Scholar's Award: A Critical Analysis of Natural and Behavioral Scientists' Use of Animal Studies to Better Understand Human Emotional and Cognitive Processes

学者奖：对自然和行为科学家利用动物研究更好地理解人类情感和认知过程的批判性分析

• 批准号: 1057586
• 负责人: Erika Milam
• 金额: $ 11.2万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-06-15 至 2012-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1057586&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Scholar; Award; Critical; Analysis; Natural

The proposed research investigates how and why behavioral and natural scientists came to believe that they could learn as much about human nature by studying primates and other animals as they could by studying human beings. Between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) statements on race in the early 1950s and the highly visible fights over human nature as defined by sociobiology starting in the mid-1970s, behavioral and natural scientists began to look at animals for insight into humans' emotional and cognitive processes. Although physicians, biologists, and other natural scientists have long used animal studies to better understand human biology and disease, scientists' turn to animal studies as a way to investigate human emotions, learning processes, and group formation emerged post World War II in the United States. Anthropologists were an important part of this shift, as they moved away from studying non-Western countries to studying primates and other animals for insight into what it means to be human. This turn did not stay contained in the academy; it was also taken up in popular media and was incorporated into new curriculum for elementary school students. To explore how and why anthropologists, psychologists, and other behavioral scientists turned to animal studies, the Principle Investigator will conduct oral history interviews, engage in archival research, and analyze the professional and popular scientific literature on human nature. Using multiple research methods, this research explores the political, cultural, and educational contexts in which these conversations about human nature took place.The intellectual merits of this project rest in its elucidation of the cultural stakes as scientists struggled to make sense of whether the human and animal were opposites and different, or if in fact animals were similar enough that study of them could provide insight into human decision making, group interactions, and emotional bonding. The project's broader impacts lie in its potential to reconceive the history of the natural and behavioral sciences by bringing to light the cross-disciplinary exchanges and disciplinary struggles that characterized the human sciences as the decision to study animals for insight into human nature took hold. Most importantly, this project will contribute substantially to an understanding of how scientists and non-scientists in the United States sought to answer, "What is human about human beings?"

这项拟议中的研究调查了行为科学家和自然科学家如何以及为什么相信他们可以通过研究灵长类动物和其他动物来了解人性，就像他们可以通过研究人类一样。在1950年代初联合国教育、科学及文化组织（UNESCO）关于种族的声明和1970年代中期开始的社会生物学定义的关于人性的高度可见的斗争之间，行为和自然科学家开始观察动物，以洞察人类的情感和认知过程。虽然医生、生物学家和其他自然科学家长期以来一直使用动物研究来更好地了解人类生物学和疾病，但科学家们转向动物研究，作为研究人类情感、学习过程和群体形成的一种方式，出现在第二次世界大战后的美国。人类学家是这一转变的重要组成部分，因为他们从研究非西方国家转向研究灵长类动物和其他动物，以深入了解人类的意义。这一转变并没有停留在学院;它也被大众媒体所接受，并被纳入小学生的新课程。为了探索人类学家，心理学家和其他行为科学家如何以及为什么转向动物研究，首席研究员将进行口述历史访谈，从事档案研究，并分析有关人性的专业和流行科学文献。本研究采用多种研究方法，探讨了这些关于人性的对话发生的政治、文化和教育背景。该项目的学术价值在于，它阐明了科学家们努力理解人类和动物是否是对立和不同的文化利害关系，或者动物是否真的足够相似，以至于对它们的研究可以为人类决策、群体互动和情感联系提供洞察力。该项目更广泛的影响在于它有可能通过揭示跨学科的交流和学科斗争来重新认识自然科学和行为科学的历史，这些交流和学科斗争是人类科学的特征，因为研究动物以洞察人性的决定已经站稳脚跟。最重要的是，这个项目将大大有助于了解美国的科学家和非科学家如何寻求答案，“人类的人性是什么？"