Owen Aldis (1926–2001) was a behavioural psychologist. He was born into a notable Chicago family. His father was one of the trustees of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

and ran a real estate management firm, his mother a writer of children's poetry and his maternal grandfather on the editor of the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

. Aldis taught economics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

and worked in investment in New York. But in the 1950s he moved west to San Francisco's Bay Area and began to develop his academic interest in behavioral psychology.http://media.anthro.univie.ac.at/ISHE/index.php/awards/83-owen-aldis-1926-2001 International Society for Human Ethology:Owen Aldis (1926–2001) (Accessed May 2011) He is most noted for his well received 1971 publication ''Play Fighting'' which is an ethological classic examining play in humans and animals. The study was based on extensive observational studies: 1,500 hours of field observation on humans, 700 hours of observations on animals at four California zoos and more than twenty hours of filmed playing humans and various animals.Power, T.G. (2000) Play and Exploration in Children and Animals, Lawrence Erlbaum He was a member of the International Society for Human Ethology.

Selected publications

Aldis,Owen (1975) Play Fighting, Academic Press, New York, Aldis,Owen (1961) Of Pigeons and Men. Harvard Business Review, 39(4), 59–63.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldis, Owen 1926 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American psychologists Behaviourist psychologists American ethologists Yale University faculty Scientists from Chicago 20th-century American zoologists