologie et de l’Anthropologie Sociale. Nous utilisarons le cinéma pour meilleur expresser les idées qui seront ici exposées. Dans cette sens, nous détacherons quelques scènes du film Les Chiens de Paille (1971), lequelles seront analisés en détail. Lo presente artículo representa una tentativa de comprensión de lo fenómeno de la violencia en sus múltiplos aspectos. Para tanto, conta con los referenciales teóricos de la etnología y de la antropología social. De forma a mejor expresar las ideas aquí expuestas utilizaremos el cine como recurso etnográfico. Así, destacaremos algunos trechos de la película Perros de Paja, los cuáles serón discutidos en mayores detalles.

Human behavioral ecology may be defined as the study of the evolutionary ecology of human behavior. Its central problem is to discover the ways in which the behavior of modern humans reflects our species' history of natural selection. During the last two decades this approach has grown rapidly, involving researchers from all the major branches of anthropology, as well as from other behavioral and social sciences and from the humanities. This article focuses on the growing body of empirical behavioral ecological re­ search on behavior in non-Western, primarily nonindustrial societies. Studies that have brought new insights to areas of traditional concern among an­ thropologists, such as population regulation, foraging, reciprocity, redistribu­ tion, kinship, marriage, descent, child care, and sociocultural change are emphasized . The evolutionary biological study of human behavior has been given many other names besides human behavioral ecology, including evolutionary ecolo­ gy, biosociology, biocultural science, biosocial science, human ethology, sociobiology, socioecology, evolutionary biological anthropology, and evolu­ tion and human behavior studies. Many researchers now avoid the con­ troversial term "sociobiology" because it is often wrongly equated with kin selection theory (93), which is actually just one aspect of the approach, and because they wish to distance themselves from popular and speculative works that use the label.

Biological sex is a marked individual difference, yet sex differences obtained on cognitive tests are often slight. In general, males excel on psychometric tests of spatial ability, whereas females enjoy an advantage on tests of verbal and fine motor ability. In a previous study on hand preferences, substantial sex differences favouring males were found on two target-directed motor tasks: dart-throwing and projectile interception. This advantage was not readily attributable to sex differences in physique or athletic experience. Such tasks may employ a more fundamental form of spatial ability, relating to real world target analysis. In the present study, these sex differences were examined along with established measures of spatial function, and a novel visualization test (Viewfinding Test). In contrast to the large sex differences found for the motor tasks, only weak trends were found on the paper-and-pencil spatial tests. Males were significantly better on the Viewfinding Test, however. The paper-and-pencil tasks and the Viewfinding Task generally intercorrelated amongst themselves, but were uncorrelated with accuracy on the target-directed motor tasks. Thus, target-directed motor tasks may employ a type of spatial function that is somewhat separable from traditionally-measured spatial abilities. The importance of human ethology for the study of sex differences is discussed.

In the years leading up to the Second World War the ethologists Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, created the tradition of rigorous, Darwinian research on animal behavior that developed into modern behavioral ecology. At first glance, research on specifically human behavior seems to exhibit greater discontinuity that research on animal behavior in general. The 'human ethology' of the 1960s appears to have been replaced in the early 1970s by a new approach called ‘sociobiology’. Sociobiology in its turn appears to have been replaced by an approach calling itself Evolutionary Psychology. Closer examination, however, reveals a great deal of continuity between these schools. At present, whilst Evolutionary Psychology is the most visible form of evolutionary psychology, empirical and theoretical research on the evolution of mind and behavior is marked by a diversity of ideas and approaches and it is far from clear which direction(s) the field will take in future.

In this analysis some biological and ethological factors underlying the social mechanisms are examined. The human characteristics of rule‐following behavior will be analyzed as well as those of social and material dominance, and their effect on social structures, together with the role of organized ideas and autonomy in the society. Finally, based on the results of systems analysis, a systems‐theory‐based interpretation of genuine socialism will be outlined, according to which the socialist nature of a society is seen to rest on how it ensures the democracy of the right of possession, equality of chances, education and social security, as well as the way it generates the motivation that is indispensable for the continued maintenance of a high level of production.

Crying in infancy is a complex phenomenon — we are trying to bring experiences of behavioural biology and human ethology together with pathophysiological and therapeutic pediatric considerations. Parent‐child relationships, circadian rhythms, feeding methods and environmental stimuli are the most important factors for objective observation of the infant's behavioural patterns. We developed a special technique for analysing the parent‐child‐interaction and especially the crying behaviour by the use of so‐called “crying‐maps”. Our clinical research was established by nurses’ experiences in the coincidence of increased irritability, restlessness and chronic excessive crying on one hand, with feeding problems like spitting and vomiting in the infants on the other hand. By new recording‐techniques, especially the 2‐d‐sonography of the esophago‐gastric region and long‐term‐pH‐metry in the distal esophagus, in most of these infants a relevant gastro‐esophageal reflux [GER] can be proven. This was demonstrated in...

In the history of both animal and human ethology the direct observation of unstaged interactions in a natural habitat plays a critical role for methodological and theoretical considerations. Even when ethologists think that they already know much about adaptations and the ways in which they interact with the environment, the principles which have been involved in the evolution of increasingly complex human behaviour are still not very well understood.

This chapter presents a model of the basic human emotions which, it is argued, can be taken as comprising the main elements of the human ethogram and hence of human behavior. The chapter begins with a critical review of criteria that have commonly been used in constructing such lists, and argues for heavy reliance on the criteria of adaptive value and affect. Since affect is the most characteristic feature of emotions and seems to induce their particular behavioral tendencies, expressions, and visceral adjustments, affect is perhaps the single best defining feature of each emotional modality. Because of its ethological nature, this sort of list of emotions may be more comprehensive than alternative lists lacking a comparative basis, and it avoids superficial dichotomies between types of emotions. Some general properties of affects are then discussed, such as their valence, intensity, and timing. Some possible applications of this model for studying a wide range of human behaviors are then suggested, including sex and developmental differences, and individual, cultural, and pathological variation. It is argued that ethological methods and a phylogenetic perspective are essential for arriving at a complete description of the human emotions and their facets, while at the same time avoiding an overly cybernetic modularization model.

This paper suggests the integration of disciplines from social sciences into a common framework of social evolution. Evolutionary psychology and human ethology, sociology and economics all deal with human behavior, which emerged as result of adaptation pressures in the evolutionary process. The study of behavior is therefore the natural foundation on which social sciences must build. The evolutionary framework of processes operating in human societies developed by Konrad Lorenz can be integrated with the study of social systems. His concept makes explicit reference to or is complementary to concepts from the areas of cognitive psychology, social constructivism and cybernetics/complexity. The drawback of the Lorenzian conceptualization is that it is simplistic and outdated, and therefore needs not only further adaptation to the social sciences but also needs to be brought up to date.The overwhelming advantage that justifies this effort is its potential for integrating different areas of theory and research, which apart from the increased “economy of thinking”, also offers one potential platform for interdisciplinary efforts, making them easier to carry out and more fruitful.

The designers of virtual agents often draw on a large research literature in psychology, linguistics and human ethology to design embodied agents that can interact with people. In this paper, we consider a structural acting system developed by Francois Delsarte as a possible resource in designing the nonverbal behavior of embodied agents. Using human subjects, we evaluate one component of the system, Delsarte’s Cube, that addresses the meaning of differing attitudes of the hand in gestures.

This paper reviews the results of the research carried out that a group of German scholars and scientists has carried out with the Eipo, in the eastern highlands of West Papua, Indonesia. Their work started in the mid- 1970’s and has not been completely finalised so far. The research aimed at a comprehensive documentation of the way of life of the Eipo. This aim required the interdisciplinarity that characterised the project, although anthropology was the central discipline. It also required the production of a large body of maps, photographs and films. I add to the review a list of the published results. Cet article présente les résultats de recherches menées par un groupe d’étudiants et de scientifiques allemands chez les Eipo, dans les hautes terres de l’est de la Papouasie de l’Ouest en Indonésie. Leur travail, qui a commencé dans le milieu des années 1970, n’a été complètement terminé. Cette recherche a voulu présenter une bonne documentation sur la façon de vivre des Eipo. Ce but a nécessité une interdisciplinarité et c’est une des caractéristiques de ce projet, bien que l’anthropologie en soit la discipline centrale. Il a aussi réclamé la production d’un grand nombre de cartes, photographies et films. Je présente ici une liste des résultats publiés.

Ethology describes animal behavior in the natural habitat and assumes operation of evolutionarily conserved basic plans encoded in the genome. Such basic plans determine behavioral patterns, including flexible variants involving learning. Human ethology has emerged as a subdiscipline, including observations of psychiatric patients. Animal models are experimental preparations developed in one species to study phenomena of another. For psychiatry, this refers to states in animals that resemble human mental disorders to foster laboratory studies of mechanism and treatment. These scientific areas supplement each other as part of psychiatry’s basic science. The research involved has produced an enormous and varied literature. This chapter touches on principles and a few exemplary lines of research.

The Scholarship of Daniel G. Freedman Pursuing the Big Picture My Three Mentors Is Nonduality Possible in the Social and Biological Sciences? Small Essays on Holism and Related Issues Are Genetically-Based Individual Differences Compatible with Species-Wide Adaptations? Genetic Bases of Behaviour Contributions to Psychological Research A Developmental and a Genetic Perspective on Aggression Genetic Analysis of Social Behaviour Twin Research Perspective on Human Development Biological Approaches to Developmental Issues - Rethinking the Data Ethological and General Systems Perspectives on Child-Parent Attachment During the Toddler and Preschool Years Sexual Orientation as a Developmental Context for Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals - Biological Perspectives What Can the Genotype Tell Us About Complex Human Conditions? Naturalistic Studies of Behaviour - How Does a Cross-Cultural Approach Inform Ongoing Research? Why Do Hadza Children Forage? Expression or Communication About Emotion Mother-Infant Interaction in Cross-Cultural Perspective Marriage in a Cross-Cultural Perspective Evolutionary Analyses - New Issues and Continuing Controversies Genetic Basis of Intrapsychic Conflict Is Human Happiness Universal? An Evolutionary Perspective Discrete Emotions Theory with Specific Reference to Pride and Shame Film Retrospective - The Method and the Medium Film Commentaries Behaviour Genetics, Human Ethology, Evolutionary Psychology and Culture - Looking to the Future Pair-Bonding Deconstructed by Twin Studies of Marital Status - What is Normative? An Ethological Perspective on Normal Behaviour, Especially as it Relates to Mating Systems Evolving Beyond Evolutionary Psychology - A Look at Family Violence Final Overview - Uniting Psychology and Biology.

This study replicated an earlier one on selection of seats and looking up in a college eating environment. Both studies showed that solitary individuals chose wall tables more often than center tables. Opposite findings held here for looking up, with almost twice as much occurring at wall tables whether by solitary individuals or groups. The differences between these studies may reflect environmental variables. Sitting at wall tables may enhance security and promote looking-up as an indication of exploratory behavior or alternatively and more simply an exploratory need may determine the selection of wall tables.

The invited articles in this special section were initially part of a symposium entitled ‘‘Nonverbal Aspects of Mate Choice and Courtship,’’ which occurred at the Fifth International AnthropologicalCongressofAlesHrdlicka inPrague,CzechRepublic, September 2–5, 2009. The main aim of the symposium was to bring together scholars who use evolutionary theory as a conceptual framework for their research on mate choice and courtship. Represented disciplines included anthropology, psychology, human ethology, and biology. The symposium included 2 plenaries, 20 oral presentations, 12 poster presentations, 2 round table discussions, and one workshop. The symposium was convened by Jan Havlicek of Charles University and Vladimir Blažek of the University of West Bohemia. Articles were reviewed by the Guest Editor and the Editor and other members of the Editorial Board.

Well-controlled experimental research has examined the biomechanical aspects of walking in homo sapiens on a track. The research reported here also examined cadence, velocity, and stride length for estimated ages ranging from 15 to over 55 years but in a shopping mall. Women at all ages walked faster than men in the mall setting which was opposite to what was found in the track research. Apparently context may influence how fast people walk. Hunter-gatherer differences could explain these results.

Recent advances in biology, particularly in ethology, have created a growing interest among social scientists in exploring the possibility that biological factors may significantly influence human social behavior. This article focuses on the methodological pitfalls of which ethologically oriented social scientists should be aware. It examines some of the conceptual issues from which these methodological problems often stem; the general methodological problems encountered in the ethological study of behavior; and, in conclusion, the special difficulties encountered when Homo sapiens becomes the subject of investigation.

Reports the APA Presidential address delivered at the Chicago convention, August 1975. Urban humanity is considered as a product of both biological and social evolution. Evolutionary genetics shows that when there is genetic competition among the cooperators (as for humans but not for the social insects), great limitations are placed upon the degree of socially useful, individually self-sacrificial altruism that biological evolution can produce. Human urban social complexity is a product of social evolution and has had to counter with inhibitory moral norms the biological selfishness which genetic competition has continually selected. Because the issues are so complex and the available data are so uncompelling, all of this should be interpreted more as a challenge to an important new area for psychological research than as established conclusions. It is emphasized, however, that these are important issues to which psychology should give much greater attention, and that scientific reasons exist for believing that there can be profound system wisdom in the belief systems our social tradition has provided us with. (31/2 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

In the course of carrying out research, begun in 1966 in Melanesia, on ethnomedical and human ethology, we were able to film different aspects of indigenous life. Other films in this area deal with the following topics: birth (4 films), traditional therapies (4 films), surgical changes in the body (2 films), decorations of the body and covering of the genitals (3 films), the ethnology of nutrition (2 films), and aggressive acts against the corpse of a female accused of being a “witch” (1 film); more are in preparation. These films were produced with the collaboration of both the Institute for the Scientific Film in Gottingen and the film archives in the human ethology section at the Max Planck Institute in Seewiesen.

In humans, forcible rape is usually defined as copulation achieved by violence or threat of violence without the free consent of the female. Although rape is universally considered a heinous and punishable crime, it remains a serious and growing problem in many modern cultures. Rape has been perceived as the pathological result of (1) the psychological dysfunction of individual rapists or (2) the sexism inherent in male-dominated societies. Both sociocultural hypotheses recommend that rape be controlled through the rehabilitation of diseased rapists, diseased societies, or both. Exploration of rape in nonhuman animals and a wider application of evolutionary principles to human behavior have generated an alternative evolutionary view of rape as a potentially adaptive rather than a necessarily pathological act. The expanded biological model explores both the ultimate consequences of rape, in terms of a cost/benefit analysis of its expected effects on inclusive fitness, and its immediate proximate control, in terms of the intrinsic motivating variables and external stimuli that determine its probability of occurrence for specific individuals in specific instances. Ultimately, rape is expected to occur only when its potential benefit (production of an extra offspring) exceeds its potential cost (energy expended and risk taken owing to some probability of resistance or retribution that would reduce a rapist's reproductive success). We agree with the sociocultural view that rape is a violent rather than a sexual act. Proximately, rape appears to be motivated by male hostility, with increasing hostility increasing the probability of rape. The external stimulus for rape is a sufficiently vulnerable female. Here vulnerability varies inversely with the probability and severity of resistance or retribution expected by a rapist (i.e., the expected cost of rape in inclusive fitness). Both the frequency and patterns of rape observed in nature are either equally or more consistent with the sociobiological predictions than with the sociocultural predictions. The biological perspective implies that a society can most effectively control rape by ensuring that a rapist can expect to pay a sufficient cost to outweigh any potential benefit.

Human ethology is defined as the biology of human behavior. The methods it employs and the questions it poses are elaborations of those generally used in the various fields of biology, but especially adapted to the study of man. Observation and experimentation in the natural and seminatural setting as well as the comparative method derived from morphology play important roles in human ethology, and the exploration of phylogenetic adaptations constitutes one of its focal interests. On the basis of observations on experientially deprived and nondeprived children, comparative primate and animal behavior studies, and cross-cultural investigations, certain universal phylogenetic adaptations (in terms of fixed action patterns, innate releasing mechanisms, releasers, innate motivating mechanisms, and innate learning dispositions) have been found to occur. However, human ethology does not restrict itself to the investigation of phylogenetic adaptations. The question as to how a behavior pattern contributes to survival can be posed with respect to cultural patterns as well. Similar selection pressures have shaped both culturally and phylogenetically evolved patterns. Through cross-cultural studies a number of universal social interaction strategies have been discovered.

Students of ethology are often confused about the validity of arguments based on comparisons of animal and human behaviour. The problem can be dealt with purely theoretically. An alternative or additional method is to arrange for observational or experimental studies of human behaviour as an optional part of their course. Some results of doing this are described and discussed.

Although nonverbal cues of dominance and the emotional responses they elicit have been well known since antiquity, the facial displays associated with successful political leadership have a direct political impact on the electorate in the television age. The effects of these stimuli can be studied experimentally from the perspective of human ethology. Recent findings indicate that expressive displays like those of nonhuman primates have similar effects when exhibited by human leaders in France and the United States but that cultural differences in expected behavior may significantly modify their effects

A study of the frequency of looking both ways before crossing a street revealed that both males and females tend to look both ways more often when accompanied by juveniles than when alone and that when males and females are together (with or without juveniles), males look both ways more often than do females. These findings are consistent with predictions for a primate that has evolved in savannah environments.