Frank A. Beach Comparative Psychology Award

The Frank A. Beach Comparative Psychology Award is given each year to recognize the best paper published in Journal of Comparative Psychology^®. Each author receives a plaque at the business meeting of Div. 6, held at the APA Annual Convention.

This award is selected by the editor and consulting editors of Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Frank Beach (1911-88) was arguably the premier psychobiologist of his generation, influencing the development of psychobiology in diverse ways. He was especially known for his studies of sexual behavior. Along with William C. Young, he established the field of behavioral endocrinology. A University of Chicago PhD, he worked for a while in Karl Lashley's laboratory and later founded the Department of Animal Behavior at the American Museum of Natural History. He had appointments at Yale University and at University of California-Berkeley, from which he retired. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he was awarded the Distinguished Scientific award and the Howard Crosby Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists. He was also a charter member of the psychobiology panel of the National Science Foundation. Two of his still-influential and widely read papers are The Snark Was a Boojum (1950) and The Descent of Instinct (1955). 

2020

Tecwyn, E. C., & Buchsbaum, D. (2019). What factors really influence domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) search for an item dropped down a diagonal tube? The tubes task revisited. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 133(1), 4-19.

2019

Czaczkes, T. J., Brandstetter, B., di Stefano, I., & Heinze, J. (2018). Greater effort increases perceived value in an invertebrate. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 132, 200-209.

2018

Tan, Amanda W.Y. (2017). "From play to proficiency: The ontogeny of stone-tool use in coastal-foraging, long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) from a comparative, perception-action perspective." Journal of Comparative Psychology, 131, 89-114.

2017

Cordoni, G.; Nicotra, V. & Palagi, E. (2016). "Unveiling the 'secret' of play in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris): Asymmetry and signals." Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130, 278-287.

2015

Anke F. Bullinger

2014

Camila Ferrara

2013

Judith Burkart

2012

W. Schleidt, M. D. Shalter, H. Moura-Neto

2011

Walter T. Herbranson and Julia Schroeder

2010

Masahiro Shibasaki

2008-09

none

2007

J. J. Neiworth et al.

2006

I. M. Pepperberg and J. D. Gordon

2005

Emma Collin-Baker, et. Al.

2004

E. Kubinyi, J. Topal, A. Miklosi, V. Csanyi

2003

none

2002

M. A. Bee, H. C. Gerhard
J. S. Watson et al.

2001

L. Parr et al
K. Okanoya et al

2000

N. S. Clayton and A. Dickinson
K. Zuberbuhler, D. Dheney and R. Seyfarth (honorable mention)
L. F. Jacobs and M. W. Shiflet (honorable mention)

1999

L. M. Herman, A. A. Pack, M. Hoffman-Kuhnt

1998

K. Hollis, et al.
A. L. Weller (honorable mention)

1997

M. J. Sleigh, R. F. Columbus, R. Lickliter
J. Mateo (honorable mention)

1987-96

none

1986

T. Freeberg, A. King, M. West