Advocating Animal Research
and the Social Learning Theory
One of the major criticisms of psychoanalytic thought during its peak was that it did not easily lend itself to being tested in a laboratory setting. Consequently, while fascinated with the psychoanalytical ideas of Freud and alike, many psychologists began to focus on more observable forms of the human psyche. More and more, psychologists pulled away from psychoanalytical thought and ventured into studying strictly behavior as an observable and measurable device of human study, and although much research used, and continues to use, people as subjects, many psychologists began to realize the benefits of animal experimentation. Research with animal subjects began to be viewed, as it is today, as playing an essential role in answering many fundamental questions. Learning more about behavior and how knowledge of behavior was seen as useful to advance the welfare of both people and animals.
One of the key factors for “the modern era in the study of animal learning was the suggestion that animal research can provide information that may advance the understanding of human behavior†( Domjan, 1998). This