The aims and accomplishments of comparative psychology

Abstract

Greenberg, Partridge, Weiss, and Pisula propose a new perspective of comparative psychology, based in large part on an anagenetic and dynamic systems approach to the development and evolution of behavior. Their view appreciates the probabilistic nature of behavioral development and promotes the value of an integrative levels concept for generating testable hypothesis regarding the complex relationship between biology, context, and developmental history underlying behavioral and psychological functioning. However, the authors fail to represent the full scope of contemporary comparative psychology by overlooking several core aims of the field, including (a) the use of animal models to shed light on human behavior and development and (b) understanding the role of behavior as a leading edge in the evolutionary process.