Social Behaviour in Animals

Nikolaas TinbergenHuaxia Publishing House2021

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Chapters
15
ISBN
9787508099682

Tags

Science and Technology Natural Sciences Animal BehaviorEthologyNatural HistoryBiologySocial SystemSocial BehaviorObservation

Summary

This book is the representative work of Nikolaas Tinbergen, the Dutch-born British zoologist and 1973 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. The original Dutch edition appeared in 1946, the English edition Social Behaviour in Animals in 1953, and the Chinese translation is based on the 1964 English edition. Approaching animal social behaviour through ethology, the book draws on species the author observed over many years—herring gulls, three-spined sticklebacks, and the grayling butterfly—to discuss how animals behave in courtship and mating, family life and group aggregation, conflict and cooperation among conspecifics, and interspecific interaction, while explaining the function, causal mechanisms, and evolutionary origins of these behaviours. Tinbergen divides ethological research into two stages: the first is observation in the natural state, describing the content of behaviour and the context in which it occurs; the second probes motivation, development, and survival value through experiment, and attempts to reconstruct evolutionary history. The book also introduces concepts such as the "releaser" to analyse the signals and responses individuals trigger in one another, discusses the differentiation, integration, and regulation of social organization, and examines the similarities and differences among species' social systems through comparison. Clearly structured and meticulous in observation, it is both a classic text of ethology and a reference for understanding our own social behaviour and group organization.

Editor's review

一本经得起时间检验的动物行为学奠基之作。作者廷伯根与洛伦茨、冯·弗利共同分享了首次授予行为学研究者的诺贝尔生理学或医学奖，他擅长把复杂的野外情形拆解成可被观察、可被检验的小问题：银鸥雏鸟的啄食点、三刺鱼的攻击与求偶、鳟眼蝶的追逐，都被他转化为清晰的因果分析。读这本书，你获得的不只是一串动物趣闻，而是一套提问方式和观察方法：怎样描述行为，怎样设计实验，怎样区分行为的功能、机制与演化来源。 华夏出版社2021年精装中译本由上海大学刘小涛博士翻译，据英文1964年版译出，附有参考文献与译后记，译文术语严谨，也兼顾了普通读者的可读性。全书篇幅不大，九章层层递进，从交配、家庭、争斗讲到社会组织的增长与进化，适合当作动物行为学的入门坐标，也适合进阶读者反复回看，校准自己对“社会行为”这一概念的理解。

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Reading tips

  1. 先读第一章和最后一章，先建立全书的问题框架，再回到中间各章细读具体案例。
  2. 读书时随手记下“功能—机制—发育—演化”四类问题，试着对书中每个现象分别归类。
  3. 配合洛伦茨、冯·弗利或道金斯的作品对照阅读，体会行为学不同研究传统的差异。
  4. 不必强求记住每个物种的细节，重点体会作者如何从观察走向实验、从描述走向解释。

About the publisher

Huaxia Publishing House China · Founded in 1986

Huaxia Publishing House is a comprehensive publisher known for its output in social sciences, traditional culture and rehabilitation medicine, and it is particularly noted for its editions of classical literature and historical texts. The eight titles in our catalogue reflect two directions: classical novels and historical romances such as Lin Lan Xiang, Romance of the Western and Eastern Jin, The Complete Legend of Feilong, Romance of Northern History and Green Peony, many by Ming and Qing authors including Suiyuan Xiashi, Yang Erzeng, Wu Xuan and Du Gang; and contemporary literary writing, represented by Li Peifu's self-selected novellas and short stories The Boundless Morning. Its common categories cover classic works, classical literature, historical texts, historical fiction and literary appreciation, showing a publishing profile that combines the editing of traditional texts with the promotion of contemporary literature. Owing to limited public information, no further details are provided here.

Contents

  1. Foreword
  2. Text Figures
  3. Plates
  4. Preface
  5. Chapter 1 Introduction: The Problem Stated (Herring Gull, Three-spined Stickleback, Grayling Butterfly, Types of Social Cooperation)
  6. Chapter 2 Mating Behaviour (The Function of Mating Behaviour, Some Cases of Timing, Persuasion and Appeasement, Orientation, Reproductive Isolation, Conclusion)
  7. Chapter 3 Family and Group Life (Introduction, Family Life, Group Behaviour)
  8. Chapter 4 Fighting (Reproductive Fighting, The Function of Reproductive Fighting, Causes of Fighting, The Pecking Order)
  9. Chapter 5 The Analysis of Social Cooperation (Outline, The Behaviour of the Actor, The Behaviour of the Reactor, The Releaser Reviewed, Conclusion)
  10. Chapter 6 Relations Between Species (Releasing Reactions, Avoidance of Release)
  11. Chapter 7 The Growth of Social Organization (Differentiation and Integration, The Establishment of Social Bonds, Further Developments, Conclusion, Regulation)
  12. Chapter 8 The Evolution of Social Organization (The Comparative Method, Comparison of Social Systems, Comparison of Releasers, Conclusion)
  13. Chapter 9 Some Suggestions for the Study of Animal Sociology
  14. References
  15. Translator's Afterword

FAQ

这本书的作者是谁，有什么学术地位？ 作者是荷兰裔英国动物学家、鸟类学家尼可拉斯·廷伯根（1907—1988）。1973年，他因在动物个体与群体行为的构成和刺激研究方面的贡献，与卡尔·冯·弗利、康拉德·洛伦茨共同获得诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。
这个中译本是从哪个版本翻译的？ 据科普中国等公开书评介绍，华夏出版社2021年版由上海大学刘小涛博士翻译，据英文1964年版译出；原书以荷兰文于1946年初版，英文版1953年问世。
这本书主要讲“社会行为”的哪些方面？ 全书围绕动物的交配行为、家庭与群体生活、同类争斗、社会合作、种间关系展开，并进一步讨论社会组织的增长、调节与进化，核心是分析行为的功能、因果机制和演化来源。
没有生物学基础能读懂吗？ 可以。全书篇幅不长，作者用银鸥、三刺鱼等具体物种的行为举例，语言平实；个别术语和实验描述稍显专业，普通读者可跳过细节，抓住每章结论即可。
这本书和一般动物科普书有什么不同？ 它不是以趣闻或图鉴为主，而是示范一种研究路径：先在自然状态下描述行为，再通过实验检验行为的动机、发育与生存价值，属于动物行为学的经典学术文本。

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About the author

Nikolaas Tinbergen Author

Nikolaas Tinbergen is a well-known scholar of animal behaviour, and his representative work, The Social Behaviour of Animals, is commonly classified in Chinese readers' catalogues under science and technology and the natural sciences. Because public information is limited, his full biography, nationality, and dates of birth and death cannot be confirmed here, so this note focuses only on verifiable information about his work. Judging from the title and the usual classification, the book examines how animals interact in social settings, covering group structure, signalling between individuals, and patterns of behaviour; it thus belongs to the intersection of ethology and comparative psychology. Tinbergen's writing generally starts from observation, combining field records with experimental analysis in a careful, unpretentious style that seeks to explain the function and evolutionary background of behaviour through reproducible evidence. This approach has inspired later behavioural ecology and neuroethology and has made The Social Behaviour of Animals a frequently mentioned reference in related courses and popular-science reading.