From Crisis to Crowd Control. Commentary: A Crisis in Comparative Psychology: Where Have All the Undergraduates Gone?

摘要

Comparative psychology at Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) is only 2 years old, but its successes address Abramson's (2015) question, illustrating how undergraduate students can enthusiastically engage in comparative psychology. Undergraduates are the next generation of comparative psychologists, and failure to engage them could result in failure of the field. Currently in her third year at IWU, EF's research and teaching in comparative cognition match Abramson's criteria for comparative psychology broadly, embodying the theoretical perspectives Abramson argues separate comparative psychology from comparative cognition (e.g., behaviorist, physiological, evolutionary; but see McMillan and Sturdy, 2015). Thus, we believe our comments generalize well to comparative psychology. EF and the undergraduate students contributing to this response represent various activities–two are currently in a comparative psychology course (KL, NJ), four are also conducting research (SA, JK, JK, MW).