This scheme is now open. The deadline for submissions is 5pm GMT January 17th 2024.

Owen Aldis Awards The Owen F. Aldis Scholarship Fund was established to support graduate studies in human ethology, defined as the biological study of human behaviour. The goal of the Award is to nurture excellence in human ethology by supporting students who are undertaking empirical research in human behavior, drawing on the repertoire of methods developed in biology and the human behavioral sciences. Observational studies in natural environments are especially encouraged. Studies involving non-human species may be considered, if their relevance to human behavior is made clear. The award program is administered by the Board of Trustees of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE) in collaboration with the ISHE Board of Officers.  Applications for the award are considered annually.

Owen Franklin Aldis (1926-2001) Owen Aldis generously bequeathed a large part of his estate to ISHE, and this award is to honour his life and his contribution to the field.  Owen F. Aldis taught economics at Yale and worked for an investment firm in New York, before moving to the San Francisco Bay area to pursue a scholarly interest in Skinnerian behavioural psychology. He received his Ph.D. in 1958 and was associated for more than a decade with the Behaviour Research Fund in Palo Alto, California, and later became a member of ISHE. His most notable publication was his classic book Play Fighting, which may be downloaded from the ISHE website

Aldis award Awards are made for amounts up to US$8000. The award is to pay for documented, legitimate research costs (e.g., equipment, supplies, books, computer software).  It could cover a contribution to accommodation costs, but not food costs. The award also includes full membership of ISHE for 3 years

•  a certificate recording the award
• In addition, at the ISHE conference or Summer School where the Aldis award recipient presents their research findings, there are the following benefits:
•  waiving the conference fee to a subsequent summer school or ISHE conference.
•  waiving basic accommodation costs (i.e. room in the equivalent of a University dorm ) to that event (either the summer school or conference)
• free ticket to the banquet at that event
• contribution to travel costs to the congress or summer school (up to a certain amount)

No funds will be provided for “indirect costs” for institutional expenses.

Aldis Commendation Many applications for an Aldis Award, despite being judged as of high quality close to that of the Aldis award winners, do not receive an award, since the number of awards is limited.  ISHE wanted to recognise this high quality and created an “Aldis Commendation” award. The award carries a number of benefits:

• waiving the conference fee to either the next summer school or the next ISHE conference
• free ticket to the banquet at that event
• a full 3 year membership of ISHE
• a certificate recording the award

Unlike winning the full Aldis award, a Commendation does not itself bar the winner from entering another Aldis competition. ISHE may not make Aldis Commendation awards every year.

Eligibility Applicants must be students who have not yet formally received their doctorate at the time of the application deadline. They may be from any academic discipline related to human ethology, and their academic advisor or director at a recognized educational or scientific institution must support their application. “Student” includes anyone working toward a degree with a mentor or advisor at a recognized institution. Mentors can be any researcher from a reputable scientific institution. Neither applicants nor their mentors need be members of ISHE. Previous applicants, including previous winners of Aldis Commendations but excluding previous winners of Aldis Awards, are eligible to re-apply for an Aldis Award in a later year. The proposed research must be ethological in nature.  More specifically, the research should:

• pertain to some naturally occurring behavior as identified through direct observation or through reliable informants or documents.  Studies involving direct observation in natural environments are encouraged.
• to be set within an ethological paradigm, showing an understanding not just of evolutionary theory but other basic concepts within ethology relevant to the study.

Ethological studies of human behavior pose many challenges.  The Society recognizes this.  There is a paper on the Ethological paradigm applied to Humans which should help candidates understand what the Society is looking for when it seeks Ethological proposals.

Applications All applications must be written in English

The main application document must be submitted as an MS-Word document named: applicant’s surname_Aldis_ year and should consist of the following. This outline must have a maximum length of 3500 words, not including timetable, budget or references.

• Cover sheet: to include [1] title of the study, [2] the applicant’s name, institutional affiliation, postal address and email address, and [3] the mentor’s name, email address and institutional affiliation.
• An outline of the planned study should cover the following areas:
• Aims, concentrating on innovative aspects.
• Theoretical background.
• Methodological issues and procedure.
• Timetable.
• Itemised budget showing how the award will be spent.

Applicants should also include the following documents as pdf or MSWord files:

• A letter from the applicant’s institution giving permission for the applicant to conduct the proposed research at that institution.
• Short C.V.s of the applicant and his/her mentor (with publications).
• A letter of support from his/her mentor.

Any questions about this should be emailed to the ISHE Secretary (mlfisher.99@gmail.com) AND the Chair of Trustees (johnricher@oxhs.co.uk). Completed applications should be emailed to BOTH the secretary AND the Chair of Trustees at these addresses.

Assessment of submissions Applications will be evaluated anonymously by at least four senior ISHE members and ad hoc specialists if necessary. A major criterion used in judging is the use of an ethological approach.  For instance, a study which looks at naturally occurring behaviour, which offers clear behaviour categories defined in observable terms, which proposes a coherent methodology, and which raises questions related to evolutionary ideas or concepts, is likely to be viewed favourably.  This is not to say that successful applicants must have all of these features.  Similarly, data collected by interview or survey methods may be appropriate, especially if accompanied by comparison with observational data. In addition to studies of humans, projects involving non-human species may be considered, if their relevance to human behaviour is made clear. So to summarise, the proposed research must be ethological in nature:

• The research should pertain to some naturally occurring properly described behaviour as identified through direct observation or through reliable informants or documents.
• The proposed research needs to be set within an ethological paradigm, showing an understanding not just of evolutionary theory but other basic concepts within ethology relevant to the study
•  It may be proposed that the behaviour studied be correlated or associated with other variables (demographic data, test/rating/questionnaire data etc.) that have relevance for that behaviour.

What is the process of judging? When papers are received, they are anonymized and sent to the judges.  There are at least 4 judges, who are members  of the Society, and appointed by Officers and Trustees. Each judge rates each paper on two dimensions, according to these instructions: 1.   Scientific Quality: Are appropriate questions asked?   Are the means described to answer the questions likely to produce clear answers to them?  Are the proposed methodologies, instruments if any, observers / raters, and statistics appropriate? Judges write comments on proposals and rate each out of 10: A 10 rating means that it could not be improved on; a 1 rating means abysmal quality with complete lack of research sophistication. 2.  Ethological Relevance: Does this research involve gathering observational data in an ethological / evolutionary context, or adding to our understanding of such data?.  To have ethological relevance, the proposal should involve gathering data by direct observation or be based on ideas that are  grounded in such naturalistic  observation. This is to be contrasted with what is somewhat common in evolutionary psychology where an evolutionary explanation is offered for a set of ideas largely without reference to  observed behaviors. Again each judge writes comments and rates the proposal on a 10-point scale where a 10 means that it represents the best of the ethology approach and a 1 means that it little or no ethological relevance  even though it may contribute to another scientific approach. The organiser collates these scores, corrects them for any tendency of a judge to rate everything higher or lower, and computes a final ranking.  This is then fed back to judges for their comments.  This is especially useful when there have been divergent ratings; issues are discussed and a final ranking is agreed.  This ranking, plus recommendations for how many of these studies might qualify for an Aldis award, is then sent to the Officers of ISHE who decide how many awards to make. All applicants are told the results and given some feedback on the judges views.  No appeals against the judges decisions are accepted and by entering the competition for an award applicants are accepting this.

After the award Winners of awards contact the Treasurer of ISHE to arrange payment of the award. Winners of awards are required to present a brief progress report including brief but adequate financial accounts to be sent to the ISHE secretary by the end of June annually until the project is completed. They are required to submit their results for presentation to an ISHE congress or Summer School.  Their paper or poster will be considered with all other submissions. It is expected that the winner presents her/his work at the ISHE congress or Summer School directly following the completion of the work. However, the winner can decide to optimize the value of the travel award in order to participate to an ISHE congress or Summer School in which she/he would not have the chance to participate otherwise. The limit to use up the travel award is 5 years from the time the payment has been issued. ISHE also requires a copy of any publications arising out of this research be sent to the ISHE secretary. ISHE also expects some aspect of the research to be submitted to the Society’s Online Journal, Human Ethology.

Owen F Aldis Scholarships 2024

Isabella França Ferreira, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
A psychoethological approach to the study of differential parental treatment of twins

Aitana Garcia Arasco, Université Lyon 2; Université Jean Monnet, Saint Etienne, France
Non-verbal vocalisations in a cross-cultural ethological perspective

Owen F Aldis Scholarships 2023

Cheng Liu, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Sealed in stones: The computational ethology of stone toolmaking and its implications to the evolution of cultural transmission

Owen F Aldis Scholarships 2022

Cory R. Platts, Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, NY
Defining the Caregiving System of Fathers: Implications for the Development of Children’s Prosocial Behavior

Natalia Siekiera. Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University Kraków, Poland
Development of children’s cooperation at the end of early childhood. Cultural psychology perspective.

Owen F Aldis Scholarships 2021

Jana Muschinski   School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford
Filling gaps in the Papio greeting story: a video-based analysis of proximity events in chacma and olive baboons (Papio ursinus, Papio anubis) and implications for the evolution of ritual.    

Anna A. Mezentseva Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Center of Cross-Cultural Psychology and Human Ethology, Moscow
Measuring emotions: manifestation and perception of facial emotional expressions in mongoloids of southern Siberia (TUVA)

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2020

Anne Jones, University of Lethbridge Alberta
Variable Action and Motor Learning Among Preschool-aged Children

Sebastian Ramirez-Amaya, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Male-Female social relationships in chimpanzees and the evolution of pair-bonding in humans

Also commended were:

Philipp Töpfer, Institute of Medical Psychology, Charité University Medicine Berlin
How Maternal Interpersonal Adversity Affects Infant Development through Parenting Behavior – Testing Maternal Predictability as an Intergenerational Transmission Mechanism in Uganda

Minhua Yan, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
How are norms maintained and how do they change?  A case study on cooperative farming division rules in Derung village D, China

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2019

Lucy Baehren Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK
Why say “goodbye”? A cross species investigation of leave-taking

Alice-Amber Keegan, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK
Parenting in the first 24 hours: Trialling an intervention to improve parent-infant caregiving in the in-patient postnatal period

Kevin C. Lee  Evolutionary Anthropology, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, USA
Do Female Chimpanzees at Ngogo Form Social Bonds, and Why?

Also commended were:

Joshua M. Schrock  Department of Anthropology  University of Oregon, USA
Resting Behavior in Humans: Phylogeny, Function, and Regulation

Ms. Sheina Lew-Levy Department of psychology  University of Cambridge, UK
Learning to hunt with spears: Testing the Embodied Capital Theory among BaYaka Congo Basin foragers

Sebastian Ramirez Amaya, Evolutionary Anthropology  School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, USA
Male-Female Relationships in Chimpanzees and the Evolution of Pair-bonding in Humans

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2018

Lea Gleason, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, USA
Raiding, reputation, and cooperation among the Turkana of East Africa

Dagmar Schwambergová, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Testing behavioural defence mechanism based on olfactory and visual pathogen cues.

Yulia I. Apalkova. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Cross-Cultural Psychology and Human Ethology, Moscow, Russia
Propensity for parochial altruism: patterns of non-verbal behavior as the сues of morality in decision-making

Graham Albert. Department of Anthropology, Boston University, USA
Attention in the Face of Threat: Effects of Facial Masculinity on Male Observer’s Selective Attention and Implicit Memory

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2017

Victoria V. Rostovtseva, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Department of Human Ethology and Cross-Cultural Psychology, Russia.
Nonverbal, morphological and genetic markers of altruistic behavior in buryats of southern siberia

Edmond Seabright, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
The cost of leadership in rural Bolivia

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2016
Adam Kenny.  Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford, UK
Cooperation, competition, and ‘contrade’: Naturalistic measures of parochial altruism amongst groups in a historic Italian city.

Robin Morrison  Department of Anthropology and Archaeology,  University of Cambridge, UK
Do inter-group social networks and cooperative defence occur in gorillas?

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2015
Sophie Hedges, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Decisions: Rural Livelihoods, Child Work and Parental Investment in Education in Northern Tanzania

Moritz Köster, Developmental Psychology, University of Münster, Germany
Cognitive Universalities Underlying Toddlers’ Spontaneous Help

Miranda Lucas, Lethbridge University, Canada
The Gallery as Behaviour Setting: Art, Action, Perception

Stefan Goetz, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA
An Ethological Study of the Formation of Dominance and Deference in a Novel Competition

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2014
Deanna Forrester, Behaviour and Evolution, Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
The value of children: Alloparenting in Samoa – a natural fertility population

Jitka Fialová, Department of Philosophy and History of Sciences, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
The effect of body odour related to competitive context on social perception and cognition

Jakub Binter, Dept. Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Changes in Testosterone and Cortisol Levels and Vocal Displays During Virtual Courtship in Young Adult Men

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2013
Kraig Shattuck, Psychology Department, Wayne State University, Detroit
Mate Guarding

Lydie Kubicova, Dept. Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague
Influence of experimentally manipulated cues of male socioeconomic status on nonverbal behavior, self-esteem, and mate value of their owners

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2012
Chao Liu, University of Maine, USA
Does age-mixing reduce competition among peers?

Christina Larsson, University of California at Los Angeles, USA
An Analysis of Women’s Body Language across the Cycle

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2011
Meredith Martin , Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology- University of Rochester, USA
Social Behavior in the Context of the Peer Group: The Social Defense System and Children’s Reactivity to Peer Threat

Irene Godoy, Department of Anthropology Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture – University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Testing Westermarck’s hypothesis in a wild primate population: proximity during early development as a mechanism of inbreeding avoidance in Cebus capucinus

Aldis Commendation winners
Jeanette Freynik Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Institute for Zoology & Anthropology, Georg‐August‐Universität Göttingen, Germany
Women’s perceptions of men’s body movement: Are they sensitive to cues of physical andmental well‐being?

Sally G. Olderbak Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Program, Department of Psychology, School of Mind, Brain, and Behavior, College of Science University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Attachment Style and Nonverbal Behavioral Synchrony in Human Heterosexual Mates

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2010
Manuela Beltrão Oliveira e Silva, UMARIZAL Belem, Brazil
Interaction patterns of mother-child in an Amazon Indian village: a comparison with the community Cameroon Nso

Michelle Kline, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
The Evolution of Human Teaching Behavior

Leslie Anne Merriman, Psychology Department1, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, USA
Relationship Quality and Oxidative Stress in Men and Women

Jeffrey K. Snyder, UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture, UCLA Department of Anthropology, Los Angels, USA
Men’s Dominance and Physical Formidability Predicts Systematic Variation in Mate-Guarding Behaviors

Katerina Vavrova and Katerina Ptackova, Department of Immunology and Department of Zoology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
MHC – Correlated Preferences: Testing the Moderating Effect of the Menstrual Cycle and Partner Status

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2009
Dagmar Kohoutova, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
The Development of Olfactory abilitiesand Preferences During childhood and Puberty

Julia Fedenok, Center of Cross-cultural Psychology and Human Ethology. Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Adaption to Multicultural Environment in Russia: spatial behavior of children and adolescents

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2008
Paco Bertolani, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology, Cambridge, UK
Does Habitat Constrain Sociality? Modeling Human Behavior by Comparative Ethological Study of Chimpanzees

Matthew Gervais, Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture Center for Culture, Brain, and Development, Department of Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Conversational Norm Violations as Cues to Defection in a One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemma Game

Sarah Mathew, Department of Anthroplogy, Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Evolutionary Understanding of Large Scale Cooperation in Warfare: A Study of Cattle Raiding Among Turkana Pastoralists

Rachelle M. Smith, Department of Psychology , University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Development of a Recursive Awareness of Intention

Tamsin Saxton, School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
Combining Modalities: The Components of Physical Attractiveness and ‘Concealed’ Ovulation

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2007
Kevin J. Haley, UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture UCLA Department of Anthropology, Los Angeles, USA
Coalitions, Commitment, and Cooperation: reputation, status, and threats in naturally-occurring cooperative groups

Thomas Flamson, Department of Anthropology UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
Humor as an Honest Signal: Individual Differences, Similarity, and Assortment

Siamak Tundra Naficy, Dept of Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, USA
What Canids Can Demonstrate about the Evolution and Function of Referential Understanding in Humans

Markus Koppensteiner, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology c/o Institute for Anthropology, Universit of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
The Personality of Body Movements

Kristin Klingaman, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, England
Maternal-Infant Behaviour after Scheduled Caesarean Section

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2006
Vera Timenchik, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Social status and post-conflict peacemaking: hormonal basis of stress reduction

Valentina Burkova, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia
Aggression, dominance status and individual distance in Russian adolescents: An observational study

Andreas Wilke, Max Planck Insitute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Human foraging behavior in patchy environments

Marc Mehu, University of Liverpool, Great Britain & Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban Ethology, Vienna, Austria
Smiling and the communication of interpersonal characteristics in dyadic human interactions: Power asymmetry, personality traits, and proximate goals

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2005
Lubov Borisova, University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia
Personal distance: Age and gender differences in modern Russia

Jitka Hanusová, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Judgments of personality traits based on face appearance: Correlation with the results of the targets’ tests

Barbara Husárová, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology, Vienna and Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Sexual behaviour across the menstrual cycle of partners living in permanent relationship

Miriam Mayr, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology, Vienna, Austria
Emotions in Facial Expressions and Body Postures: A New Methodological Approach

Henriette Mosler, Insitute for Anthropology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
The role of expressive behaviour for the assessment of personality

Pavla Pikardova, Charles University, Prague and University of Durham, Prague, Czech Republic
Specific behavioral features of obstetricians during labor and delivery with a special focus on gender differences

Owen F. Aldis Scholarships 2004
Elizaveta Boyko, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Post-conflict emotional stress in school children (behavioural and hormonal aspects)

Vladimir Dorfman, University of the Humanities, Moscow, Russia
Facial Attractiveness, Body Movements and Personality

Jan Havlícek, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Search for a correlation between male dominance and odour attractiveness and masculinity rated by women

LeeAnn Renninger, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology, Vienna, Austria
Impression formation: A comprehensive study on the effects of physical attractiveness, facial expressiveness level, and perceiver characteristics on the perception of a target

Trnka Radek, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Comparison of Sex Differences in Interpretation of human (Homo sapiens) and Chimpanzee (Pan troglotydes) facial expressions of emotions

About his book and the methods he used:

The research methods employed in this study are mainly those of zoologists (ethologists) who study animal behavior as distinguished from the methods of American psychologists. Although the two research tradi­tions have tended to converge in recent years, ethologists have generally stressed the study of behavior under natural conditions, field studies, broad surveys of the behavior patterns of a species (ethograms), precise description, and classification, while American psychologists have placed greater emphasis on laboratory studies, more narrowly focused studies of individual behaviors, experimentation, quantification, and statistics. American psychologists have been eager to emulate the most advanced methods of twentieth century natural science, and by the usual standards of twentieth century science, American psychology appears more ad­vanced than ethology. However, as I shall argue in the final chapter, these appearances can be deceptive. Elementary observation, description, and classification must in many cases precede more advanced methods of study. In their haste to embrace the most advanced methods, psy­chologists have often skipped over some of the more primitive stages that most other sciences have had to pass through. Premature quantification, based on classifications that are too broad or too crude, can be misleading or meaningless, and detailed description must often precede classification.

Naturalistic Observation
Although it may not seem very “scientific” by twentieth-century standards, one can sometimes learn a great deal about behavior by simply sitting down and watching it, and the value of simple observations of this kind is often enhanced by making them under natural conditions.

In the literature on animal behavior, there are many examples of be­ haviors studied by psychologists under artificial conditions that, when re-examined by ethologists under more natural conditions, turned out to be distorted (review in Eibl- Eibesfeldt, 1970). These facts are now well known, and today most animal psychologists have learned to rear their animals under more natural conditions. However, the distortions that result from studying human behavior under artificial conditions are less well recognized.

It is extremely simple to observe play behavior under natural con­ ditions so that there is really no excuse for studying it under artificial conditions. Some other forms of human behavior, however, most notably fear and aggression, which may occur only rarely, present more difficult problems. Consequently, they have almost never been studied under natural conditions, and psychologists have resorted to the study of all sorts of substitute situations instead. However, I do not think that at­ tempts to make observations of real human behavior should be aban­doned just because they are difficult-more patience, more ingenuity, and new methods (for example, hidden camera techniques) will be needed. We cannot sidestep these difficulties by studying surrogate situations; we must study the real thing.

In addition to play, fear, and aggression, I suspect that there are a number of other human behaviors that can be studied profitably by ethological methods. The most notable of these is the ontogeny of exploratory and manipulatory behaviors in infants and young children.