Comparative Psychology since World War II 75supervised 35 PhDs, including such names as Abraham
Maslow, Donald R. Meyer, John M. Warren, Gerald E.
McClearn, Allen M. Schrier, Leonard A. Rosenblum, and
Stephen J. Suomi (Suomi & Leroy, 1982). During his career,
Beach supervised 41 predoctoral and postdoctoral students
(McGill, Dewsbury, & Sachs, 1978). Schneirla left a legacy
of influential students including Daniel S. Lehrman, Jay S.
Rosenblatt, and Ethel Tobach. Similar programs were devel-
oped elsewhere. Then, of course, these students found jobs,
built laboratories, and began educating yet another genera-
tion. Comparative psychology still had a problem in that
many who published animal research early in their careers
left to become prominent in other fields of psychology. Ex-
amples include Maslow, William Bevan, Jerome S. Bruner,
William K. Estes, Eugene Galanter, Eleanor J. Gibson,
Jerome Kagan, Quinn McNemar, M. Brewster Smith, and
Dael L. Wolfle. Comparative psychology was always a small
part of the big picture of American psychology. Nevertheless,
there was a solid cadre of comparative psychologists carrying
on the tradition.
Funding
Critical to the growth of comparative psychology was
the availability of funding. Prior to World War II, most fund-
ing for research came either from local sources or from
private foundations, with prospective recipients making
the rounds seeking research support. An exception was the
Rockefeller Foundation–funded Committee for Research in
Problems of Sex (Aberle & Corner, 1953). The explosive
growth of support for scientific research not only increased
the funding available but changed the pattern to one that in-
volved the submission of research proposals that were subse-
quently subject to peer review.
I have analyzed funding patterns for comparative psychol-
ogy for 1948–1963 at both the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF)
(Dewsbury, in press-b). According to my analysis, the NIMH
awarded a total of 117 grants in comparative psychology for
approximately $5.6 million during this period. The mean
grant was for 2.5 years with an annual budget of under
$20,000. The NSF program in psychobiology, not begun until
1952, awarded 72 grants in comparative psychology for a
total of over $1.4 million with a mean size much smaller than
those from the NIMH. The top-10 grant getters at the NIMH
were Harlow, Lehrman, John Paul Scott, Richter, Eckhard
Hess, Nissen, Beach, William Mason, M. E. Bitterman, and
Schneirla. Half of those—Beach, Harlow, Lehrman, Nissen,
and Richter—were elected to the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States. Nissen, Schneirla, and Richter
also were among the top-10 grant getters in comparative psy-
chology at the NSF. The leading research topic in the NIMH
grants was behavioral development. The NSF grants were
less concentrated, with a greater emphasis on sensation and
perception and general studies of behavior. This input of
funding helped to create a great surge of research in compar-
ative psychology, still small relative to the rest of psychology
but substantial relative to that which had come before.Research CentersAlthough most comparative psychologists were scattered
about the country in various universities, this funding en-
abled the development of several centers for research. The
Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Orange Park,
Florida, were pivotal. Yerkes remained as director from its
founding in 1930 until 1941 (Yerkes, 1943). He was suc-
ceeded in turn by Lashley and Nissen. Arthur J. Riopelle and
Geoffroy Bourne were the final two directors in Orange Park.
When the federal government established a program of
Regional Primate Centers, Emory University, which then
owned the Laboratories, moved them to their home campus
in Atlanta. In addition to its directors, many other scientists
such as Roger Sperry, Kenneth Spence, Austin Riesen, Paul
Schiller, Hebb, Mason, and many others worked in Orange
Park. From 1930 to 1965, the total budget was over $2.5 mil-
lion. During the early years, the funding came almost exclu-
sively from university and private foundation sources. This
was reversed, and during the last five years for which data are
available, over two-thirds of the funds came from the federal
government. With greatly increased funding, the facility has
thrived in Atlanta, albeit with a more biomedical emphasis.
Harlow established and directed a primate laboratory at
the University of Wisconsin. With the founding of a Regional
Primate Research Center in Madison in 1964, Harlow as-
sumed its directorship as well. Behavior programs also
thrived in regional primate research centers in New England,
Louisiana, Oregon, Washington state, and Davis, California.
The behavior program at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar
Harbor, Maine, was founded by John Paul Scott, who was ed-
ucated as a geneticist but functioned in departments of psy-
chology during much of his career. Joined by John L. Fuller,
Walter C. Stanley, John A. King, and others, the program re-
ceived substantial grant support and became a center for re-
search on inbred strains of house mice and five breeds of
dogs. It was also the site of two important conferences that
helped to coalesce the field of animal behavior studies.
Another focal point developed in the New York City
area. In 1937, Beach moved to the American Museum of
Natural History, where he founded the Department of Animal