The status of the animal as psychological subject is explored through a critical historical analysis of the relationship between human animals, non-human animals and technology in the psychological laboratory from 1896 to 1940. A general history of animal psychology is presented in order to examine the knowledge claims and interests of American disciplinary psychology from the turn of the century until the beginning of World War Two. The increased mechanization of the laboratory environment and the trend towards the nearly exclusive use of one domesticated animal species, the albino rat, is traced in detail through a content analysis of all major psychological journals published in the United States between 1896 and 1940. This content analysis serves as a basis for my claim that by mechanizing both the animal subject and the process of experimentation, psychologists unwittingly wrote themselves out of the script of experimental animal psychology.
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