Psychology Facts

▼ Comparative Pyschology ▼

》Comparative psychology, the study of similarities and differences in behavioral organization among living beings, from bacteria to plants to humans. The discipline pays particular attention to the psychological nature of human beings in comparison with other animals.

》Comparative Psychologists Often Study:

Evolution: How evolutionary processes have
contributed to certain patterns of behavior

Heredity: How genetics contributes to behavior

Adaptation and learning: How the environment contributes to behavior

Mating: How different species reproduce

Parenting: How parental behaviors contribute to offspring behavior

》In some respects humans are similar to other species. For example we exhibit territoriality, courtship rituals, a "pecking order". We defend our young, are aggressive when threatened, engage in play and so on.

》Modern research on animal behavior began with the work of Charles Darwin and Georges Romanes, and the field has grown into a multidisciplinary subject.

》Studying other species often avoids some of the complex ethical problems involved in studying humans. For example one could not look at the effects of maternal deprivation by removing infants from their mothers or conduct isolation experiment on humans in the way that has been done on other species.

》Although in some respects we are like other species in others we are not. For example humans have a much more sophisticated intelligence than other species and much more of our behavior is the outcome of a conscious decision than the product of an instinct or drive.
Also humans are unlike all other species in that we are the only animal to have developed language.

》In Konrad Lorenz's well-known imprinting experiments, he discovered that geese and ducks have a critical period of development in which they must attach to a parental figure, a process known as imprinting. Lorenz even found that he could get the birds to imprint on himself. If the animals missed this vital opportunity, they would not develop attachment later in life.

》During the 1950s, psychologist Harry Harlow conducted a series of disturbing experiments on maternal deprivation. Infant rhesus monkeys were separated from their mothers. In some variations of the experiments, the young monkeys would be reared by wire "mothers." One mother would be covered in cloth while the other provided nourishment. Harlow found that the monkeys would primarily seek the comfort of the cloth mother versus the nourishment of the wire mother.

The results of Harlow's experiments indicated that this early maternal deprivation led to serious and irreversible emotional damage. The deprived monkeys became unable to integrate socially, unable to form attachments, and were severely emotionally disturbed. Harlow's work has been used to suggest that human children also have a critical window in which to form attachments.