''The Mentality of Apes'' by

Wolfgang Köhler Wolfgang Köhler (21 January 1887 – 11 June 1967) was a German psychologist and phenomenologist who, like Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka, contributed to the creation of Gestalt psychology. During the Nazi regime in Germany, he protes ...

is a landmark work in

ethology Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and object ...

, cognitive psychology and the study of the anthropoid apes. In it the author, a leading gestalt psychologist, showed that

chimpanzees The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative the ...

could solve problems by

insight Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect within a particular context. The term insight can have several related meanings: *a piece of information *the act or result of understanding the inner nature of things or of seeing intu ...

. The importance of this work was to show there is no ''absolute'' dividing line between the human species and their nearest living relative, at least in this respect. It was also a marker in the struggle between

behaviourism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual' ...

and cognitive psychology which continued for the following half century. Köhler's observations and experiments were done on chimpanzees in captivity. Not until

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best know ...

's work later in the century was the behaviour of chimpanzees in the wild studied in depth.

Publication

The book in English was preceded by important publications in German, which are listed in Henle, Mary 1971.''The selected papers of Wolfgang'' Köhler. New York: Liveright, bibliography 438/9. The book publications are as follows: #1917. ''Intelligenzprüfungen an Anthropoiden''. Berlin: Royal Prussian Society of Sciences. #1921. ''Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen''. Berlin: Springer (called a 'second edition', but the first was a two-part whole issue journal publication 1918/19). #1925. ''The Mentality of Apes''. Translated from the second revised edition by Ella Winter. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. U.S. edition 1925 by Harcourt, Brace & World. Also included is a translation of Köhler's long 1921 paper as ''Some contributions to the psychology of chimpanzees''. Appendix, p281342.

External links

The Mentality of Apes
' at the Internet Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Mentality of Apes Biology books Psychology books 1925 non-fiction books