Life history
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(Did you mean Biological life cycle?)
Life history, a method for conducting qualitative interviews.
- Medical interview --When it's used for medical purposes, one wishes to identify health patterns. In order to see such patterns, one might have to conduct quite a thorough interview. This form of interview can be utilized to find various kinds of sources for effects on the body and general health.
- Anthropological interview --One tries to capture a persons life. The purpose of the interview is to be able to describe what is it like to be this particular person (i.e. the one being interviewed).
In both cases, the one doing the interview should be careful not to ask `yes or no'-questions, but to try to get the subject to tell `the story of his/her life', in his or her own words. It's not a bad idea to start the interview from the subjects early childhood, and work your way chronologically up to today.
One is as interested in the subjects environment, as in the subject itself. One could say that a `life history -interview' is an effort to capture a holistic picture.
Background
The method was first used when interviewing native americans. The subjects were native American leaders. One interviewed them, and the subjects were asked to describe their lives as such, what it was like to be that particular person. The purpose of the interview was to capture a living picture of a disappearing (as such) people/way of life.
Later the method was used to interview criminals and prostitutes in Chicago. The subjects were asked to tell about their lives. The interviewers also looked at social- and police-records, and the society in general in which the subject lived. The result was a report in which one could read about (i) Chicago at that particular time; (ii) how the subject viewed his own life (i.e. `how it was like to be this particular person') and (iii) how society looked upon the subject what the consequence of this was for that particular person -- i.e. `social work'/-help, incarceration etc.
Life history theory
Life history theory is an analytic method of sociobiology for understanding reproductive behaviors in animals and people