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Comparative psychology, a new perspective for the 21st century: Up the spiral staircase
Author(s) -
Greenberg Gary,
Partridge Ty,
Weiss Emily,
Pisula Wojciech
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.10153
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , comparative psychology , humanity , psychology , epistemology , evolutionary psychology , field (mathematics) , foundation (evidence) , politics , theoretical psychology , sociology , social science , environmental ethics , social psychology , cognitive psychology , political science , philosophy , law , cognition , mathematics , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , computer science , pure mathematics
This article responds to the continuing obituaries for Comparative Psychology. We understand the field to be a general psychology, a way of understanding the origins of all behavior of all species. We outline a methodological and conceptual foundation for comparative psychology to enter the new millennium—with an anagenetic and dynamic systems perspective. We see an important role to be played by comparative psychologists in managing resources, increasing our activity in social and political issues, and transcending our traditional role as the study of animal behavior to one that makes significant contributions to psychology and humanity by studying relationships between animals and changing environments, and by providing a historical perspective on human evolution. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 44: 1–15, 2004.