THORNDIKE,E.L. AND THE ORIGINS OF ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY - ON THE NATURE OF THE ANIMAL IN PSYCHOLOGY

E, L. Thorndike's deliberate use of the experimental method and reject ion of anthropomorphism and anecdotalism place him squarely at the beg inning of a century of animal research in psychology. The authors exam ine Thorndike's critique of the extant research of his day and the dev elopment of his methods, including the important way in which animals and children were often taken as interchangeable sources of data for t he new functional psychology, Thorndike's research clearly altered the relationship between psychologist and animal, as is demonstrated by h is own studies and those that were published in the decade that follow ed. The authors review this body of work in the early 20th century for (a) the manner in which it exchanges anthropomorphism for mechanicoth eriomorphism and (b) its constitution of the animal as a conflation be tween organism and technology, The authors conclude by noting the impo rtance of debates concerning anthropomorphism in psychology for the ce ntury-long question of consciousness.