22 Facts About Nikolaas Tinbergen

Nikolaas Tinbergen is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior.

Nikolaas Tinbergen studied biology at Leiden University and was a prisoner of war during World War II in Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel.

Nikolaas Tinbergen explains how behaviour can be considered a combination of these spontaneous behaviour patterns and as set series of reactions to particular stimuli.

Nikolaas Tinbergen added complexity to this model, a model now known as Nikolaas Tinbergen's hierarchical model.

Nikolaas Tinbergen suggested that motivational impulses build up in nervous centres in the brain which are held in check by blocks.

Nikolaas Tinbergen showed that honey bees show curiosity for yellow and blue paper models of flowers, and suggested that these were visual stimuli causing the buildup of energy in one specific centre.

Nikolaas Tinbergen envisioned this as concluding the reaction set for honey bee feeding behaviour.

Nikolaas Tinbergen stated that their revival of the "watching and wondering" approach to studying behaviour could indeed contribute to the relief of human suffering.

Nikolaas Tinbergen caused some intrigue by dedicating a large part of his acceptance speech to FM Alexander, originator of the Alexander technique, a method which investigates postural reflexes and responses in human beings.

In 1950 Nikolaas Tinbergen became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Nikolaas Tinbergen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1962.

Nikolaas Tinbergen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961, the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1974, and the American Philosophical Society in 1975.

Nikolaas Tinbergen was awarded the Godman-Salvin Medal in 1969 by the British Ornithologists' Union, and in 1973 received the Swammerdam Medal and Wilhelm Bolsche Medal.

Nikolaas Tinbergen described four questions he believed should be asked of any animal behaviour, which were:.

Nikolaas Tinbergen found that territorial male three-spined stickleback would attack a wooden fish model more vigorously than a real male if its underside was redder.

Nikolaas Tinbergen constructed cardboard dummy butterflies with more defined markings that male butterflies would try to mate with in preference to real females.

Nikolaas Tinbergen applied his observational methods to the problems of autistic children.

Nikolaas Tinbergen recommended a "holding therapy" in which parents hold their autistic children for long periods of time while attempting to establish eye contact, even when a child resists the embrace.

Nikolaas Tinbergen was a member of the advisory committee to the Anti-Concorde Project and was an atheist.

Nikolaas Tinbergen married Elisabeth Rutten and they had five children.

Nikolaas Tinbergen was treated by his friend, whose ideas he had greatly influenced, John Bowlby.

Nikolaas Tinbergen died on 21 December 1988, after suffering a stroke at his home in Oxford, England.