Homo sapiens is an animal. Animal behaviour can be (and obviously is) studied using ethograms. Therefore an ethogram of Homo sapiens can be made. Perhaps that's why psychologists could CARE? A huge difference of course is that Homo sapiens can also express his thoughts, feelings, motivation by speech and other animals can not. Maybe that is the reason why psychologists do not use an ethogram as an instrument for research?

Dear René Almekinders

On the positive, I can say that, in some rather insignificant bit-parts, there is [/maybe is] some correctness in your answer (e.g. in some sub-areas of Psychology). BUT, with regard to the outlook of MOST psychologists I very largely otherwise disagree with you; AND, as is, their perspectives and approaches are most probably NOT the way psychologists should be. Humans cannot, no matter how trained, fully express their "thoughts, feelings, motivation by speech". Very good examples here are in perception and in emotion -- where we most OFTEN CANNOT indicate what we are doing (either as/how we perceive or about why emotions come up in the "first place"); you may not be well-aware of how little control we have of emotions , at least at their first-coming-up, AND some of which can come up due to subliminal effects AND others, such as those involved in blushing, are not EVER under our control. (There surely is a distinction between emotions and "feelings", scientifically speaking.) And thus, we cannot repress or control (or report) all this from/through thought, AND EVEN MUCH LESS THROUGH SPEECH.

I am sorry to say that I find your "ONLY man ... " outlook either wrong or unacceptable or useless (whatever the case: and thus distracting). It is arrogant and presumptuous (though as many philosophers historically have been -- and you have "inherited" this, AND often even without ever any clear evaluative thought, have "soaked" such views/pseudo-'assumptions' up). I could take a better perspective by citing and describing recent, modern findings about animals (and all the aspects they have that are so very much like us), but I think I will "take it on" another way:

You say: "Homo sapiens can also express his thoughts, feelings, motivation by speech and other animals can not". There is a little, really VERY LITTLE -- and about never in full context needed for understanding -- which we can properly understand and express, even about ourselves, as an individual instance of the species. In addition to ways of seeing things through perception and in addition to having limited to no control over emotional responses (or "seeing" exactly what they are and are for): about all major behavior patterns occur/begin-most-significantly before speech , and this includes cognition, cognitive process, and representation. (You don't really think a human being is/or can be guided by learning to develop qualitatively different levels/stages of thought in a proper well-adaptive hierarchical manner (and universally, no matter how poor the parenting) do you? Nor can this be seen as any act of will, obviously. In fact, there is no good observable overt evidence for EITHER (NONE).

[ (By the way: I consider "motivation" basically a secondary topic adding nothing to help do basic observation OR experiments.)]

Psychologists are VERY BAD thinkers and for one thing: NEVER assess their basic assumptions NOR consider more-likely OTHER assumptions because of the "only man ... " junk. I do all this for them in my writings; you must have read very little of my work. Also psychologists are MOST FREQUENTLY ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE WITH THEIR "EMPIRICISM": Good empiricism requires: that ALL concepts [/conclusions and assumptions] be MINIMALLY : DIRECTLY RELATED TO SOME KEY directly OBSERVABLE OVERT BEHAVIOR PATTERNS (or phenomena [patterns]) -- I add the last parenthetical phrase, so this outlook is correct FOR ALL SCIENCES. Psychologists often do nothing even close to this (so their studies "look wrong" to the reasonable real scientist, from the "get-go")

Psychologists DO have enough sense at least to attempt to get behavioral evidence and USUALLY only for superficial topics get self-reports from Subjects -- or for at least about the last 75 years.

I would challenge you to cite some "only man ... " evidence that could be considered useful for finding and understanding the basics. I also find it odd and curious that you think of an ethogram as "a tool", psycholgists could acceptably or reasonably "take on", if only they wished and want to; it is a MUCH larger "trip" to get to the point where any major ethogram of key behaviors can be understood, and taken on (THOUGH I DO TRY TO DO THIS IN MY WRITINGS, all of them: there are 800+ pages there, spanning decades of compiled observation, at then, thought) ; and then, one should know or come to realize that there are certainly many basic careful observations to be made FIRST to discover the evidence for the start (inception) of major human behavior patterns. [ A decent psychologist MUST see things in terms of behavior PATTERNS (not simply "behaviors"); and typically new behavior patterns are grounded in other "surrounding" behavior patterns and actually in (a new part of) some previous (aka "old") behavior patterns: THIS is classical ethology -- which almost no one even knows of, nowadays (AND THIS IS NOT PROGRESS). ]

So many in "Western" society just "will" to consider whatever they want to consider, and then, simply sit back in their armchairs and think it through (without the supports any good extensive thinking ABSOLUTELY REQUIRES). They desire only to "define" as they will and, NOT as in science, letting the Subject do essentially all the defining; "Western" man/people think little about using inductive reasoning "up front", though any scientist would say that good, reliable, systematic, and "agreeable" (reproducible and testable) OBSERVATIONS ARE ABSOLUTELY THE FOUNDATION OF ANY SCIENCE; and then, after really very little practical or possible experimentation, they should return to fundamental (foundational groundings) IN OBSERVATION. Too bad psychologists just provide "lip service" to all the rock-solid required principles of science.

Hi,

psychology theories reflect the possible richness of the parts. Psycholical refers to phenomenological or information processing theories of mind. psychologists would agree that no one perspective is correct, although in the, Behaviorism is concerned with how environmental factors. ethogram is a catalogue or inventory of behaviours or actions exhibited by an animal used in ethology. The behaviours in an ethogram are usually defined to be mutually exclusive and objective, avoiding subjectivity and functional inference as to their possible purpose . The behaviours in an ethogram are usually defined to be mutually exclusive and objective, avoiding subjectivity and functional inference as to their possible purpose.

Dear C K Gomathy

Thank you for you Answer and your concerns.

You say: " psychology theories reflect the possible richness of the parts " (end quote) . A NEW theory in a new paradigm can mainly only be rich in its possibilities, VIA adherence to excellent founding principles and BIOLOGICALLY congruent and consistent assumptions, and the promise of better connection of concepts to phenomenology, i.e. better (more true; TRUE ENOUGH) EMPIRICISM : this last feature accomplished by clear grounding of all concepts (including ALL concepts in any model), and having all-testable hypotheses, IN/linked-to some clear KEY reliable directly observable overt phenomena (exactly like other sciences) ; these phenomena are in psychology: behavior patterns and patterns of these patterns. Changes in KEY FUNDAMENTAL BEHAVIOR PATTERNS must be clearly related to KEY developments in ontogeny . Thus, IN ADDITION to reliability (often inter-observer reliabilities in the needed OBSERVATIONAL AND INDUCTIVE work finding that which may be KEY and shown as such), there must be VALIDITY: basically showing some extremely likely connections (and hypothesized, then [hopefully] likely discovered to be apparent) and thusly relationships between earlier KEY behavior patterns and later behavior patterns shown *. (Science, as most have heard, is not only reliable observations BUT ALSO YIELDS PREDICTIONS, this being the "heart" of VALIDITY.)

Now on the matter of an ethogram. I do very well know what one is, have no mistake about that. The thing is: IT CANNOT ALL BE DONE AT ONCE, just because of the way it is "defined". In actuality, it must be realized (as in other good science) that ALL particular behavior patterns are very much defined BY other clear behavior patterns (in more general terms: phenomena) "surrounding" them (preceding, concurrent or following) -- such contextualizing is crucial and one of the 2 major foundations of empiricism itself (this foundation being the foundation _IN_ OBSERVATION; the other foundation being the connection of ALL concepts (of course including hypotheses) _to_ DEMONSTRABLY clear overt observable phenomena) *; AND, THIS WAY, the Subject defines all concepts. [(I do think the fact that ALL behavior patterns that are related to an ethogram cannot be done at once is so apparent to any and all people that I need not directly argue for that, though I have indicated (implicated) how the full concept will end up being honored, above and as I continue, below.)] Now, since all cannot be done at once, I think (like Piaget) that cognitive developments basically are a CONTAINING SYSTEM for most everything else that is significant (e.g. emotions, developments of the Memories -- and realize that the Memories being, by their definitions (even in the present), EXPERIENCE ITSELF (!!) ). So, THE cognitive developments in child development (ontogeny) is a good way to start : discover the basic phenomena (behavior patterns) behind cognition and cognitive processing INCLUDING THE CONCRETE BEGINNING BASES at the inception OF ABSTRACT THOUGHT ITSELF (