Whatever Happened to Ethology? The Case for the Fixed Action Pattern in Psychology.

Abstract

In the 1950s ethology entered British psychology as an antidote to learning theory, as a re-incarnation of instinct theory, and as a paradigm for human attachment processes. In the 1970s it became simply the study of “natural” behaviour in an evolutionary framework and was replaced by socio-biology and evolutionary psychology, in which species comparisons and evolutionary relationships enable adaptational (i.e. functional) explanations of human behaviours. Ethological theory had been abandoned. Yet the concept of the fixed action pattern (FAP) is the behavioural equivalent of the species in biology. Both identify constancies in variety. Together with the concepts sign stimulus, innate releaser, specific action potential (SAP), displacement activity, appetitive and consummatory behaviour, complex behaviour can be understood as interacting elements for which there should be neuro-hormonal and genetic systems (i.e. mechanisms). An analysis of the nature of emotion using ethological theory is presented as an example. Neuro-ethological work began in the 1960s with brain lesions and stimulation, and continues with modern technologies. For example, syllables in bird song (FAPs?) are correlated with activity in a striatal brain region (HVc) and a gene (FoxP2) – a gene that affects speech. An outline of the ethology and neuro-ethology of speech is presented.