What Is Comparative Psychology?

Comparative psychology is a branch of psychology. Can also belong to experimental psychology. It was developed in the United States under the guidance of Darwin's evolutionary ideas. The basic problem of research: the process of the occurrence and development of animal intelligence and its psychological phenomena, including humans. The specific task is to compare the behavior and intelligence of different representative species and their relationships, as well as their specific characteristics. Like the habitology developed in Europe, they are all studying animal behavior, but the focus and research methods are different. ^[1]

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Comparative psychology is a branch of psychology. Study the basic laws of animal behavior evolution and various behavior characteristics of animals at different levels of evolution. Like animal psychology, it takes animal behavior as the research object, and one of the research purposes is to obtain some understanding of human psychological development from the research of animal psychology. Therefore, some scholars regard the two as the same branch of psychology, and they are collectively called animal behavior research together with habitology (animal behavior). Comparative psychology uses controlled laboratory methods and field observations to study animal behavior patterns and their functions, animal behavior mechanisms, animal learning behaviors, and animal behavior origins, and classify, describe, and describe animal behaviors. analysis. ^[2]

1. The origin of theory: The history of comparative psychology can be traced back to the ancient Greek period.

2. Budding period : the middle of the 19th century.

3. Early stage of development : early 19th century.

4. Mid-term development : Late 19th century.

5. Rapid development period : the middle of the 20th century.

After the middle of the 1970s, with the controversy brought about by the development of genetics to comparative psychology, comparative psychology in the West, especially in the United States, was strongly impacted by social biology and other aspects. In addition, various reasons of its own have led to comparative psychology. Its status as a professional discipline is seriously threatened.

The development of comparative psychology is closely related to animal habitology. Zoology focuses on studying the regularity of various animal behaviors in the natural environment in the wild, the typical behavioral models and adaptive capabilities of animals, the evolution and inheritance of animal behaviors, animal community organization and community behavior, animal feeding and reproduction And defensive behaviors. Because animal behavior reflects different levels of animal psychological development, the studies of animal habitology and comparative psychology cross each other, verify and promote each other, and contribute to understanding the evolution and development of psychology and behavior. Since the 1960s, the two disciplines have merged. Comparative psychology has also incorporated the adaptive significance of behaviors, the evolutionary process of behaviors, the genetics of behaviors and the mechanisms of individual occurrence and behaviors into its own research fields. In terms of methodology, comparative psychology pays attention to laboratory research, to investigate the adaptation and learning of animals to the environment under experimental conditions, and to study the psychological mechanisms of various psychological activities through different effects produced by surgery and drug tests. Due to the inherent shortcomings of the artificial experimental environment (which is very different from the natural environment, the problems designed for animals have nothing to do with the problems that animals need to solve in daily life, and they may not truly reveal the psychological capabilities of animals), comparative psychology also draws on and adopts animal habits. Learn to systematically observe animal behavior in natural or semi-natural environments. Comparative psychology research has focused on the study of animal perceptual learning ability and community behavior, and has achieved outstanding results. For example, the development of the phenomenon of imprints and critical periods, the formation of a series of learning theories such as trial and error, epiphany, classical conditioned reflexes, operating conditioned reflexes, the formulation of the equipotential theory of cerebral cortical function and the principle of mass action, positioning and learning of brain functions Memory physiological mechanisms, and training animals to replace humans. ^[3]

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of comparative psychology, researchers in comparative psychology are usually not limited to the field of animal psychology, but are active in multiple research fields.

Aristotle

Edward Lee Thorndike

Edward C. Tolman