Feb 1985
NOTE: ONLY with recent technological advances have the major hypotheses of this perspective become research-able. So, in a real sense, this is a new perspective (new for research). THIS IS THE MOST CENTRAL PAPER towards a first understanding of my empirical (ethological) research perspective (after this, see the Collected Essays for explication, elaboration, and fuller justification). Written by a "methodological behaviorist" (of a sort), this treatise critiques neo-Hullian, Freudian, Eriksonian, and Piagetian theories and presents an ethological perspective on behavior and personality development. The critique is extended to cover social learning, cognitive-developmental, neo-Freudian, and Skinnerian theories, as well as the ideas of Bandura. Assumptions for conducting research and allowing for interpretation and integration of findings are specified and discussed. These assumptions include the following ideas: (1) that fundamentally important behaviors can be seen in conflict situations; (2) that all behavior must be viewed with the past history of the subject in mind; (3) that important manipulative skills can be noted directly and that covert behavior can be inferred by an observer who has been engaged in an extensive longitudinal study; (4) that only unobtrusive observations used to interpret the behavior of single subjects will be unbiased; (5) that all behavior is directly or indirectly interactive with the environment, is homeostatic, or works toward homeostasis and that all species-typical behavioral developments are adaptive; (6) that all behaviors must be construed "within the subject's perceptual-thought system"; and (7) that interpretation involves comparing present behaviors with similar past behaviors and interpreting them in terms of various possible types of behaviors and in terms of specified mechanisms of change. Any theory that fulfills these assumptions is considered to be an ethological theory of personality development. A bibliography of suggested readings is appended. --> --> The much more recent "Essentially all Recent Essays on Ethogram Theory" ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329428629_Essentially_all_Recent_Essays_on_Ethogram_Theory ) (515 pages)(all written in the last 2 yr) is a NECESSARY FOLLOW-UP TO THE "Human Ethogram" paper, contextualizing many things, specifying many (especially noteworthy: specifying hypotheses clearly, so the work can be done and these hypotheses verified (or not)); these essays also provide much more specific critiques and this does much to support or justify AND FLUSH OUT the new perspective and approach (and the many ramifications). This does much to accomplish what was needed to be accomplished in the "missing Chapters" of "A Human Ethgram ..." -- thus doing at least much to complete the original work, begun decades ago. SEE RECENT PROJECT UPDATES (of the associated PROJECT, with a link under this paper's title). (See these updates to get to the later collection of additional essays.) [ Also see: https://www.researchgate.net/post/It_seems_a_major_sort_of_addition_needs_to_be_made_to_cognitive-developmental_ontogeny_theory_Ethogram_Theory ]