Evolutionary Psychology

Describe the strength and limitations of comparative psychology.

Comparative psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the study of animal behavior. This type of method often utilizes the comparative method to study animal behavior. The comparative method involves comparing the similarities and differences among species to gain and understanding of evolutionary relationships. The comparative method can also be used to compare modern species of animals to ancient species.

Comparative Psychology are useful findings, improves in learning and language theories, and a interesting insight into the animal world. However, the ethics of animal testing is one obstacle in this method, have to question about the generalized results from animals to humans, and the subjective researchers working with dolphins and primates that have been criticized for becoming overly attached to the research and exaggerating findings are disadvantages that comparative psychology provides.


Explain the reductionist approach used in behavioral genetics.

Behavioral genetics is the field of study that examines the role of genetics in animal (also human) behavior. This often associates with the "nature versus nurture" debate, behavioral genetics is highly interdisciplinary, involving contributions from biology, genetics, epigenetics, ethology, psychology, and statistics. This studies the inheritance of behavioral traits.

The primary goal of behavioral genetics is to establish casual relationships between genes and behavior. One common approach is the reductionist approach. In this method, scientists first observe a psychological or behavioral function. Next, using known functions of brain systems and neurotransmitter systems, scientists correlate behavior to these brain areas. Once scientists are able to map behavior to biological systems, they can turn to genetics to understand the development of these biological systems.