In 1975, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson published his foundational work, Sociobiology – The New Synthesis. In it, he coined the term ‘sociobiology’ as a new sub-discipline of behavioural biology based on the groundwork laid years earlier by scientists like William Hamilton and Robert Trivers.

Wilson saw the goal of sociobiology as deciphering the biological basis of all social behaviour of animals and humans alike. By systematically applying the theory of evolution to the social activities of insects, fish, birds, and mammals, sociobiology casts the ways in which animals form relationships, help one another, kill each other, and take on sex roles in a completely different light.