76 Comparative Psychology
Behavior in 1942. Schneirla and Lester R. Aronson joined
him in the department; Schneirla succeeded Beach as curator
when Beach left for Yale University in 1946. Students such as
Tobach, Rosenblatt, and Howard Topoff graduated and re-
mained in the New York area. After graduating, one promi-
nent student in the program, Daniel S. Lehrman, moved to the
Newark, New Jersey, campus of Rutgers University, where
he founded the Institute of Animal Behavior in 1959. This,
too, became an important center for education and research.
The focus of this whole group was on an epigenetic approach
to development, and this New York epigeneticist group pro-
duced numerous students and programs in the field.
Journals
Beginning in 1947, the Journal of Comparative Psychology
adopted a name more descriptive of its coverage: the Journal
of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. That title re-
mained until 1983, when it was split into three journals even
more descriptive of the three prominent parts of animal psy-
chology at the time: Behavioral Neuroscience,theJournal of
Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes,and
the reformulated Journal of Comparative Psychology.
The scope of the growth of animal psychology can be seen
in an analysis of the articles appearing in theJournal of Com-
parative and Physiological Psychologyin 1963 as compared
with 1949 (Dewsbury, in press-b). The number of articles
published increased by a factor of nearly 3.5 from 60 to 208.
There were few footnote credits to federal funding sources in
1949; by 1963, just 14 years later, it had risen eightfold.
Comparative psychologists published in other American
journals as well. Some comparative psychologists found
American journals uncongenial and published in the grow-
ing stable of European journals, including Animal Behav-
iour, Behaviour,and the Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie(now
Ethology).
Academic Societies
No one academic society has emerged as the primary home
for comparative psychologists. The APA remains the leading
organization of psychologists, but its Division of Behavioral
Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology (Division 6) is
but a small part of the APA. Some psychologists have given
allegiance to other psychological organizations such as the
Psychonomic Society or the American Psychological Society.
The Animal Behavior Society in North American, the Associ-
ation for the Study of Animal Behavior in Great Britain, and
the International Ethological Congress have become the lead-
ing organizations in the field of animal behavior studies.
Many comparative psychologists participate in these. The
International Society for Comparative psychology, founded
in 1983, has great possibilities that have not yet been realized.Soul-SearchingComparative psychologists have often assessed the state of
their discipline and often criticized the directions taken.
Three major articles stand out. In his famous “The Snark Was
a Boojum,” mentioned earlier, Beach (1950) argued that
comparative psychology had begun as the study of a wide
range of topics in a wide range of species but had degenerated
into the study of learning in rats. He stressed the need for a
resurrection of the breadth that had earlier characterized the
field. Although Beach’s analysis was flawed (Dewsbury,
1998), it was quite influential.
In the second major critique, Hodos and Campbell (1969)
criticized comparative psychologists’ perspective on evolu-
tionary history. They argued that comparative psychologists
still utilized the concept of a Scala naturae,derived from
Aristotle, that implies that all species can be placed along a
single great chain of being. They pointed to the branching na-
ture of evolutionary history and to the need for a more realis-
tic selection of species in comparative analyses.
In “Reflections on the Fall of Comparative Psychology: Is
There a Lesson for Us All?” Lockard (1971) detailed 10
myths that he thought plagued the field. He incorporated the
problems discussed by both Beach (1950) and Hodos and
Campbell (1969) and added that comparative psychologists
had devoted too little effort to the study of individual differ-
ences, species differences, genetics and evolution, and field
research. Lockard advocated a more realistic biological ap-
proach for comparative psychology.
All three were effective critiques that provoked much dis-
cussion and appear to have helped to stimulate change. How-
ever, all three appear to have been overstatements of the
problems. This may have been caused, in part, by the lack of
a clear differentiation of true comparative psychology from
other important, but different, parts of animal psychology. A
survey published in 1980 revealed that comparative psychol-
ogists remained divided with regard to both the definition and
status of the field (Demarest, 1980).THREE IMPORTANT POSTWAR INFLUENCESThere were three major influences on comparative psychol-
ogy after World War II. The first was from the important
field developed by European zoologists that became know
as ethology. The second stemmed from the elaboration of