The origin of the phrase comparative psychology: an historical overview

Abstract

Comparative psychology, in its narrow meaning, refers to the study of the similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, it includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. This broader meaning originated by extension from the former narrow meaning, which historically was the original meaning of the phrase (interspecies psychological and behavioral comparisons) and which still today is the focus of the field. Currently, comparative psychology is a subject of study in hundreds of universities all over the world. Nevertheless, a question that is often asked but seldom answered is: when did the phrase comparative psychology first appear and where did it come from? In the present work, we tracked down the origins of the phrase comparative psychology. In order to do so, at first we described the origin of the word psychology, coined in the decade 1510–1520 in the Republic of Venice by Dalmatian Renaissance humanist Marko Marulić Splićanin (1450–1524). Then, to explain where, within the phrase comparative psychology, the term comparative came from, we outlined the origin of the use of the word comparative in reference to interspecies comparisons. Finally, we reported the origin of the combination of the words comparative and psychology to form the phrase comparative psychology, the first usage of which was in 1778 by German scholar Michael Hissmann (1752–1784) from the University of Göttingen. Origins of the phrase in Latin, German, French and English languages are described.

Editorial.

“…Second, “comparative” studies can be conducted even with only one species being assessed in a new report, provided those data are presented in a way that situates them phylogenetically (i.e., with other species), or as a function of sex, or in life-span perspective (i.e., by comparing performance of the same species at different age or developmental points, just as we can study life-span changes across species), and even through comparison of those data to an interesting hypothesis or theory (e.g., how does the performance of species X compare to what a theory would predict of such a species?). In their recent history of the term comparative psychology in the literature, d’Isa and Abramson (2023) noted that this more inclusive meaning of comparative psychology emerged from the more restricted sense that only direct comparisons of species were truly comparative research, and that is a good thing (also see Vonk, 2021). My role is to aid authors in taking one or more of these comparative perspectives, but there is otherwise no prohibition or restriction on articles that involve data from only one species.…”

Catch me if you can: free-living mice show a highly flexible dodging behaviour suggestive of intentional tactical deception

“…Moreover, testing rodents in their natural habitats also preserves their network of relationships with other species, which in this way can be studied together. Indeed, often the comparison of the similarities and differences in the behaviour of two or more species, an approach known as comparative psychology [99], can elucidate the underlying psychological processes better than studying each species singularly. For instance, in our study tactical deception in Apodemus mice was observed in total in 22 cases, of which 21 performed by black-striped mice and 1 by a yellow-necked mouse.…”

The Role of Comparative Psychology in the Training of Veterinarians

“…The purpose of this article is to recommend that veterinary students take a course at either the undergraduate or graduate level in comparative psychology. Comparative psychology (CP) is the oldest of the organized social sciences, with the term first used in 1778 [1]. As the oldest of the social sciences, CP has the most experience of any behavioral science working on the fundamental issue of animal behavior including ethics, animalhuman interaction, and experimental design [2,3].…”