CHAPTER 4
Comparative Psychology
DONALD A. DEWSBURY
67EARLY HISTORY 68
FORERUNNERS OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 68
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY BEFORE
WORLD WAR I 69
BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS 71
Leaders of the Reconstruction 71
New Blood for Comparative Psychology 71
The State of Comparative Psychology between
the Wars 73
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY SINCE WORLD WAR II 74
Personnel 74
Funding 75
Research Centers 75
Journals 76
Academic Societies 76
Soul-Searching 76
THREE IMPORTANT POSTWAR INFLUENCES 76
European Ethology 77
Sociobiology, Behavioral Ecology, and
Evolutionary Psychology 77
Comparative Cognition 78
CONCLUSION: PERSISTENT ISSUES 79
REFERENCES 81Comparative psychology has been a part of American psy-
chology since its emergence as a separate discipline. As early
as 1875, William James wrote to Harvard University presi-
dent Charles W. Eliot “that a real science of man is now being
built up out of the theory of evolution and the facts of ar-
chaeology, the nervous system and the senses” (James,
1875/1935, p. 11). G. Stanley Hall (1901), founder of the
American Psychological Association (APA), regarded the
study of the evolution of the human soul as “the newest and
perhaps richest field for psychology” (pp. 731–732). Future
Yale University president James Rowland Angell (1905)
wrote that “if the evolutionary doctrine is correct, there
seems to be no reason why we should not discover the fore-
runners of our human minds in a study of the consciousness
of animals” (p. 458). Although the field has changed greatly
over more than a century, some of the problems addressed
during this earlier era remain relevant today (Boakes, 1984;
Dewsbury, 1984).
There is no universally accepted definition of comparative
psychology, although there is general agreement concerning
which research is included, excluded, or falls near its bound-
aries. Comparative psychology may be regarded as that part
of the field of animal psychology, the psychology of nonhu-
man animals, not included within either physiological psy-
chology or process-oriented learning studies. Such research
generally is conducted on either species or behavioral pat-
terns not generally utilized in those fields. Comparative psy-
chology fits within the broad field of animal behavior studies,
which includes research by scientists from many disciplines.
Much research within comparative psychology includes no
overt comparisons among species. The goals are to develop
a complete understanding of general principles governing
mind and behavior including its origins (evolutionary, ge-
netic, and developmental), control (internal and external),
and consequences (for the individual, the surrounding envi-
ronment, and for subsequent evolution). Comparison is but
one method of reaching such understanding. Comparative
psychologists take seriously the effects of behavior on differ-
ential reproduction and, ultimately, evolutionary change. In
an article on the contributions of comparative psychology to
child study, a favorite approach of Hall’s, Linus Kline (1904)
used the term zoological psychologyas a label for the field;
this may be a more accurate descriptive title than compara-
tive psychology because it highlights the connection of
comparative psychology with zoology—especially so-called
whole-animal biology.
In this chapter, I trace the history of comparative psychol-
ogy from early cave paintings to the present. This entails first
a consideration of the British forerunners of comparative psy-
chology and the emergence of the field prior to World War I.