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, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of 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 a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

. Aldis taught economics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

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 The International Society for Human Ethology (abbreviated ISHE) is an international learned society dedicated to the study of human ethology. It was founded in 1972, with Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Daniel G. Freedman, and William Charlesworth all pl ...

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 Ethologists Yale University faculty Scientists from Chicago 20th-century American zoologists