COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY: HISTORY, WHAT IT STUDIES AND SPECIES - ARTE - 2025

The comparative psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the study of animal behavior. Modern research on the behavior of animals began with the work of Charles Darwin and George Romanes, later developing into a multidisciplinary area.

Comparative psychology often uses the comparative method to study animal behavior. This method involves comparing the similarities and differences between species to understand evolutionary relationships. The comparative method is also used to compare modern species of animals with ancient species.

In some respects, human beings are similar to other species. For example, we share the characteristic of territoriality, courtship rituals, and a hierarchical order.

We defend our offspring, we are aggressive when we detect a threat, we participate in games… It is obvious that many parallels can be found between the human species and, especially, other mammals with complex forms of social organization.

Studying other species avoids, many times, some of the ethical problems involved in research with human beings.

For example, it would not be very appropriate to investigate the effects of maternal deprivation of affection with human children or to carry out isolation experiments with people in the same way as with other species.

Species studied

Comparative psychology has studied many species throughout its history, but there are several that have been dominant. The closest example is Ivan Pavlov's dogs in his classical conditioning experiments and Thorndike's cats in his operant conditioning studies.

Rats

American psychologists quickly changed their object of study: they began to investigate with rats, cheaper. Rats were the most widely used animal in 20th century and current studies.

Skinner

Skinner introduced the use of pigeons, which are still important in some areas of research. There has also always been an interest in studying various species of primates. Several inter-adoption studies have shown similarities between human children and baby chimpanzees.

Chimpanzees

Nonhuman primates have also been used to show language development compared to human development.

For example, in 1967 Gardner successfully taught a chimpanzee named Washoe 350 words in American Sign Language. Washoe passed some of these learnings on to her adopted son, Loulis.

Criticisms of Washoe's acquisition of sign language focused on the question of how well the chimpanzee understood the words she communicated through signs.

He may have learned the signs solely as a means of obtaining a reward, such as food or a toy. Other studies concluded that apes do not understand these types of communications, but they can form an intended meaning of what is being communicated. It is proven that all great apes have the ability to produce symbols.

Interest in primate studies has increased with the increased amount of research on animal cognition. Some examples include various species of corvids, parrots (especially the African gray parrot), and dolphins.

Alex the parrot

Alex is a well-known case study, developed by Pepperberg, who discovered that this African gray parrot not only mimicked vocalizations, but also understood the concepts of "equal" and "different" between objects.

Dogs

The study of nonhuman mammals also includes research with dogs, as we have seen. Due to their domestic nature and their personality characteristics, dogs have always lived close to humans, which is why many parallels in communication and cognitive behaviors have been recognized and investigated.

Joly-Mascheroni and her colleagues demonstrated in 2008 that dogs may be able to detect human yawns and suggested a certain level of empathy in these animals, a point that is often debated.

Pilley and Reid found that a border collie named Chaser was able to successfully identify and collect 1,022 different toys or objects.

Why study the behavior of animals?

The Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology, the sixth division of the American Psychological Association (APA), suggests that looking for similarities and differences between human and animal behaviors can be helpful in understanding developmental and evolutionary processes.

Knowledge extrapolation

Another of the purposes of studying animal behavior is the expectation that some discoveries can be extrapolated to human populations. Historically, animal studies have been used to suggest whether some drugs are safe and appropriate for humans or whether certain medical procedures may work in people.

Consider, for example, the work of learning and behavior psychologists. Ivan Pavlov's conditioning studies showed that animals can be trained to salivate by hearing the sound of a bell. This work was later applied to training situations with human beings.

In addition, BF Skinner's research with rats and pigeons provided valuable insight into operant conditioning processes that could later be applied to humans.

Study of evolutionary processes

Comparative psychology has been used to study developmental and evolutionary processes.

Konrad Lorenz

In Konrad Lorenz's famous genetic imprinting experiments, geese and ducks were found to have a critical period of development in which they must form an attachment bond with a parent figure, a phenomenon known as imprinting.

Lorenz discovered that birds could make such an imprint with him and that if animals did not have the opportunity to develop the imprint very early in their lives, they could not do so later.

Harry harlow

During the 1950s, psychologist Harry Harlow conducted a series of somewhat disturbing experiments related to maternal deprivation. In these experiments, some young Rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers.

In some variations of the experiments, the monkeys were raised by wire "mothers." One of the "mothers" was covered in cloth and the other provided food for the young. Harlow found that the monkeys sought comfort from the cloth-covered "mother" more often than they sought food from the wire "mother."

In all the cases studied in his experiments, Harlow found that this deprivation of maternal care at such a young age caused serious and irreversible emotional damage.

These baby monkeys were later unable to integrate socially and form attachment bonds with other monkeys, suffering severe emotional disturbances. Harlow's research has been used to suggest that human children also have a critical period in their development to form attachment bonds.

When the opportunity to form these bonds has not been had during early childhood, there can be considerable long-term emotional damage.

History of comparative psychology

Some of the earliest written works in this field were research conducted in the 9th century by al-Jahiz, an Afro-Arab scholar. His works have to do with the social organization of ants and with communication between animals.

Later, in the 11th century, the Arab writer Ibn al-Haytham, considered one of the most important scientists in history, wrote the Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals, one of the first writings that they were about the effects of music on animals.

In the treatise, the writer demonstrates how a camel's gait can be sped up or slowed down with the use of music, and provides other examples of how music influences animal behavior in his experiments with horses, birds, and reptiles.

During the 19th century, most scholars in the Western world continued to believe that music was a phenomenon that distinguished humans as a species, but other experiments similar to those of Ibn al-Haytham verified the effect of music on animals.

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was very important in the development of comparative psychology; There are quite a few scholars who think that a distinction should be made between the "pre-Darwinian" stage of psychology and the "post-Darwinian" stage, due to the great influence of their contributions.

Darwin's theory gave rise to several hypotheses, among them, the one that affirmed that the factors that distinguish us humans as a species (such as the mental, moral and spiritual faculties) could be justified by evolutionary principles.

Anecdotal movement

In response to the opposition that arose to Darwinian theories, the "anecdotal movement" appeared, led by George Romanes, whose objective was to demonstrate that animals possessed a "rudimentary human mind."

Romanes is famous for his two great shortcomings when working on his research: the importance he attached to his anecdotal observations and an ingrained anthropomorphism.

Influential research at the end of the 19th century

Near the end of the 19th century, various scientists conducted highly influential research. Douglas Alexander Spalding, known as the first experimental biologist, focused his work on birds, studying instincts, imprinting, and visual and auditory development.

Jacques Loeb emphasized the importance of studying behavior objectively, Sir John Lubbock has the merit of using mazes and puzzles to study learning and it is believed that Conwy Lloyd Morgan was the first ethologist in the sense in which we define today the word.

Research difficulties

A persistent question facing psychologists in this field has to do with the relative intelligence of different species of animals. In the early history of comparative psychology, several studies were carried out that evaluated the performance of animals of different species in learning tasks.

However, these studies were not very successful; In retrospect, it could be argued that they were not sophisticated enough in their analysis of the demands of the different tasks or the species chosen to be compared.

One issue to keep in mind is that the definition of "intelligence" in comparative psychology is deeply affected by anthropomorphism, which causes various theoretical and practical problems.

In the scientific literature, intelligence is defined as the closest thing to human performance in tasks and ignores certain behaviors that humans are not capable of carrying out, such as echolocation.

Specifically, comparative psychology researchers find problems associated with individual differences, differences in motivation, motor skills, and sensory functions.

Limitations

Although in some respects we are similar to other species, in many others we are not. For example, human beings have much more sophisticated and complex intelligence than other species, and a much larger part of our behavior is the result of a conscious decision, not an impulse or instinct.

Likewise, we also differ from other species in that we are the only animal that has developed a language. While other animals communicate using signs, we use symbols.

Furthermore, our language allows us to communicate about events that occurred in the past and that will occur in the future, as well as about abstract ideas.

Many people argue that animal experiments are completely reprehensible from an ethical point of view.

By experimenting with humans, they can at least consent to participate. The animals used for some rather disturbing experiments had no choice. Furthermore, conclusive results have not been found in many of these experiments, so the means is not justified.

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