Theoretical Review
Human Ethology Bulletin, Volume 32, No 4, 6-14, published December 28, 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22330/heb/324/006-014
ABSTRACT
This paper explores why direct observation of our own species behaviour is so little done in psychology and other social sciences. The very familiarity and the richness of our cultural understanding of our behaviour is paradoxically an impediment, since that understanding is couched in the language of an active participant in social interactions. That language acknowledges and communicates the subjective states of ourselves and others but it is not couched in the language of a scientist, who is an outsider, a passive observer, who does not use the terms of his subjects and does not study their subjectivity since it is not publically observable and cannot be agreed upon in the usual scientific way of demonstrating a phenomenon for anyone to observe. A major function of our rich everyday knowledge is to help us be successful social participants. That type of practical knowledge is not necessarily useful for a detached science.
Other impediments include
• our moral distaste at viewing our fellow human beings as objects without subjectivity
• initial observations can seem banal and uninformatively familiar
• direct observation is time consuming and expensive
• specific research hypotheses seem lacking
Two traditional ethological ways of describing behaviours – by morphology and by consequence. A disciplined seriously playful approach is advocated for the early stages of research, trying to find useful behaviour categories to measure. One aid to this is to look for natural divisions in the phenomena studied and quotes the Plooij’s work comparing children’s behaviour either side of regression (rapid development) periods in early development.
Keywords: Direct observation, knowledge and agreement, minds, natural environments, disciplined playfulness, developmental discontinuities.
ISSN: 2224-4476
