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Homepage Cheryl A. Logan, History of Psychology, 1999, in press.
[Abstract.] The mid-twentieth century dominance of albino rats in non-human research in experimental psychology often presumed that the animal embodied fundamental psychological processes that could generalize to a wide range of vertebrates. I describe the conceptual basis for the original choice of white rats by the two individuals most responsible for establishing rats as a prominent animal model in the life sciences at the turn of the century: Henry Donaldson and Adolf Meyer. I stress the comparative rationale that justified their choice and argue that they sought generality through attention to diversity and species differences. Their approach contrasts sharply with the later view of the rat as a generic animal model that could represent similarities shared by all vertebrates. I suggest that the change resulted from an emphasis on standardization produced by the growing industrialization of the life sciences in America.