Pré-visualização50 páginas
NEW ASPECTS OF HUT'IAN ETHOLOGY Edited by Alain Schmitt Klaus Atnranger Karl Grammer and Katrin Schiifer New Aspects of HumanEthology Edited by Alain Schmitt Ludw ig- B o I tzmann- I ns ti tu te Jbr Ur ba n E t ho lo gt Vienna, Austria Klaus Atzwanger Research Center Jbr Human Ethologt Max-P lanck-Sociery Andechs, Germanv Karl Grammer Ludw ig- B o ltzm ann- I ns titute for U rb an E tho lo gt Vienna, Austria and Katrin Schdfer Institute for Human B iologt Vienna, Austria Plenum Press . New York and London Library of Congress Cataloging_in_publication Data ethology ./ edjted by Alajn Schmjtt ... Iet al. ] "Proceedjngs of the.l3th Confenence of the Internetjonal SoctetyI;:r:'l::"5:t"rosy, herd Ausust s-ro, igsa.-in"u,.nnu. Aust. ja,_ In_c-'udes b,bl jographtcal refe.ences and rndex.ISBN 0-306_45695_8 1. Human behav jo.__Con( a. esyctoo roio;;_:."";;;i:i:1"; 3;,3iiil':":;::?:i::l;il:::::::".1. Schmrtt, Alarn. II. Intennat,""ur-So",.ii"ri. nurun Ethotog!. ::ll:rence ( 13th : 1996 : Vjenna, nustniar-',8F701.N48 1997155--dc21 ,r_r3?J, proceedings of thc 13th conference of the International Society for Human Ethorog;-,held August 5-l O, 1996, in Vienna, Austria rsBN 0-306_45695_8 @ 1997 plenum press, New york A_Division of plenum publishing Corporation 233 Spring Street, New york, N. y.-10013 http ://www.plenum. com 109876 54321 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrievar -system,,or transmitted in any form or by anymeans' electronic' mechanicar, prtoto"opying, *i..o?,r.tg, reco.ding, or otherwise, without writtenpermission from the publisher Printed in tho United States of America NeN aspects of hunan P. cm. '* tc.t'ion Data S:-r':: ... let at.]. l-::-^a:'cnal Soctety 't'e'-3, Austnta"- Er - r s.:-: -:g!--Congnes ses : -:-:---:orgresses. ::- r-r?- =:hology, 97 -30572 !y fu Ift@.D Erbologl, br E[ [3 hffid in anl.form or by any E" or c6.rris€. sirhout written I THE NEW ASPECTS OF THIS VOLUME The New never grows from nowhere, but is rooted in the Old and Unexpected. The latter is a function of curiosity and emotional not rational involvement in the subject. We hope that the following chapters will stimulate emotion and thought, and provoke new systematic and empirical research. The dilemma is that in one sense, we as humans abhor speculation and the unknown, but that in another sense, as scientists, we need the specula- tive as life needs water. Curiosity drives us and fills the gap. And fortunately, theories pass over, but the frog persists, as Jean Rostand expressed so succinctly the relation be- tween conjecture and refutation ["Les th6ories passent, la grenouille reste." Carnets d'un biologistel. Human ethology studies human behavior in a very interdisciplinary way.In this cen- tury, it started in the forties from comparative zoology and evolutionary theory, with a specialization in the direct observation ofbehavior in a "natural" context. These roots pro- vided not only the drive to search for behavioral universals among cultures, but also to see humans before the background of the natural (animal) world, as part of the overwhelming diversity of life. Two factors were of outstanding importance in reconciling the wealth of "languages" spoken at the Babel of interdisciplinarity: evolutionary theory and the obser- vation of undisturbed "natural" behavior, which clearly showed the limits of laboratory and questi.onnaire studies when confronted with social complexity, and thus induced the involved scientists to go well beyond the frontiers of the discipline they were trained in. This volume reflects the interdisciplinarity of human ethology. Our aim when organizing the conference was to bring together ideas some of which "normally" are not considered to be of immediate and burning interest to human ethology. The authors, zoologists, psy- chologists, a geneticist, a mathematician and a physiologist have found a transdisciplinary language to write on human social behavior without losing the specific world views of their branches. All papers contain many new aspects, and even some brand-new insights and (yet unpublished) data. In the following, we direct the reader's attention to some of these aspects. Obviously, there are more; there was never an editors' instruction to restrain to some pieces of news; the reader has to discover the other's by her/himself, and to judge their relevance. Irenrius Eibl-Eibesfeldl has written a contribution which combines a very personal history of biographical entanglements of the proponents of modern ethology with a chronologically structured summary of the fundamental concepts needed by the founders of sociobiology and human ethology. Thus the process of developing a new science is pre- sented as a profoundly social enterprise, not only as a brilliant logical exercise in re-com- bining old ideas and creating new insights. Eibl goes further and comments on some of the newest developments of human ethology. For him, the application of principles derived The New Aspects of This Volume from classical (human) ethology to culture, e.g. art, law and urban environments, are the most interesting and promising future areas of investigation. Glenn Weis.feldpresents a new allegedly complete list of human basic emotions, which, he convincingly argues, may be used to systematically classify human behavior. Some of his emotions very seldom appear in psychologically inspired lists, e.g. esthetic feelings, humor appreciation, and pride and shame. The list is based on a phylogenetic perspective of man, and Weisfeld gives adaptive value hypotheses in each case. He argues that emotions are phy- logenetically much older than cognitions and higher learning mechanisms (and notes that neurobiology says the same since some time), and are thus most probably heavily related to fundamental biological processes. In sum, it may be very productive to use emotions as a ba- sis for the human ethogram. This leads Weisfeld to try to find criteria to identify a basic emo- tion. Specific adaptive value, involving the whole organism, eventually specific facial or bodily or visceral or hormonal associated patterns, distinct affect, to list only a few ofthem he uses to construct his promising "new complete inventory". Peter K. Smith compares observational and interview data of real and play fighting. Play fighting or rough-and-tumble play (in short R&T) is one among those human behav- iors whose existence as an element of the human ethogram is not questioned, and which is well analysed in classical ethological terms. As far as one can know from the existing data, it is an universal, that is, a behavior in which all youngsters all over the world are in- volved, boys more than girls. Most interesting is Smith's discussion of the developmental and evolutionary function of R&T. In Smith's opinion. it is not very probable that R&T serves social cohesion or enhances social skills, since these hypotheses are unable to ex- plain the sex differences. R&T as a means to practice fighting may explain sex differ- ences, but is rejected by both theoretical and empirical counter-evidence (see 9.3). The most solid grounds exist for invoking a dominance function, that is. R&T serves to estab- lish or maintain dominance relations and to inform about strength of others (see 9.4). The comparison of observational and interview data, particularly interviews with teachers, has educational consequences. E.g., teachers overestimate the overall frequency of real fight- ing and, largely, the tendency of R&T to degrade into real fighting. consequently, they in- tervene more often than necessary. Karl Sigmund has the talent to simplify complex mathematical connections and to illus- trate them by adequate and (ethologically) relevant examples. Here,