This article describes a comparative psychology course that attempts to demonstrate the power of the comparative method for a complete understanding of psychological phenomena typically taught from a human-oriented perspective. A description of methodological goals and the traditional roles of comparative psychology precede the course description. These include research strategies for relating group differences to specific processes and for inferring the evolutionary and developmental histories of behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AronsonL. R.TobachE.RosenblattJ. S.LehrmanD. S. (Eds.). (1972). Selected writings of T. C. Schneirla.San Francisco: Freeman.
2.
AtzJ. W. (1970). The application of the idea of homology to behavior. In AronsonL. R.TobachE.LehrmanD. S.RosenblattJ. S. (Eds.), Development and evolution of behavior (pp. 53–74). San Francisco: Freeman.
3.
BeachF. A. (1984). Guest editorial: Let's bury the snark. Comparative Psychology Newsletter, 4, 1–3.
4.
BittermanM. E. (1975). The comparative analysis of learning. Science, 188, 699–709.
5.
CapitanioJ. P.LegerD. W. (1979). Evolutionary scales lack utility: A reply to Yarczower and Hazlett. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 876–879.
6.
ClarksonE. N. K. (1966). Schizochroal eyes and vision in some Phacopid Tribolites. Paleontology, 9, 464–487.
7.
ColeM.MeansB. (1981). Comparative studies of how people think.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8.
DemarestJ. (1980). The current status of comparative psychology in the American Psychological Association. American Psychologist, 35, 980–990.
DemarestJ. (1987). On changing the framework of psychology: Comparative psychology is what general psychology should be. Teaching of Psychology, 14, 147–151.
11.
de WaalF. (1982). Chimpanzee politics: Power and sex among the apes.New York: Harper & Row.
12.
DewsburyD. A. (1984). Comparative psychology in the twentieth century.Stroudsburg, PA: Hutchinson Ross.
13.
DomjanM. (1985). Commentary: On the relation between process-oriented studies of learning and comparative psychology. Comparative Psychology Newsletter, 5, 1–5.
14.
EldredgeN.CracraftJ. (1980). Phylogenetic patterns and the evolutionary process: Method and theory in comparative biology.New York: Columbia University Press.
15.
EpsteinR.LanzaR. P.SkinnerB. F. (1981). “Self-awareness” in the pigeon. Science, 212, 695–696.
16.
FoxM. A. (1986). The case for animal experimentation: An evolutionary and ethical perspective.Berkeley: University of California Press.
17.
GallupG. G.Jr. (1983). Towards a comparative psychology of mind. In MellgrenR. L. (Ed.), Animal cognition and behavior (pp. 473–510). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
18.
GallupG. G.Jr.SuarezS. D. (1980). On the use of animals in psychological research. Psychological Record, 30, 211–218.
19.
GallupG. G.Jr.SuarezS. D. (1985). Alternatives to the use of animals in psychological research. American Psychologist, 40, 1104–1111.
20.
GelhardB.WohlmanS.ThompsonR. K. R. (1982, October). Self-awareness in pigeons: A second look. Paper presented at the northeastern regional meeting of the Animal Behavior Society, Boston, MA.
21.
GossetteR. L. (1970). Note on the calibration of inter-species successive discrimination reversal (SDR) performance differences: Qualitative vs. quantitative scaling. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 31, 95–104.
22.
GottliebG. (1984). Evolutionary trends and evolutionary origins: Relevance to theory in comparative psychology. Psychological Review, 91, 448–456.
23.
GreenbergG. (1987). Comparative psychology: An integrated levels perspective. Teaching of Psychology, 14, 145–147.
24.
GreenbergG.TobachE. (Eds.). (1984). Behavioral evolution and integrative levels.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
25.
HailmanJ. P. (1976). Uses of the comparative study of behavior. In MastertonR. B.HodosW.JerisonH. (Eds.), Evolution, brain, and behavior: Persistent problems (pp. 13–22). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
26.
MaceW. M. (1983). Proceedings of a meeting of the International Society of Ecological Psychology. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 9, 151–157.
27.
MastertonR. B.BittermanM. E.CampbellC. B. G.HottonN. (Eds.). (1976). Evolution of brain and behavior in vertebrates.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
28.
MastertonR. B.HodosW.JerisonH. (Eds.). (1976). Evolution, brain, and behavior: Persistent problems.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
29.
McAndrewF. T. (1984). Comparative psychology, ethology, and external validity: Does it always matter if the snark is a boojum: Comparative Psychology Newsletter, 4, 1–4.
30.
PlotkinH. C. (1983). The functions of learning and cross-species comparisons. In DaveyG. C. L. (Ed.), Animal models of human behavior (pp. 117–134). New York: Wiley.
31.
RatnerS. C. (1972). Comparative psychology: Some distinctions from animal behavior. The Psychological Record, 22, 433–440.
32.
RatnerS. C. (1980). The comparative method. In DennyM. R. (Ed.), Comparative psychology: An evolutionary analysis of animal behavior (pp. 153–167). New York: Wiley.
33.
ReganT. (1983). The case for animal rights.Berkeley: University of California Press.
34.
ReifW. E.ThomasR. D. K.FischerM. S. (1985). Constructional morphology: The analysis of constraints in evolution dedicated to A. Seilacher in honour of his 60th birthday. Acta Biotheoretica, 34, 233–248.
35.
RumbaughD. M. (1985). Comparative psychology: Patterns in adaptation. In RogersA. M.ScheirerC. J. (Eds.), The G. Stanley Hall lecture series (Vol. 5, pp. 7–53). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
36.
SnowdonC. T. (1983). Ethology, comparative psychology, and animal behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 34, 63–94.
37.
StaddonJ. E. R. (1983). Adaptive behavior and learning.New York: Cambridge University Press.
38.
SuomiS. J.ImmelmannK. (1983). On the process and product of cross-species generalization. In RajeckiD. W. (Ed.), Comparing behavior: Studying man studying animals (pp. 203–224). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
39.
ThompsonR. K. R. (1983). Guest editorial: Thompson's tautology: Comparative psychology is about psychology. Comparative Psychology Newsletter, 3, 1–3.
40.
YarczowerM.HazlettL. (1977). Evolutionary scales and anagenesis. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 1088–1097.
