What is comparative psychology?

Comparative psychology is a field of study that seeks to understand the behavior of animals. Scientists approach this area in many different ways, but largely focus on comparing different species to see how they react under similar experimental conditions. This so -called "comparative method" is the primary reason for the field name. For comparative psychologists, it is also very common to explore ways that humans and animals can vary behaviorally.

One of the main things that experts in a comparative psychological study are animal intelligence. They often come up with different ways to question animals in areas such as problems and memory. In many cases, they perform several different types through the same news information tests to find out how they measure each other. These studies are also very interested in how animals compare to people in their ways of thinking and general intelligence.

Over time this attempt to study animal catch has shown jako a difficult task. Many animals seem to be unusually intelligent in certain areas and at the same time in other failures. Some experts have decided that the common definition of animal intelligence is too narrow because different species have brains that have developed for completely different purposes. The animal could potentially be a genius in the areas it needs to survive, and according to most human definitions of intelligence, the mark is completely missing.

Another main area of ​​study for those who practice comparative psychology is how animals are adapting to different environments. For example, experts can study similarities and the differences between the behavior between many different types of Arctic or the rainforest and look for connections. This is often part of a wider study of evolution in general and how it affects psychology in humans and animals.

Despite their interest in the difference between many different types, comparative psychologistsfor most experiments they often adhered to a relatively small number of animals. For example, there was a long period when most studies of animal behavior were conducted on rodents. This was often more a matter of comfort than anything else. Laboratory rats are easily accessible and offered relatively cheap maintenance. Occasional tendency to focus on a narrow group of species has been criticized because it limits the use of a comparative method that is considered important for scientific validation.

Many comparative psychological studies focused on different types of apes because of their similarity to human beings. Experts often seek parallels between Ape's behavior and human behavior in an effort to make judgments about behavior evolution. This generally allowed experts to identify apes with the closest similarities to people and led to a number of different theories on the psychological development of people in areas such as social behavior and use of instruments.