Tinbergen's 4 Questions: Levels of Biological Explanation
The human being has always questioned the origin and causes of things that happen to him. The application of this curiosity for knowledge to the field of biology has given way to ethology, among other branches of science.
One of the fathers of this science is Nikolaas Tinbergen, a zoologist who gave various contributions to the study of living things. Among them, we find what is known as Tinbergen's 4 questions, an effort to sort the unknowns to answer about the biology and behavior of any animal (including humans).
What is the function of a behavior? How does it develop, evolve and what causes it? If you want to know these answers, keep reading.
- Related article: "The 10 branches of Biology: their objectives and characteristics"
Background: the beginnings of biology
Aristotle already affirmed that “to know something scientifically is to know its causes”. He also established 4 types of causes: material, formal, efficient and final. This can be considered a precedent to Tinbergen's questions, since it was intended to be the starting point of the inquiries of any researcher who wanted to study nature.
Before Tinbergen, around 1930, Julian Huxley spoke of three great problems in biology: cause, survival value, and evolution. It was Niko Tinbergen who added the fourth: ontogeny, that is, the development of each individual from the time he is born until he dies. On the other hand, Ernst Mayr in 1961 spoke of proximate cause and ultimate cause.
What are the 4 Tinbergen questions?
Niko Tinbergen, considered one of the fathers of ethology, was a Dutch zoologist who was born in 1907. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, along with Konrad lorenz and Kar von Frisch, for his discoveries in relation to individual and social behavior patterns.
Tinbergen, in his article On aims and methods of ethology of 1963, raises the existence of 4 main problems in biology, or the 4 questions of Tinbergen, which are levels of biological explanation of certain phenomena of nature.
Tinbergen asks these questions in order to understand a behavior, and they are the following.
Cause or mechanism: What is the cause of the behavior?
Represents the proximate or structural cause. They are the internal and external stimuli that trigger the behavior.
Here, sensory receptors play a key role in allowing us to perceive the information provided by such stimuli.
Survival value: How does such behavior contribute to the survival and reproductive success of the animal?
Represents the ultimate cause. Namely, adaptive function, adaptation, or advantage of behavior.
Ontogeny: How does such behavior develop during the life of the animal?
It has to do with the possible changes and evolution experienced by a pattern of behavior throughout the life of individuals.
Evolution: How has behavior evolved?
Also called phylogeny. Study the phylogenetic history of such behavior, that is, of the precursors. Thanks to this, it can be understood that the behavior is in such a way at present, and not in another.
The levels of biological explanation
Relating Tinbergen with Mayr, we see that the proximate causes (immediate in time) would encompass the mechanism and ontogeny, and evolutionary causes (more distant or distal), would include survival value and phylogeny.
Thus, the former would explain the structure and mechanisms of behavior, and the latter, why organisms are the way they are.
Practical example
To illustrate Tinbergen's questions, let's see an example. It is somewhat indicative to get an idea, but the answers will always vary from one case to another.
Consider a child who hits others when he gets angry. Let's analyze the components of such behavior according to Tinbergen's 4 questions.
Cause
It can be due to irritability, low tolerance for frustration, not having other emotional support skills, etc.
Function
Get attention, vent anger, show your irritability for attention.
Ontogeny
It develops and repeats itself because it has previously shown similar behaviors and these have been reinforced at some point.
Evolution
The child has seen how his siblings were reinforced by such behavior, and he reproduces it.
Implications for science
As we have seen, we can reel and analyze the components of each animal behavior that we consider, although obviously not all behaviors will have the same function, much less the same adaptive value.
There will be more adaptive behaviors than others, and these will be the ones that will probably be repeated in the evolutionary chain and those that will consolidate in a more stable way in a species.
Today, 50 years after the publication of that article, Tinbergen's 4 questions are still considered as one of the most important and valuable legacies of the author, due to the importance he attaches to his comprehensive and multifaceted vision of a conduct.
Author's vision and conclusion
Tinbergen gave his theory a pragmatic character, as well as logical, which makes his work a useful and comprehensive tool for understanding behavior. He was among the first to study the adaptive meaning of behaviors which may seem useless in the first instance; for example, he studied the behavior of laughing gulls when removing the shell of the eggs from the nest after their chicks hatched.
The author considered that grouping the problems would make the behavior easier to understand, and he considered it a fundamental part of ethology. In any case, he always bet not only on integrating behaviors, but also on studying them in a individually, thus acquiring an analytical and global vision of the behavior or problem at the same weather.
Tinbergen's 4 questions are apparently simple, but at the same time synthetic, since they lead us to a complete understanding of a biological or behavioral phenomenon.
Bibliographic references:
- Donal, A. (1999). The proximate and the ultimate: past, present and future. Behavioral Processes, 189-199.
- Bateson, P. & Laland, K. (2013). Tinbergen’s four questions: an appreciation and an update. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 28 (12), 712-718.
