Ethology is a field of biology that is responsible for the analysis of the behavior patterns of animal species in their natural state, whether they are in the wild or locked up in a laboratory, however the best known are those in the field. By basing its research mainly on behavior in the natural habitat, the ethological study differs from the behavioral study, which specializes in a laboratory environment.
The experts who are dedicated to these studies are called "ethologists" and their studies focus on the behavioral characteristics of a specific group and how these are developed for its conservation in a given environment. Its object of study is animal behavior in its contact with the environment. People are also animals, therefore they are also within ethological research, which is why many authors have described this specialization as human ethology.
Ethologists study some aspects in animals such as: mating, aggressiveness, the evolution of their behavior, their social life, etc.
For the field of psychology, ethology is of great interest, since it shows irrefutably that environmentalist theories centered on the method proposed by behaviorism are not entirely complete, but rather false, since in no way can the Animal behavior without making reference to instincts and at the same time showing, as inclusive, the most elementary teaching mechanisms such as classical nature and operant nature, are restricted and dominated by natural dispositions in the different animal species.
It is important to note that the scientists Konrad Lorenz, Karl R. von Frisch and Niko Tinbergen were the behaviorists who used this method in their research, thus achieving a Nobel Prize for their studies on animal behavior. From there, ethology began to be seen as a science with full rights.
