Nikolaas Tinbergen. Portrait of Nikolaas Tinbergen (1907-88), Dutch zoologist and ethologist. With Konrad Lorenz, Tinbergen founded the field of ethology, the study of animal behaviour in relation to its environment. His work combined field observations of animals in their natural habitat with laboratory experiments intended to provoke reactions under controlled conditions. Much of his work centred on animals' social behaviour. One of his most important conclusions was that animal behaviour can be used to understand human behaviour. He published The Study of Instinct in 1951 and was jointly awarded the Nobel prize for physiology in 1973.