AN ANIMAL-CENTERED, CAUSAL-SYSTEM APPROACH TO THE UNDERSTANDING AND CONTROL OF BEHAVIOR

In a world of increasing demands and diminishing resources, the unders tanding and control of behavior is likely to be a key to successful re lations between human and nonhuman animals. The traditional laboratory study of animal behavior, centered on systematic manipulation of sing le variables, has provided powerful causal laws connecting manipulatio ns to effects, but these laws have proved surprisingly difficult to tr ansport to field and applied settings. The recent increase in anthropo morphic interpretations of behavior has the advantage of emphasizing t he contribution of the animal rather than the experimenter, but by its elf anthropomorphism holds little possibility of improved understandin g and prediction. I argue for development of a causal-system approach that captures an animal's point-of-view without unnecessary assumption s of a human-like mental life. By realizing this approach within the s tructural framework and regulatory processes of behavior systems, it s hould be possible to develop a model of animal behavior that integrate s and expands data from laboratory, field, and applied settings, and m ay contribute to successful relations between human and nonhuman anima ls. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.