Ethology - Growth of The Field

Growth of The Field

Due to the work of Lorenz and Tinbergen, ethology developed strongly in continental Europe during the years prior to World War II. After the war, Tinbergen moved to the University of Oxford, and ethology became stronger in the UK, with the additional influence of William Thorpe, Robert Hinde, and Patrick Bateson at the Sub-department of Animal Behaviour of the University of Cambridge, located in the village of Madingley. In this period, too, ethology began to develop strongly in North America.

Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for their work of developing ethology.

Ethology is now a well-recognised scientific discipline, and has a number of journals covering developments in the subject, such as the Ethology Journal. In 1972, the International Society for Human Ethology was founded to promote exchange of knowledge and opinions concerning human behavior gained by applying ethological principles and methods and published their journal, The Human Ethology Bulletin. In 2008, in a paper published in the journal Behaviour, ethologist Peter Verbeek introduced the term "Peace Ethology" as a sub-discipline of Human Ethology that is concerned with issues of human conflict, conflict resolution, reconciliation, war, peacemaking, and peacekeeping behavior.

Today, along with actual ethologists, many biologists, zoologists, primatologists, anthropologists, veterinarians, and physicians study ethology and other related fields such as animal psychology, the study of animal social groups, and animal cognition. Some research has begun to study atypical or disordered animal behavior. Most researchers in the field have some sort of advanced degree and specialty and subspecialty training in the aforementioned fields.