1. ETHOLOGICAL APPROACHES
Miller
Ethology is focus on behavior in ecological niche
Tinbergen: 4 causes
-immediate (proximal cause)
-ontogenetic (change over time)
-functional (immediate consequence of behavior)
-phylogenetic (behavioral evolution, survival function)
Ethologists’ focus on last two, along with observation of species in habitat, influenced developmental psychology

2. Specific developmental areas studied:
 Basic principles:
-Species-specific innate behavior promotes
reproductive success or survival
-Learning potentials/constraints depend on species
-Experiential effects depend on timing
(critical/sensitive periods)
Specific developmental areas studied:
-Attachment, bonding.
-Peer relations--dominance hierarchies
-Problem solving in natural context

3. Lickliter & Honeycutt
Reject genetic determinism of evolutionary psychology
-Developmental system is self-organizing
-No need for a genetic “master plan”
Phenotypic variation is product of complex sequence of interactions among genes, cells, & environments in course of development
 -Evolutionary psychologists talk of interactions, but these are “weak” interactions; that is, genes predispose/constrain behavioral possibilities activated by differing environments.
-Modularity theory represents this view

4. “Phylogeny fallacy”
-Genetic program evolved in “environment of evolutionary adaptedness” (huntering-gathering).
-Phylogeny is a distal cause of ontogeny separate from current proximal causes
“Developmental processes are fundamental to both individual development & to evolutionary changes” (p. 829).
-Can’t separate genetic, environmental transmission or distal, proximal causes.  
-Example: Non-genetic intergenerational transmission of masculine characteristics in female rats related to in-utero testosterone levels

5. Phenotypic variation is created by individual ontogeny, not natural selection of random genetic mutations.
-New phenotype may result from lasting change in individual-environment interaction.
-Example: Change in food source from soft to hard leads to inter- generationally consistent hardening of rodent jaw bones. This precedes any genetic selection process (change in gene frequency).
-Effects of modified early experience can also be transmitted inter-generationally.
Example: Bodyweight, fearfulness differences between groups of rats occur as a function of whether or not their mothers or grandmothers were handled as infants.
Phenotypic outcomes of individual ontogeny may eventually be selected as adaptive in the environmental context
-resulting in change in gene frequency in the population, as less adaptive phenotypes are filtered out of the gene pool.

6. New biological fields, eco-devo & evo-devo, integrate developmental, evolutionary, ecological, genetic studies
to explain how developmental mechanisms guide and constrain evolution.
Evolutionary psychology should be re-directed toward understanding the complex of factors (internal and external) that elicit, maintain and/or eliminate similarities or differences in behavioral characteristics across generations.
Need to eliminate false dichotomies of phylogeny vs. ontogeny, nature vs. nurture.