An ecological approach to behavioral development: Insights from comparative psychology

In this article, I review recent work from comparative psychology, highligh ting several conceptual and methodological insights drawn from comparative research and exploring their value to an ecological approach to behavioral development. In particular, I consider examples of a major focus of compara tive psychology, the search for developmental mechanisms and processes unde rlying the expression of species-typical behavior. This focus has provided several insights regarding behavioral development that have supported an ec ological approach and provided a richness and depth of perspective on behav ior complementary to that found in ecological psychology. Specifically, I r eview the related notions of probabilism, equifinality, nonlinearity, and d istributed control and discuss their applicability to and support of ecolog ical theory.