Tinbergen's Four Questions: When understanding animal (or human) behaviors, ask how a behavior works, how it develops, why it is adaptive, and how it evolved.
Why do dogs wave their tails when excited, and why do rabbits freeze when they are shocked?
In his 1963 paper "On Aims and Methods of Ethology," Nikolaas Tinbergen introduced a systematic framework for understanding animal behavior, known as Tinbergen's Four Questions. These questions examine animal behavior from four different perspectives: Mechanism (Causation), Ontogeny (Development), Function (Adaptation), and Phylogeny (Evolution).
The first two questions focus on how behaviors occur (referred to as “proximate” in Tinbergen's terminology), while the last two address why behaviors have evolved (referred to as “ultimate”).
Here are the four questions (simplified based on my interpretation):
(1) How does the behavior work? (Mechanism)
The question investigates the immediate causes of a behavior. It examines the internal and external stimuli that trigger the behavior, including hormonal, neurological, and environmental factors.
For example, a sudden noise might cause a rabbit to freeze because of neural pathways wired for fear responses.
(2) How does the behavior develop? (Ontogeny)
The question investigates the developmental processes that shape behavior. It explores how a behavior emerges and evolves over an individual's lifetime, considering factors such as genetic inheritance, learning, and environmental influences.
For example, does it learn to freeze by observing other rabbits, or is it mainly a built-in reflex?
(3) What is the adaptive value of the behavior? (Function)
The question seeks to understand the adaptive value of a behavior. It asks how the behavior contributes to an individual's survival and reproductive success.
For example, freezing might make the rabbit less noticeable to predators, increasing its odds of escaping. Over many generations, that survival advantage can shape how the species behaves.
(4) What is the evolutionary history of the behavior? (Phylogeny)
The question examines the evolutionary history of behavior. It looks at how a behavior has evolved over time and how it compares across related species.
For instance, how freezing has changed or been passed down across related species.
I personally like to think of the four questions as a way to understand human behavior from different perspectives. Why are we risk-averse? Why do we have so many attribution biases?