A Critique of Konrad Lorenz's Theory of Instinctive Behavior

By D. Lehrman. 1953

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

Citations in the corpus

Early Experience & Multisensory Perceptual Narrowing (2014, background): “One of these meanings is the one discussed here where developmental experience—broadly construed to include all obvious and non-obvious stimulative influences (Lehrman, 1953, 1970; Schneirla, 1966) helps construct developmental outcomes.”
The Biological Implausibility of the Nature-Nurture Dichotomy & What It Means for the Study of Infancy (2011, background): ““The use of “explanatory” categories such as “innate” and “genetically fixed” obscures the necessity of investigating developmental processes in order to gain insight into the actual mechanisms of behavior and their interrelations” (Lehrman, 1953) p. 345.”
Patterns of Behavior: Konrad Lorenz, Niko Tinbergen, and the Founding of Ethology (2005, background): “Schneirla would convince his student Daniel Lehrman to write the nowclassic critique of Lorenzian ethology (Lehrman 1953).”
The Theory of the Organism-Environment System as a Basis of Experimental Work in Psychology (2009, background): “In biology, the transcendentalism of Lehrman (1953) stressed the tight connection of the organism and the environment, which he held as the basic unit of study.”
Discussion: Three Ways to Misunderstand Developmental Systems Theory (2005, background): “A central part of Lehrman’s critique of the ethological concept of instinct was that it conflated the evolutionary question of whether a trait is an adaptation with the developmental question of whether that trait is insensitive to environmental variation in ontogeny ( Lehrman 1953, 1970 ).”
Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans. (2005, background): “Such traditions were solidified by the long-standing battle for dominance between Anglo-American animallearning psychology and European animal-behavior, ethological traditions (i.e., the Lehrman– Lorenz debates of the 1950s; see Lehrman, 1953).”
The developing brain and neural plasticity: Implications for normality, psychopathology, and resilience. (2015, background): “Systems theory approaches have historical roots in the investigations of a number of eminent developmental psychobiologists whose work occurred in the 1930s through the 1960s (see, e.g., Kuo, 1967; Lehrman, 1953; Schneirla, 1957).”
The vernacular concept of innateness (2009, background): “…of Sydney NSW 2006, Australia Email: P.E.Griffiths@exeter.ac.uk on these grounds has a long and distinguished history in behavioral biology (Lehrman, 1953; Hinde, 1968; Tinbergen, 1963), although some think that the harm done by these ambiguities has been exaggerated (Marler, 2004, p.…”
Behavioural processes affecting development: Tinbergen's fourth question comes of age (2003, unknown): “In summary, diagrams of reaction norms can be quite useful for illustrating some of the complexities of development that have been obvious to animal behaviourists for many years (e.g. see Lehrman 1953), but are sometimes difficult to grasp when presented in a descriptive format.”
Development of tool use in New Caledonian crows: inherited action patterns and social influences (2006, background): “The term has many problems, however, including that it discourages investigation of development without actually explaining it (Lehrman 1953; but see Lorenz 1965; Berridge 1994; Marler 2004), and that it has been variously defined as implying a number of different characteristics that have not been…”