Discovering behavior

The premise of this article is that animals behaving spontaneously sometimes show intriguing and unexpected behaviors. The theme of this article is that the animals producing these behaviors, when approached as psychological entities in their own right, offer unique information about how they perceive the world and carry out their lives. In addition, the findings often contribute to the modification, refinement, and generality of basic psychological concepts and principles. Many examples of such contributions are presented in recent reviews of psychological research with animals. In this article, the author illustrates a comparative approach to animal behavior with selected findings on emotional attachments in nonhuman primates.