Animal psychology
Animal psychology is the scientific study of animals’ behavior and mental processes, including learning, perception, emotion, and cognition.
Comparative psychology: The study of psychological processes across species, especially through comparative experiments. It frames animal psychology as a cross-species investigation of mind and behavior.
Classical conditioning: Learning in which a stimulus becomes predictive of another through repeated association. It explains how animals learn predictive relationships between environmental events.
Charles Darwin: An English naturalist whose theory of evolution by natural selection transformed biology. Darwin argued that mental and emotional capacities, like bodies, could evolve across species.
Animal welfare: The physical and psychological state of an animal in relation to the conditions in which it lives. Evidence about stress, preferences, and affect helps assess animals’ lived conditions.
Animal consciousness: The capacity of animals to have subjective experiences, including sensations and feelings. It raises the difficult question of how behavior can support claims about subjective experience.
Ethology: The biological study of animal behavior, including its mechanisms, development, function, and evolution. It emphasizes behavior in natural settings and its evolutionary significance.
Operant conditioning: Learning in which consequences alter the future probability of a behavior. It accounts for behavior shaped by rewards, punishments, and other consequences.
George Romanes: A British evolutionary biologist who compared animal intelligence using anecdotes and observations. His work helped establish comparative psychology while provoking disputes about anthropomorphism.
Animal training: The systematic use of learning principles to change or maintain animal behavior. Training applies findings about reinforcement, association, and behavior change.
Theory of mind in animals: The proposed capacity of animals to represent the knowledge, beliefs, or intentions of others. Experiments test whether social behavior reflects mental-state attribution or simpler cues.