The Ethicality Of Animal Research

Psychology’s focus on human behavior and use of findings from animal research can be reconciled by considering the historical and philosophical antecedents of the field. Central to the continued interest in and acceptance of animal research as relevant to psychology is Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. He argued that humans (along with their mental faculties, Francis Galton would add) are just one of the species in a whole line and history of organisms that evolved from each other. That is, considering that the sophistication of human thought is a function of millions of years of functional adaptation to the environment, we are able to trace and infer the continuity of our own history of evolution through the mental functions and behavior …show more content…
Psychologists had to infer from patterns of brain damage and accounts of the patient’s behavior while alive what functions such parts afforded. As such, animals found use in experiments where researchers studied how the precise lesioning of brain regions manifested in deficiencies in an animal’s behavior. Such studies of brain functioning have only been recently supplanted by more advance brain imaging technologies to observe the brain at work in living human subjects without using any invasive methods. Therefore, assuming evolutionary continuity, animal research findings are somehow generalized to the case of humans, insofar as comparisons are made between analogous brain regions and …show more content…
Considering the field’s antecedents, evolutionary psychology definitely benefits from animal research. To some extent, Wolfgang Kohler’s (though a Gestalt psychologist) discovery of insight learning in chimpanzees demonstrate this area’s goal: to trace how human behavior has evolved over time by comparing the abilities of organisms with which we share an evolutionary ancestor. Thus, animal and human research must be conducted simultaneously to foster such necessary comparisons.
Furthermore, biopsychology traces many of its breakthroughs in understanding the correlates between physiology and psychological functioning afforded by animal research. This includes the manipulation of the genetic makeup of animals to observe their influence on anatomy and physiology—and eventually, what psychological functions become deficient or improved—throughout the organism’s lifespan. Our understanding of the mechanisms of sensation and perception, for instance, has been fostered by animal experimentation (including lesioning and genetic manipulation) in this